Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice

The Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) is a state agency of Virginia, headquartered on the twentieth floor of the 600 East Main Street building in Richmond.^[1] The DJJ operates and is responsible for the vast majority of local Court Service Units (often known as juvenile probation offices) across the Commonwealth, as well as the two state-operated Juvenile Correctional Centers, Beaumont and Bon Air, and Juvenile Detention Centers. On any given day, the Department has somewhere between 4,500 and 5,000 youth under some kind of supervision, with more than 90 percent of those youth being supervised in their communities through diversion, probation or parole.

The Department’s mission is to protect the public by helping court involved youth become productive citizens. It emphasizes four cornerstones of positive youth development which include a feeling of safety in one’s surroundings, a strong sense of connection to one’s community and supportive family members and/or other adults, a belief in the purpose of activities such as education, treatment and vocational training or actual work, and a sense of fairness in the accountability, consequences and opportunities one receives in response to their actions.

Over the last several years, the Department has undertaken a rigorous self-analysis to make sure that we are using taxpayer resources effectively, and getting the outcomes we want for the youth, families and communities we serve. This analysis led us to develop an ambitious plan to transform our work to get better outcomes for the children, families and communities we serve. Our transformation efforts break down into three core initiatives: (1) Safely Reduce the use of the large and aging juvenile correctional facilities; (2) Reform correctional and treatment practices within the facilities and with youth returning to communities; and (3) Develop a plan to ultimately Replace DJJ’s two facilities with smaller, regional, and treatment oriented juvenile correctional centers and a statewide continuum of local alternative placements and evidence-based services.

Facilities

All DJJ secure correctional facilities are in unincorporated areas. Facilities include:^[2]

• Beaumont Juvenile Correctional Center (Powhatan County) - Serves older males up to age 21, As of 2015 it has about 230 inmates^[3]
• Bon Air Juvenile Correctional Center (Chesterfield County) - Serves males ages 14-18 and females ages 11-20^[4]
• Reception and Diagnostic Center (Chesterfield County)^[5]

Closed facilities:

• Barrett Juvenile Correctional Center (Hanover County) - Opened in 1915 as the Virginia Industrial School for Colored Girls, it was originally established by the Virginia Federation of Colored Women's Clubs and Janie Porter Barrett. The state took over management of the facility in 1920 and began incarcerating adjudicated black females. In 1965 the facility racially integrated. In 1977 it established a pilot program where male and female juvenile prisoners lived together, and the prison began to only serve male juveniles in 1978.^[6]
• Culpeper Juvenile Correctional Center (Culpeper County) - Housed males ages 18-20^[7] Due to budget cuts by the Governor, Culpeper will close June 2014 to become an Adult Women's Prison with the Virginia Department of Corrections with a pending re-open date of January 2015.
• Hanover Juvenile Correctional Center (Hanover County) - It was established in 1898, and the State of Virginia acquired the facility in 1920. The 1,808-acre (732 ha) complex had space for 120 prisoners.^[8]
• Natural Bridge Juvenile Correctional Center (Rockbridge County) - Located on a 100-acre (40 ha) property on a U.S. Department of Agriculture Civilian Conservation Corp Camp in the Jefferson Natural Forest. - Closed on October 10, 2009^[9]
• Oak Ridge Correctional Center (Chesterfield County) - Served persons with severe development issues. As of 2010 it had about 40 inmates.^[10]

References

External links

• Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice