Mission Statement
The mission statement for Jones Girls correctional facility is to model delinquent girls and prepare them to rejoin society. The statement emphasizes that the overall intention for all the programs implemented is to make sure the released girls will be fully rehabilitated and will not engage in delinquency anymore. Most importantly, the term modeling refers to behavioral conditioning, which will be undertaken by experts in this field, to ensure that the released inmates behave well in the communities.
Goals
- To prepare young girls to rejoin society after serving their sentences.
- To educate the girls on the need to be good human beings.
- To impart social and technical skills to young girls to help them kickstart their life out of the correctional facility.
Type of Facility
Jones Girls will be a correctional facility for juvenile girls or prison for convicted delinquent young girls. However, the sole purpose will not be the imprisonment of the inmates, but to re-model them to become better human beings as they get ready to rejoin society. Therefore, the facility will incorporate educational and behavioral modification sessions. Since the girls are below the age of 18 years, it is essential that the facility also includes programs to develop their skills to compensate for the time spent out of school. Such facilities may be rare in the country but Jones Girls is built on the principle that the young girls deserve an opportunity to learn and acquire basic skills like all other people. It is a principle of equality and fairness and treating the inmates as people with basic rights, including education.
Most importantly, behavioral modification offers the best chance of modeling the inmates and reduce the rates of recidivism. The rates of juvenile recidivism in the United States are high as expressed by Spooner et al. (2017) who states that approximately 77% of released offenders are arrested within five years. Additionally, the facility is set to be suitable for all groups, especially the vulnerable ones. Cases across the world have emerged where juveniles are held in appalling conditions in prisons, for example in the Philippines. Jones Girls will be an embodiment of how juvenile facilities should treat and handle young girls.
Gender and Population
As the name suggests, Jones Girls will be a correctional facility specifically for juvenile girls. The prison is designed to host a maximum population of 200 girls from all demographic groups in the country. The girls are sent to the facility by the various juvenile justice bodies for correctional purposes. The number of staff members may push the population of the facility to 250 depending on the capacity. However, some of the duties are distributed among the inmates as part of the rehabilitation process, which means the population will hardly exceed 250 people. The 50 slots are availed for the security personnel and experts in the field of juvenile correction and other essential workers.
Program
Jones Girls is a correctional or rehabilitation program, which means that the main objective is to offer a supportive environment for the delinquent girls to develop into responsible young women. As a rehabilitation program, Jones Girls seeks to address multiple needs of the population, including addictive and criminal thinking, anger management, employability, healthy relationships, substance abuse, suicide prevention, and dealing with loss and grief. Addictive and criminal thinking is a program designed to help the girls understand the relationship between their thinking and destructive behaviors. Additionally, the program teaches the inmates that crimes do not just happen since it is mostly premeditated and a result of their thinking.
Anger management is another program set to help the girls deal with anger issues. In essence, these programs are developed and designed under the presumption that most of the delinquencies among the girls are the result of these risk factors. Additionally, the rehabilitation programs are perceived as interventions to the underlying risk behaviors. Anger management classes employ counselors and performed either in groups or individual sessions. Healthy relationships program seeks to help students manage relationships with people around them and to handle relationship issues that emanate from having relations with certain people.
Substance abuse is a rehabilitation program for delinquents whose crimes are the result of drug use. The grief and loss management program address the issue of emotional pain experienced through painful losses. Most important, the employability program equips the inmates with technical and other skills that can help them engage in constructive employment upon their release. An example offered by (Guiang, 2019) is the use of new technologies in prisons for educational purposes. The main objective is to make sure the released girls are ready to seek employment.
Activities
Most of the activities are highlighted in the program section above. However, there are additional activities that are to be undertaken by the facility. Firstly, the facility initiates contact with clients and referrals in search of new customers. Secondly, intake activities are undertaken where the convicted delinquent girls are admitted to the system. In addition to the activities involving rehabilitation programs, the facility also undertakes detention, probation services, dismissal from the system, and release of fully rehabilitated girls. A model for these activities can be represented in the form of a diagram as illustrated below:
Staff
The majority of the staff occupy security and rehabilitation positions. Guards are all females, which should create a safe environment for the detainees. However, the rehabilitation programs, including education and anger management, and addictive and criminal thinking are all filled by experts in the respective fields. As stated earlier, the maximum number of staff is 50 where the number fluctuated depending on the operational capacity. The top positions are for the warden and chief of security whereas some basic catering duties can be shared with the inmates.
Education
Education is a critical component of Jones Girls, a facility dedicated to making sure that young women released from the system can become responsible and can engage in constructive employment opportunities in society. Therefore, the education programs are designed to offer basic technical and vocational skills in such fields as hospitality, accounting, bookkeeping, and secretariat among others. Most importantly, information and communication technology is also integrated into the education program since the current business world operates in an environment where technology is vital. New technologies in education, including distant learning, are also implemented.
Treatment
Jones Girls may be a juvenile justice system but the inmates are treated majorly as students or clients. Additionally, detention may be the ultimate objective, especially for the convicted delinquents. However, the facility is designed to treat the inmates with care and respect since the main objective is to remodel them into responsible people to get them ready to rejoin society. the facility will still be designed as a detention center with holding cells for the inmates. However, it is the additional facilities, including the libraries, classrooms, therapy, and counseling centers that set Jones Girls apart from other such centers. Other facilities include gyms and workshops where the inmates are treated as learners in an environment conducive to learning.
Correctional Components
Several correctional components will be installed to help the facility run smoothly. First, detention cells are created to hold the inmates when they are not involved in any of the activities offered in the rehabilitation programs. Secondly, security infrastructure is built to include CCTV cameras, electrified fences, guarded gates, security lights, and a disciplinary center for all wrongdoings within the facility. Lastly, daily routines are implemented, including morning and evening roll-calls, random checks and searches, TV sessions, and scheduled weekly visitations.
Budget
The budget covers all major operations within the facility and all expenses. However, it is important to notice that much of the budget covers the wages for the staff members and the materials and equipment used for the rehabilitation processes. Additionally, a significant portion covers such expenditures as food, medical, sanitary supplies, facility maintenance, and recreation. A summary of the annual budget for Jones Girls is resented in the table below:
References
Guiang, S. (2019). The fight for youth justice needs to include tech. Juvenile Law Center. Web.
Spooner, K., Pyrooz, D., Webb, V., & Fox, K. (2017). Recidivism among juveniles in a multi-component gang reentry program: Fndings from a program evaluation in Harris County, Texas. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 13, 275-285. Web.
Watkin, H. (2019). Children in prison: Philippines’ rundown Houses of Hope detain kids in appalling conditions.South China Morning Post. Web.