Locks and Lessons - Virginia's Reform Schools

• NCJ Number: 89434
• Author(s): A Petkofsky
• Date Published: 1983
• Length: 75 pages
• Grant Number(s): 82-JS-AX-0012
• Sponsoring Agency: Ford Foundation; Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP)
• Corporate Author: Bedfordshire Police
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/; Bedfordshire Police
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: One of a series of reports prepared under the Fellows in Education Journalism Program.

Annotation

Using interviews with juvenile residents, staff, and corrections and juvenile justice officials, the effectiveness of Virginia's juvenile institutions is examined.

Abstract

According to official policy, Virginia's seven juvenile learning centers exist to rehabilitate serious juvenile offenders while protecting the public from them. The population of the learning centers has hovered between 700 and 900 students since about 1977. Most of the juveniles are committed for burglary and other property crimes, but some are committed for offenses as serious as murder and as minor as cursing. About a quarter of the residents have been committed for violating probation. The learning centers offers some treatment programs for emotional and learning problems, but only a small portion of those who need them can be accommodated. Treatment also includes compulsory education, counseling, therapy, and behavior control programs. Staff and other officials complain that rehabilitation is not effective, since it is generally not sufficient to counter negative influences when the youth return to their old environments. Many argue for a greater use of community-based programs, because they promise to be more cost-effective, but such a strategy is currently hampered by lack of funds in some communities and the concentration of State funds in the learning centers. State officials favor a cutback in the use of the learning centers and an expanded use of community-based programs but in a gradual way. Some doubt that it will happen without legislation to mandate and structure the change.