Safety at a Girls Secure Juvenile Justice Facility (2015)

Serious juvenile delinquency is a significant and costly problem in the society. However, custodial environments often exacerbate current problems and promote recidivism. Girls’ delinquency, in particular, may call for trauma-informed approaches within organizations that serve the most serious offenders. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether implementation of a trauma-informed intervention that aims to change the therapeutic stand of the organization, the Sanctuary Model ®, corresponded with improved indicators of physical and psychological safety of staff and youth at a female secure juvenile justice facility … Findings suggest that the facility was a safer place for both residents and staff after implementation of the model. Its safety indicators also compare favorably to those of the juvenile justice correctional field in general (p. 209).