“This Place Saved My Life”: The Limits of Christian Redemption Narratives at a Juvenile Detention Facility for Girls

The purpose of this long-term qualitative study was to uncover evidence that might support components of positive youth development (PYD) in a music composition program at an urban youth detention center. The constructs of PYD come from self-determination theory—competence, autonomy, and relatedness—and formed the theoretical lens from which the data were analyzed. Over a period of 5 years, more than 700 youth participated in the program and created primarily rap music compositions. Comments from their feedback, as well as interviews, were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Findings point to the emergence of two main categories as reasons for enjoying the program: competence and positive feelings. Creativity also emerged as linked to competence and autonomy as well as the “Good Lives Model” of detainee development. Further research on using culturally relevant and creative music programming as a tool in PYD is discussed.

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Girls in Juvenile Detention Facilities

Gender, Psychology, and Justice ◽

10.18574/nyu/9781479819850.003.0007 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Kendra R. Brewster ◽

Kathleen M. Cumiskey

Keyword(s):

Service Learning ◽

Justice System ◽

Life Stories ◽

Social Contexts ◽

Juvenile Detention ◽

Treatment Programs ◽

Detention Facility ◽

Girls Of Color ◽

Detention Facilities

This chapter examines the experiences of incarcerated girls who participated in a service learning course that paired them with college mentors in a juvenile detention facility. The course defined the girls as agents in social contexts of inequality, rather than as poor girls of color, and honored their voices as they discussed the issues that were most important to their lives in the community. It also provided the opportunity to examine the girls’ experiences of detention in light of their life stories, and to understand girls’ involvement with the justice system and incarceration as a form of abandonment by society, institutions, and families. This chapter highlights the paucity of treatment programs specifically designed for incarcerated girls and describes how practitioners can create moments of healing in a system designed to punish and dehumanize.

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Constructing and Institutionalizing the Carceral Social Order

Stick Together and Come Back Home ◽

10.1525/california/9780520288584.003.0002 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Patrick Lopez-Aguado

Keyword(s):

High School ◽

Common Sense ◽

Social Order ◽

Juvenile Detention ◽

Peer Networks ◽

Continuation High School ◽

Detention Facility ◽

Institutional Violence ◽

Staff Members ◽

Home Community

This chapter describes how punitive facilities structure, socialize, and reinforce the carceral social order within the institution. I argue that in their efforts to prevent institutional violence by separating rival gangs, the prison, the juvenile detention facility, and the continuation high school instead construct a consistent social order that is based in gang rivalries—one in which everyone in the facility is compelled to participate. Within these facilities, staff members construct this social order by using race, home community, and peer networks to categorize entire institutional populations into gang-associated groups. Staff members then routinely maintain these categories as distinct groups by policing the spatial boundaries between them, as keeping rival groups separated is perceived as necessary for ensuring institutional security. The relationships and conflicts that are structured by these sorting and segregation practices ultimately socialize this carceral social order as a dominant, “common sense” logic for both managing and navigating punitive facilities.

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Families on Probation: Court-Ordered Parenting Skills Classes for Parents of Juvenile Offenders

Crime & Delinquency ◽

10.1177/0011128797043004002 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 43 (4) ◽

pp. 412-437 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

Laurie Schaffner

Keyword(s):

Juvenile Offenders ◽

Family Life ◽

State Intervention ◽

Juvenile Detention ◽

Northern California ◽

Parenting Skills ◽

Juvenile Probation ◽

Detention Facility

What are sociolegal, cultural, and emotional premises beneath conceptualizations of parenting skills for parents of juvenile offenders? This study examined court-ordered parenting skills classes taught by juvenile probation department personnel at a Northern California juvenile detention facility. Three conflicting perspectives arose in the classes: the juvenile court's perspective, where delinquency was framed as a result of poor parenting that state intervention could rectify; the parents' perspective, where parenting was seen as part of the feeling world of family life; and an adult solidarity perspective, where probation officials and parents agreed that youths were bad, out of control, disrespectful—a type of demonization of the youths by all the adults.

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