Juvenile justice facilities are setting a fine example.

Ricci Greene, a justice design and planning firm, has completed three juvenile justice facilities in Connecticut, New Jersey and Rhode Island, announces Ken Ricci, FAIA, the firm's president.

The projects include the Union County Juvenile Justice Center in Linden, N.J.; the Superior Court and Center for Juvenile Matters in Bridgeport, Conn.; and the Rhode Island Training School in Cranston, R.I.

"Although the projects differ significantly from one another in terms of size and scope, they all support the same goals--to improve behavior and promote eventual reintegration into the community through the creation of 'normative' environments," says Ricci.

"In all three cases, the local decision-makers who authorized the work 'get it'--they understand that environment cues behavior," notes Ricci. "Slowly but surely, their counterparts in other cities are beginning to grasp this concept. We expect, and hope, that normative environments will eventually become the norm."

The $43 million Rhode Island Training School for Youth comprises a 52-bed detention facility and a 96-bed adjudicated facility that provide the optimal physical and operational environment for housing troubled youth. The housing accommodations include population groups of boys' intake, detention, adjudicated, at-risk, high-security, and honor units. Each housing pod is designed with a direct supervision philosophy that incorporates a large, open and sunny day space, and a private outdoor recreational yard. In Bridgeport, Ricci Greene led the design of a new $34.6-million-home for the juvenile courts and detention facility on a remediated brownfield site in this waterfront city, working with JCJ Architecture and Turner Construction. The 100,000 s/f complex comprises two separate buildings linked by a vehicular sallyport: a courthouse with three courtrooms and a detention facility with 44 sleeping rooms. Both the buildings and the parking area are framed by a green lawn in the front and a waterfront park along the river that is open to the public.

The $28 million Union County project in New Jersey is a 70,000 s/f building to house 80 boys and girls. It has a courtyard that encloses almost an acre of outdoor courtyard recreation space, allowing extensive natural daylight to penetrate the building.