Upgrade juvenile detention home

Posted July 15, 2012

For more than 30 years, the New River Valley Juvenile Detention Home in Christiansburg has housed youthful offenders, but the facility’s infrastructure has not kept up with the times.

The detention home has 24 beds for youth ages 7 to 17, though most are in their teens. It is a joint project of Montgomery, Giles and Pulaski counties as well as the city of Radford, but its beds are available to other New River Valley communities.

It is not, however, the same as an adult prison, at least not in the sense that it primarily incarcerates dangerous people. The mission of the detention home includes incarceration, it is true, but it also embraces the notion that these are children who deserve a chance to step from the dark paths they have started down.

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