Locked Away and Left Behind: the Neurodevelopmental and Cognitive Impacts of Institutionalization in Childhood
Every year in the United States, 700,000 youth are arrested and sent to juvenile detention facilities. Beyond the sheer number of children and adolescents who are exhibiting delinquent behavior, this statistic also represents a large population of young people whose neurological and behavioral development is being disrupted at a very critical time, especially when the majority of these adolescents are already entering the system having experienced adverse events. The juvenile justice system was built on a model borrowed from the adult criminal justice system, and thus it is not designed to nurture a still-developing brain. This is especially concerning because adolescence is not just a transition period from childhood to adulthood; it is a sensitive developmental period in which young people are still forming their identities and strengthening their abilities to regulate emotions, make decisions and maintain healthy relationships. Although juvenile detention is often justified as a way to discourage delinquent and antisocial behaviors, reports show that 70-80% of confined youth may be rearrested within 2-3 years of their release. Rearrest rates are influenced by policing and other community-specific factors, not behavior alone, but these inflated rates still demonstrate the inefficiency of correctional facilities to produce rehabilitated individuals. By separating adolescents from education, enrichment and the opportunities to learn through independence, confinement may reinforce developmental vulnerabilities associated with continued justice-system involvement.
Why are adolescents so sensitive to these conditions?
Adolescence is characterized by a window of neuroplasticity, a period where the brain is especially adaptable to learned experiences and the environment. During adolescence the brain refines itself through synaptic pruning, where the brain removes less used neural connections and myelination, which further strengthens communications between brain regions that are most valuable. The networks connecting the prefrontal cortex (for planning and self-control) with regions involved with emotional response to threat and reward are still developing in this period. Thus, they begin to develop in accordance with influences from this period of confinement. Correctional facilities are filled with isolation, constant surveillance and threats of harm; therefore, this plasticity can end up strengthening defensive, fear-based responses instead. Repeated activation of the body’s stress response releases cortisol, which acts on the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, amygdala, and other regions tied to memory, learning, emotion and cognitive control. Chronic stress can make it harder to focus, interpret ambiguous situations calmly, regulate fear, or pause before reacting. During this critical window of neuroplasticity, a time where the brain is especially malleable, these adolescents are also particularly vulnerable to stressors, of which there are an increased amount in correctional institutions, causing the brain to adapt to this environment as opposed to one that is more neurotypical.
What does this look like in everyday behavior and development?
The outward effects of this developmental disruption is shown in psychosocial maturity, which refers to the skills children and adolescents develop as they transition into adulthood. Researchers typically divide it into three components: temperance (the ability to control impulses and aggressive responses), responsibility (autonomy, self-reliance and resistance to peer pressure), and perspective (ability to consider long-term consequences and other people’s feelings and viewpoints). These skills develop through experience and practice in daily life. Adolescents learn responsibility through their decision-making and the consequences of their decisions. However, in highly controlled environments, such as juvenile correctional facilities, adolescents have most of their decisions pre-made for them, rendering them incapable of maturing through their own trial and error. This relationship between psychosocial maturity development and confinement is a two way street: when adolescents show lower maturity than expected for their own developmental trajectory, they subsequently spent more time in correctional facilities, and in turn, more time in confinement predicted slower-than-expected maturity growth. This pattern pertains mostly to the temperance component of psychosocial maturity, resulting in weaker impulse and aggression control as a stronger predictor of more confinement.
Adolescent neuroplasticity creates vulnerability but also offers a potential to capitalize on it. Stressful and restrictive environments may shape developing systems involved in learning, emotion, and self-control, but young people’s brains also remain highly capable of recovery and change. A developmentally informed justice system would therefore look beyond controlling behavior during confinement. It would operate on policies designed to help adolescents build the skills they will need after release. By replacing unnecessary detention with community-based treatment, and ensuring that placements are supportive, educational, and rehabilitative environments, the juvenile justice system can protect public safety without stunting the development that makes lasting behavioral change possible for these youth.
ABOUT THE WRITER
Emiliana (Emi) Kosterlitzky
Contributing Writer
Emiliana Kosterlitzky is a recent graduate from the University of Southern California with interests in clinical neuropsychology, specifically in forensic contexts, and treatment of psychological disorders. She has been a Contributing Writer for Remember Magazine since July 2026.
References
Marr, C., et al. (2026). The mental health of young people entering custody: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Child & Youth Care Forum, 55, 21–49.
Orendain, N., Galván, A., Smith, E., Barnert, E. S., & Chung, P. J. (2022). Juvenile confinement exacerbates adversity burden: A neurobiological impetus for decarceration. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 16, 1004335.
Chen, F. R., Chiciu, D., & Geleto, H. (2026). Psychosocial maturity and institutional confinement from ages 15–22: A longitudinal reciprocal model. Frontiers in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 5, 1809393.
Akpanekpo, E. I., et al. (2026). Mental health diversion and criminal justice outcomes: A population-based cohort study of 53,605 justice-involved adolescents. Health & Justice, 14, 22.
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