Monday morning we visited Zaklad Poprawczy in Poznan, a reformatory for juvenile boys that would be equivalent to Iowa's state training school in Toledo. There are 26 of these training schools in Poland and there will also be a re-entry center for juvenile boys opening in September of this year. Every officer that works at this facility is trained as an educator, and the focus of the center is "resocialization", which we would refer to as rehabilitation. The center under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice. The Vice Director, Sebastian Dec, was our tour guide for the morning.
Clients at the center study, receive vocational training, and are also allowed to leave on passes and "holiday", or lengthier passes. The program is based on a token economy and all passes and priveleges are based on behavior. Clients at the center are there as the result of a legal charge received before age 17, and can stay as long as age 21. There is room for 72 boys in the facility.
We also had the opportunity to eat lunch at the facility, and the food was wonderful - not at all what we would consider institutional food!
In the afternoon we visited the Remand Center for juvenile boys in a neighboring town. This would be the equivalent of our juvenile detention centers, and boys age 13-21 stay there for 3-6 months while going through the process of being sentenced. There is room for 36 boys in the facility. They were housed in groups of 12, and the groups are assigned a color that they use to categorize the boys by age. All clients study and do activities with their color group during the day, and are allowed in their bedroom (shared by all 12 clients) only to sleep. They are not given actual vocational training due to their length of stay, but are given basic training in how to use tools of various vocations.
On the way back to Posnan, Chief Officer Szostak invited us to visit the Museum of Miniatures, where we saw miniature reconstructions of all the major sights around Poznan that we have visited.
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