"This article has been reprinted from the American Correctional Association's Corrections Today with permission from Glen McKenzie Jr."

At the risk of overusing a cliché: the children are our future. Of the approximately 70.2 million youths in the country, nearly 3 million will be arrested each year. And arrests continue to rise. Some youths will be released to their homes, but many will be placed on probation, sent to community residential facilities or remanded to any one of the more than 400 secure juvenile facilities in the United States. According to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, in October 1999, 108,931 juvenile offenders were in residential placement. In October 2002, there was a total of 110,284 offenders younger than 21 in residential facilities, OJJDP reported. Often, these youths are confined to stark environments for varying lengths of time. Their freedom of individual choices and personal preferences immediately will be interrupted. Whenever these young people are released from supervision and reenter communities, their impact will be felt and they will be part of everyone's future.

Many years ago, the American Correctional Association began bringing correctional experts together in an effort to improve the quality of confinement and services to incarcerated individuals. ACA's Web site explains that the Association is the oldest and largest international correctional association in the world dedicated to excellence in every aspect. How can corrections professionals ensure that the resources invested to protect the public, habilitate juveniles and help them re-establish themselves into the nation's communities are best used? How can it be assured that these large expenditures and efforts are best spent to help bring about a positive and lasting change in these youths? How can society ensure that these youths become responsible and productive citizens? That can be done by ensuring that all juvenile facilities operate at a level that meets at least minimal national correctional standards. Why should correctional facilities meet national standards? Because private taxpaying citizens get to pay for these facilities both locally and at the state/federal level. Taxpayers are investing in the future even though they may not realize it. Does it not make sense to get the most out of all investments?

There are many tools society uses to enforce morals and social standards and attempt to deter crime. When communities have to depend on resources outside their control, reliance is made on county and/ or state/federal resources. Some communities use county-operated probation systems, while other communities depend on federal-level resources. The most expensive tools used to protect the public and attempt to control unlawful acts by youths are today's juvenile correctional institutions. Currently, there are 413 public and private secure juvenile facilities, according to ACA. There are approximately 34,000 male and female juveniles confined in juvenile training schools. ACA also reports that juvenile justice budgets for the nation for 2002 totaled nearly $7.5 billion. Nationally, the average daily cost per youth is more than $170 each day. Each taxpaying citizen shoulders a piece of this tremendous cost in an attempt to control crime and rehabilitate juvenile offenders. Of course, the cost of this impact to society has yet to be accurately estimated. Because of the phenomenally high cost of this public safety necessity, citizens should continue to demand the best results for their hard earned money. National correctional standards provide a benchmark for institutions to demonstrate their ability to meet public expectations.

Correctional Standards Guarantee High Quality

With such tremendous operating/capital costs, it makes good fiscal sense to ensure that juvenile institutions operate at a high level. The better a juvenile correctional institution operates, the better service is provided. The better corrections professionals can help these youths increase their interpersonal skills, make better pro-social choices and help them learn from past mistakes, the more likely it is that they will become more interested in adhering to positive community norms and becoming positive and productive community members. The accreditation process promoted by ACA is the best, most comprehensive tool available to public and private correctional administrators and legislative entities to help ensure that all levels of operations are performing at a standard of national prominence. For public and private juvenile correctional facilities, the juvenile training school ACA minimum standards provide just such a tool. ACA reports that of the more than 400 secure public and private juvenile facilities, approximately 20 percent are ACA accredited. It is by their own virtue and self-encouragement (agency directives) or court orders that these ACA-accredited facilities demonstrate that the executives, administrators and other correctional employees are good stewards of public resources, provide juveniles a chance to change their lives for the better and have shown compliance with the minimum national correctional standards. These executives, correctional administrators and employees have done a fantastic job. They do not necessarily get paid higher salaries to participate in the accreditation process, nor do they receive promotions. They are simply dedicated field generals who want to do the right thing. These professionals have committed themselves to helping others, often at the expense of their own families. No matter how many accolades they receive, they really do not get the appreciation they deserve. Through accreditation, they are helping to create an environment in which many young people can change their lives and become productive and even prominent members of society. These correctional administrators and professionals may get thank you letters or phone calls expressing gratitude from juveniles who had been in their care, custody and control, but society falls short of truly recognizing these fine individuals. They know how it feels to be a part of young people's lives who have turned themselves around in a positive and successful manner. They carry a lot of responsibilities and liability.

What to Expect

The ACA accreditation process involves providing outside experts access to all facility areas. These experts make an impartial and objective assessment of the facility's operations. The juvenile training school standards address many areas that include numerous items of importance, such as:

• Administrative and management concerns - administrative fiscal, personnel, training/ staff development, juvenile records, information systems, citizen involvement and volunteers;

• Physical plant concerns - building and safety codes, size, organization and location of the facility, juvenile housing, environmental conditions, program and service areas, administrative and staff areas, and security;

• Institutional operations -security and control, safety and emergency procedures, rules and discipline, juvenile rights and special management issues;
• Facility services - food service, sanitation and hygiene, and health care; and

• Juvenile services - reception and orientation, classification, social service, academic, vocational and work, library, recreational and activities, religious programs, mail, telephone, visiting and release.

These standards address major areas of concern that many corrections professionals for many years have determined to be of great importance to the operation of successful juvenile correctional facilities.

The accreditation review process culminates with a detailed description of the experts' perceptions of the facility's conditions of confinement and the overall quality of life.

Auditors must be able to make professional judgments based on written documentation, personal observations and interactions with youths and staff alike. Auditors must be able to articulately describe positive elements of a program as well as be able to outline the areas that may be in need of improvement. This detailed review evaluates matters that suggest what it might be like for a youth confined in the juvenile correctional facility. From an administrator's perspective, the agency director/facility administrator expects a high degree of professionalism from the tenured correctional auditor to provide an objective, unbiased and thorough review.

Benefits

A good administrator will use the ACA accreditation process as a supplement to his or her own quality assurance systems. Good administrators will have the desire to be involved in the ACA accreditation process, while simultaneously developing and refining their own control systems. Generally, institutions have some type of quality assurance systems in place. In some agencies, internal control systems are able to capture information related to various times of the day, week or month when incidents are higher and names of individuals who have a high rate of referring youths to security units.
Advanced correlations may be drawn from this information to see if trends or other predictions can be accurately made; however, this is after the fact. Often, control/information systems look at a small slice of operations. As an example, an internal audit department may review security operations but the review does not typically look at the entire security operation side - the institution risk management concerns may be reviewed but only from a narrow perspective.
The ACA accreditation process is the best tool available that provides a complete and comprehensive assessment of total facility operations.

In summary, by taking the opportunity to be involved in the accreditation process, correctional administrators can expect to reap numerous benefits, such as those outlined in the Standards and Accreditation section of ACA's Website:

• Improved staff training and development (pre-service, inservice and specialized training curriculums based on systematically developed training plans);

• Assessment of the program's strengths and weaknesses;

• A defense against lawsuits - accredited agencies have a stronger defense against litigation through documentation and the demonstration of a "good faith" effort to improve conditions of confinement;

• Establishment of measurable criteria for upgrading operations (continual agency policy review and procedure to make improvements);

• Improved staff morale and professionalism - accreditation is awarded to the "best of the best" in the corrections field. Staff have a better understanding of policies and procedures. This contributes to improved working conditions for staff;

• Safer environment for staff and offenders - administrative, line staff and volunteers, as well as offenders, benefit from increased accountability, attention to physical plant issues and security procedures;

• Reduced liability insurance costs - as an incentive for agencies willing to participate in ACA's national accreditation program, some insurance companies offer a reduction on liability insurance premiums to accredited facilities. Adherence to nationally recognized standards for fire, safety, health and training reduce claim expenses, allowing up to a 10 percent credit on liability insurance premiums. In most cases, the resulting savings on insurance premiums more than offset the actual cost of accreditation; and

• Performance-based benefits - performance-based standards provide data that can be used in the day-to-day management of the facility, reducing the occurrence of significant events. Accredited agencies, such as health care facilities, will find it easier to recruit and retain health care professionals. Not only does compliance provide agencies with a cost effective, pro-active approach to offender health care, but it also can be used to justify requests for additional funding.

Administrators probably have been heard stating that the accreditation process is only a paper chase and really does not prove anything, that it is not really necessary. That is, until these same administrators have been involved in the accreditation process. During this process, they have said that it really has opened their eyes and exposed them to facility operations that previously had not been closely observed. After the process, these administrators have stated that accreditation was the best method of process improvement that they had ever been involved in. It provided them opportunities to take a look at detailed operations previously taken for granted. They have said that the process helped their employees work together and that they gained an awareness of all aspects of the facility's day-to-day operations. The process helped them to review everyday practices and sharpen the focus to continually operate and manage a safe and secure environment in which youths have an opportunity to learn many life lessons not previously known. Juvenile corrections professionals are working to help young people who have gone astray. That is why dedicated individuals are in the juvenile corrections business. The profession exists to help these youths, not the other way around. Give them a better chance to have successful lives. Give accreditation a chance. Work together to achieve lasting improvements in the conditions of confinement for juveniles in this country.

REFERENCES

Allen-Hagen, B. 1993. Conditions of confinement in juvenile detention and correctional facilities. Washington, D.C.: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
(April).

American Correctional Association. 1991. Standards for juvenile training schools.
Lanham, Md.: American Correctional Association.

American Correctional Association. 2003.  2003 directory of juvenile and adult correctional departments, institutions, agencies and paroling authorities. Lanham, Md.: American Correctional Association.

Sickmund, M. 2002. Juvenile offenders in residential placement: 1997-1999. Washington, D.C.: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. (March).

Sickmund, M. 2002. Juvenile residential facility census, 2000: Selected findings.
Washington, D.C.: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. (December).

Snyder, H.N. and M. Sickmund. 1999. Juvenile offenders and victims: 1999 national report. Washington, D.C.: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
(September).

Glen E. McKenzie Jr., M.S.H.P, recently retired from the Texas Youth Commission, where he was accreditation coordinator/manager. He is a certified correctional auditor for the American Correctional Association and provides correctional accreditation management consultation upon request. He may be contacted at (512) 528-1123; gmckenzie1@austin.rr.com.