Florida Department of Juvenile Justice
| Department overview | |
|---|---|
| Jurisdiction | State of Florida |
| Headquarters |
Knight Building 2737 Centerview Drive Tallahassee, Florida |
| Annual budget | $115,969,460(2016-2017) |
| Department executives |
|
| Website | www.djj.state.fl.us |
The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice (FDJJ) is a state agency of Florida that operates juvenile detention centers. Its headquarters are in the Knight Building in Tallahassee.
Florida has traditionally managed juveniles under a "rehabilitative" model of justice. This traces back to the time when all "proceedings relating to children" were under the auspices of the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services, formerly known as HRS. The agency's approach to dependency cases and delinquency cases were the same—provide social services to the child and the family. In accordance with Chapter 39 of the Florida Statutes, HRS addressed many different types of actions involving children, ranging from dependency actions in child abuse cases to delinquency proceeding for juveniles charged with criminal acts.
The first of Florida's gradual efforts to shift the state's juvenile justice system away from a social services model occurred in 1994. The Legislature created the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ), providing for the transfer of powers, duties, property, records, personnel, and unexpended balances of related appropriations and other funds from the HRS Juvenile Justice Program Office to the new agency. DJJ was assigned responsibility for juvenile delinquency cases and children and families in need of services (CINS/FINS) cases. Juvenile justice provisions, which were then found in Chapter 39, F.S., remained virtually unchanged and most of the new agency's employees were former employees of HRS. Hence, philosophically, DJJ continued to approach juveniles as children in need of treatment and reform rather than criminals deserving punishment.
A further distancing of DJJ from its HRS origins occurred in 1997. Although few changes were made to substantive law, two new chapters in the Florida Statutes were created by transferring juvenile justice provisions from Chapter 39, F.S., to the newly created Chapters 984 and 985. Chapter 984, F.S., was created to contain provisions relating to CINS/FINS and Chapter 985, F.S., was created to contain provisions relating to juvenile delinquency cases.
In 2000, comprehensive legislation, known as the "Tough Love" plan, provided statutory authority for DJJ to overhaul its organizational structure. This legislation signified the most dramatic policy shift away from the social services model and toward a punitive criminal justice approach. However, even under the "Tough Love" plan, the juvenile justice system continued to be operationally and philosophically distinct from the adult criminal justice system. Florida continues to segregate juveniles from their adult counterparts, although there has been an expansion of the circumstances under which a juvenile can be prosecuted as an adult. Youth continue to be managed under a strategy of redirection and rehabilitation, rather than punishment. Although the State strengthened its hold on juvenile delinquents under the "Tough Love" plan, the system maintained focus on "treatment" designed to effect positive behavioral change.
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