Correctional facilities experience increasing costs and demands while resources remain limited. This paper provides a matrix to identify and compare categorized health care costs. Methods: A 525-bed, primarily male, long-term juvenile correctional system’s costs were categorized as either general health or mental health, and further divided as fixed, intermediate, or variable costs, depending on several factors. Results: Mental health costs were three times higher than general medical costs. Approximately 11% of the health costs are labeled variable and hard to predict, with prescription costs at 3.3% of the health care budget. Conclusions: This baseline pilot project suggests that previous studies have underestimated incarcerated juveniles’ health care costs.
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