NCJ Number
199167
Journal
Journal for Juvenile Justice and Detention Services Volume: 17 Issue: 1 Dated: Spring 2002 Pages: 1-19
Date Published
2002
Length
19 pages
Annotation
This article discusses the ways in which the Ohio Department of Youth Services’ proposed changes to the American Correctional Association’s “Standards for Juvenile Training Schools” are unfounded.
Abstract
After describing the Ohio Department of Youth Services (ODYS) proposed changes to the American Correctional Association (ACA)’s “Standards for Juvenile Training Schools,” in the fall of 2000, as eliminating limitations and restrictions on living unit and institutional sizes, the author presents a series of arguments addressing the ODYS's assertion that there is a lack of research supporting the importance of size limitations. Focusing on the environmental effects on behavior, architectural perspectives, and research studies conducted with children and adolescents in juvenile correctional settings, the author argues that most of the evidence regarding institutional size and correctional outcomes indicates that limiting living unit size is important in developing correctional institutions program agendas. After focusing on intervening factors such as age, release programming, staffing, contrast effect, and social and spatial density, the author contends that a sufficient number of credible research projects and studies suggest that there is an indirect relationship between limiting living unit size and positive juvenile corrections outcomes. The author concludes that research evidence supports the existing ACA standard, rendering the ODYS proposal to eliminate limits on living unit and institutional size as unfounded and unnecessary. References