To the Community

      Green Oaks Juvenile Detention Center provides immediate protection from children whose behavior or whose acts have endangered and appears that it will continue to endanger the personal and property rights of others. If the detention experience is positive, the chances are much greater that the child will more readily respond to help from his probation officer, social worker, or the correctional institution or group setting to which he may be sent. The process thereby pays dividends to the community and reduces the number of repeated offenders. Green Oaks further seeks to serve the community by making the community aware of the juvenile courts' and their related agencies' efforts to help children with delinquency problems. The Detention Center also offers a rare opportunity for serving the community as a source of training to mature students in social and criminal justice fields through cooperative agreements with University of Louisiana at Monroe and Grambling State University.

      The philosophy under which Green Oaks Juvenile Detention Center operates is a derivative of the philosophy of juvenile courts in general.

      The Center, while rejecting delinquent behavior, does not reject the child who commits the delinquent act. This philosophy is not to be confused nor described as a permissive or "coddling" philosophy in regard to delinquency, but rather one which seeks to interpret to the child why it is necessary for society to set limits and to enforce them.