AM PJ W5

Facility Type and Clientele Served

The primary purpose of the juvenile detention center is to rehabilitate young offenders, address their mental needs, and successfully reintegrate them into society. The facility also seeks to maintain public safety by keeping juveniles who have committed offenses away from the public. Consequently, the center will serve only youths between the ages of 10 and 17 who present a clear public threat. The center is limited to appropriate clients to secure adequate space, funds, and other resources to address a broader range of programs and needs of youths in the community. Accepting all juveniles, including those who do not need physical restriction or serious attention, will overburden the center, reducing the effectiveness of its operations. Different designs and layouts will characterize the center to allow for education, social training, prevention programs, recreational services, solitary confinement, and community involvement. These programs will help cure juveniles’ mental afflictions that may drive deviant behaviors through group activities or therapies. My facility will include features that assure youths of safety, security, and opportunities to learn skills necessary for re-entry into the community. For instance, the center will consist of a department of education to coordinate education and training units to enable youths to continue their studies while in custody.

Other essential components of the center include drug and alcohol testing, crisis counseling, employment training, behavioral monitoring, and mentoring. Additionally, the detention center will feature controlled internal environments and dormitory-style housing where juveniles will be locked during bedtime with no exceptions. There will be solitary units for locking juveniles when they break the rules. Juniors will earn their way back to the community by demonstrating good behavior. Generally, the center is not a jail but a safer place that offers hope for a better future for the youth it serves.

The daily functions of the juvenile detention center include arrestee entry, youth work programs (work-based learning), rehabilitation programs, medical services, booking, and administration services. With these essential daily activities, the center will emphasize direct supervision and monitoring of all movements. The center will position staff around programs and activities, including exercise, dining, sick call, visits, and counseling. Besides, the center will provide the program staff officers with surveillance back-ups such as CCTV monitoring, voice-activated intercoms and panic buttons on walls, and personal radio alarm systems. Other functions include inmate counts, cell searches, and security rounds to protect juveniles from themselves and others. Safety and security are critical parts of the juvenile detention center. In addition to technology, physical structure, and direct supervision, the center will promote security through positive interaction between staff and youth. For instance, staff will be trained well, especially on behavior management, to minimize youth trauma and focus on building a positive relationship with them instead of inflicting fear.

Besides, the team will be effectively situated to provide space for various skill-building and prosocial programs while directly supervising youths. They will also maintain communication with youths, respond to their calls and regularly visit youth-occupied areas. The officers are also responsible for ensuring the all the required activities (exercise, dining, visits, medical services, etc.) are delivered timely and appropriately. Inmate work programs involve center operations in which youths provide services to the facility. The programs will include age and stage-appropriate activities to reflect youth development. In addition to the in-house functions, the center will accommodate outside tasks that will contribute to the effectiveness of center operations. These will include law enforcement functions such as investigations, sharing of staff and facilities, and interrogation. It also contains courts functions like pretrial services, day reporting, probation/parole, court services, and other country offices.

Facility Architecture

The juvenile detention center requires approximately 700 square feet per resident to support the various rehabilitation interventions, recreational treatment, and education programs. It will house 1500 youths, divided into four general classifications: institutional group to contain 800 youths, disciplinary group to house 150 youths, and the abnormal group will hold 150 youths. The fourth category, the honor group, will house 400 youths. According to the accompanying plan in the appendix, the institutional group will be partitioned into eight-cell blocks, each housing 100 youths. Four cell blocks are placed on either side of the main center and connected by a corridor forming two general classifications. The cell blocks have a ground floor with two floors over, each separated, making 24 classifications. Every cell block contains a house bath for each of the four groups. The administration block is located at one end of the center and the mess hall at the other end. The mess hall contains entrances at each end to keep the two general classifications separate from the dining room and school rooms. The large auditorium on the third floor allows a maximum amount of sunshine and air into the center. Confinement cells are placed at the right of the center for hardened offenders, including drug possession or drug sales, felony, and weapon possession youths. To the left of the center are hospitals, including substance disorder treatment for abnormal youths. Behind the institution are shops and fields with a gymnasium used jointly for exercise.

The center will provide a full range of spaces, basic requirements, and services to enhance residents' health, well-being, and management. These include administration offices, admissions, medical services, laundry services, outdoor and indoor recreation, residential housing, related services, religious services, staff break areas, visitation, and education. Crucially, the center will incorporate improved features such as proper lighting, improved sanitation, and modern cell houses. For instance, each cell will be well-lit by the vast auditorium, exterior window, and glass interior wall. The cells will also be fitted with elaborate electric lights and ventilation systems to provide abundant light and air. The power plant will contain at least 100 K.W emergency lighting generators and vacuum pumps. According to Moeser (2014), facility design considering things like natural light, bed and program space, and overall environmental quality play a pivotal role in minimizing behavior problems. As such, my facility will provide a healthy and safe environment filled with sufficient sunlight, therapeutic textures and colors, normalized materials, and good outside views to reduce youths and staff stress, decrease staff absenteeism and increase inmate participation. It will also use straight-line designs to promote clear field of view all over the center while easing supervision, orientation, and way-finding. Provision of multipurpose space including vocational and education classrooms, counseling rooms, workshop areas, physical activity areas, and other architecture demands will be an essential aspect of the center. Overall, the center will consider all the spatial and environmental elements that build and maintain positive emotions and behavioral changes among youths by allowing them some level of autonomy and responsivity and uplifting morale.

Appendix

Adapted from Curnow (2015)

References