 The Dallas County Juvenile Detention Center manages both a Pre-Adjudication and a Post-Adjudication program. Located at the Henry Wade Juvenile Justice Center, the facility is certified to house 382 pre-adjudication and 80 post-adjudication youth. In 2006, 350 staff members worked with the 5,254 youth who were admitted to both Programs. Detention Center staff provide basic services, supplemented by other Juvenile Department and Dallas County staff and hundreds of community volunteers.
Pre-Adjudication Detention Program: START
The Juvenile Detention Center is the largest pre-adjudication secure facility in the southwestern United States. It is certified to house up to 382 youth who have been arrested by a police agency and charged with a delinquent offense, as well as juveniles alleged to have violated their conditions of probation. In 2006 the average daily population was 295 and the average length of stay pending Court disposition or transfer to another jurisdiction or agency was 22 days. The fundamental goal of the facility is to provide a safe and secure environment for residents and employees, while staff gather valuable information regarding the child’s family, school, social, medical and psychological histories, to aid in the disposition of the case. Additionally, the Center provides rehabilitative programming designed to improve the self-esteem of residents and to provide life skills so that upon their release youth can make better decisions, thus reducing the chance of recidivism. Services include: medical and dental care; psychological testing, assessment, crisis stabilization and counseling; psychiatric consultation; educational assessment, testing and instruction; behavioral management care; substance abuse assessment, education and counseling; spiritual counseling and worship services; physical fitness activities and programming; life skills education and counseling; and arts and crafts instruction.
Last year the Juvenile Department received funding from the Annie E. Casey Foundation to participate in its Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI), to identify trends that have brought the pre-adjudication population to a daily average of 43 residents over staffed capacity. This Initiative brings together many community stakeholders, in addition to the Juvenile Department: Judiciary, District Attorney, law enforcement agencies, schools and others.
Post-Adjudication Detention Program: START
The START (Short Term Adolescent Residential Treatment) Program is designed for probationers who significantly or consistently violate conditions of probation. The Program provides a 60 day intermediate sanction, residential treatment program for youth who are court-ordered to participate. The Program develops the desire and skill set in youth to more effectively comply with the conditions of probation and in the long term, to develop the life skills necessary to more effectively deal with their daily problems, pressures, and challenges. In addition to basic services, residents receive Life Skills Training and Individual and Group Counseling. Family training sessions aim to enhance parenting skills as well as to help foster communication and cooperation within the family unit. The Program admitted 237 juveniles and experienced only 10% unsuccessful discharges. The average daily population was 37, with an average length of stay of 57 days with an average juvenile age of 15.5 years old. The program provided 1,211 individual counseling sessions and 125 family sessions, and 1,069 people participated in family training sessions. In the fall of 2006, the START program launched a Peer Voice initiative as an alternative intervention method in which youth may be issued consequences by their peers with emphasis on Restorative Justice. In addition, the program offers young people an opportunity to participate in the decision-making process for dealing with thinking errors that lead to procedure infractions in their immediate “community”, by using the curriculum lessons taught as the basis for consequence consideration.
Post-Adjudication Detention Program: START
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