The Education of Juvenile Offenders

It’s no coincidence that Long Creek Youth Development Center, shown here, and Mountain View Youth Development Center bear a remarkable resemblance to educational architecture. SMRT designed them to resemble schools rather than juvenile detention centers.

Two new juvenile facilities opening in Maine-one in the northern part of the state, the other in the south-are indicative of two trends within juvenile corrections. The ideas are to locate youthful offenders close to their families and support networks while housing them in facilities that more closely resemble secure schools rather than jails; development centers not detention centers.

Designed by SMRT, an architecture, engineering, and planning firm in Portland, Maine, the Long Creek Youth Development Center in South Portland and the Mountain View Youth Development Center in Charleston, up north near Bangor, are part of the state’s plan to re-educate juvenile offenders by offering a normalized environment with a focus on specialized courses.

“The centers do resemble schools,” says Project Architect Janet Hansen, “with a wide corridor or ‘main street’ connecting all parts of the building.” Those parts include classrooms, a library, a computer room, a gymnasium, and a cafeteria all clustered together adjacent to living areas. “Students will not spend their days confined to their rooms, but by attending classes, eating in the cafeteria, and participating in activities,” says Hansen. Some classes will offer high school credit. Others, including woodworking, electronic graphic arts, and culinary training will prepare students for a productive life outside the center. The setup gives residents controlled independence so they develop responsibility for their behavior.

A New Outlook

The situation for juvenile offenders was not always this hopeful or progressive. Before these two centers, which are schedule to open this month, the state utilized two other juvenile centers. The Maine Youth Center, which was built around the turn of the century, had buildings that were in poor condition and was frequently overcrowded. The second facility was the small, 34-bed Northern Maine Juvenile Detention Facility. Many offenders in the northern half of the state were sent downstate and housed far from home.

Following a facility study that SMRT conducted with Pulitzer/Bogard and Associates in 1997, it was decided that both sites should be reused with similar facilities built at each with identical programming; populations would be split evenly between the two sites, eliminating the need to transfer juveniles far from home. The Long Creek facility is larger by 29 beds because it houses a separate sex-offender unit.

Most of the existing buildings at the Maine Youth Center site were torn down to make room for the new 137,553-square-foot Long Creek building, but two were reused so the facility incorporates an additional 29,962 square feet. Operations were streamlined because the new layout consolidates all facilities under one roof; buildings previously were scattered all over the 12-acre site. The singular building required much less land so some was sold to the adjacent municipal airport with profits from the sale helping to finance construction. Mountain View also was built on the site of the existing juvenile center, which is the site of a former Air Force radar station and currently houses minimum-security adult inmates. The new building totals 126,682 square feet with an additional 12,296 incorporated from the existing facility.

Student Life

The floorplan for the Mountain View facility shows the relationship classrooms, between other educational spaces, and direct-supervision housing areas. This facility has 140 beds while Long Creek has 169 beds.

Students, whose ages range from 11 to 21, will spend an average of 180-240 days within the facilities. Once assigned to a facility, students will be processed and assigned to a temporary housing unit where they are thoroughly evaluated for a month’s time and then assigned to a permanent housing unit and given a course schedule. The housing units are designed for direct-supervision and consist of three smaller pods in the boy’s units and two pods in the girl’s units; pods segregate groups by age. Each pod has its own living room off the bedrooms and each has a large dayroom with access to outdoor recreation-which includes a multi-purpose sports field. Office space for the unit leader, known as the Juvenile Program Manager, and staff offices and laundry facilities surround the dayroom.

Outside, the buildings bare a remarkable resemblance to a school. The front façade serves as the secure perimeter while housing units and the playing field are surrounded by a 16-foot-high fence. Visitors do not pass through the gates and fencing, however, as the sallyport near the main public lobby is the entrance point for everyone, including staff. Visitation rooms and the gymnasium are located off the lobby.

The combination of programming and the housing of students within or close to their communities is expected to provide the necessary resources to permanently remove juvenile offenders from the control of the department of corrections. It also intended to represent the future of juvenile detention.