Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice

The Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) is a state agency of Virginia, headquartered on the twentieth floor of the 600 East Main Street building in Richmond. The DJJ operates and is responsible for the vast majority of local Court Service Units (often known as juvenile probation offices) across the Commonwealth, as well as the two state-operated Juvenile Correctional Centers, Beaumont and Bon Air, and Juvenile Detention Centers. On any given day, the Department has somewhere between 4,500 and 5,000 youth under some kind of supervision, with more than 90 percent of those youth being supervised in their communities through diversion, probation or parole.

The Department’s mission is to protect the public by helping court involved youth become productive citizens. It emphasizes four cornerstones of positive youth development which include a feeling of safety in one’s surroundings, a strong sense of connection to one’s community and supportive family members and/or other adults, a belief in the purpose of activities such as education, treatment and vocational training or actual work, and a sense of fairness in the accountability, consequences and opportunities one receives in response to their actions.

Over the last several years, the Department has undertaken a rigorous self-analysis to make sure that we are using taxpayer resources effectively, and getting the outcomes we want for the youth, families and communities we serve. This analysis led us to develop an ambitious plan to transform our work to get better outcomes for the children, families and communities we serve. Our transformation efforts break down into three core initiatives: (1) Safely Reduce the use of the large and aging juvenile correctional facilities; (2) Reform correctional and treatment practices within the facilities and with youth returning to communities; and (3) Develop a plan to ultimately Replace DJJ’s two facilities with smaller, regional, and treatment oriented juvenile correctional centers and a statewide continuum of local alternative placements and evidence-based services.