North Dakota Youth Correctional Center

North Dakota Youth Correctional Center is a prison for juvenile inmates that is located in Mandan, North Dakota. This facility is operated by the North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The mission statement of the North Dakota Youth Correctional Center is to provide professional, team-oriented juvenile correctional services to troubled adolescents within a safe and secure environment.

The Detention Program at this facility is designed to provide a short placement for those juveniles who have committed a crime in the community and need to be held in a secure facility pending a court hearing and disposition of their case. 

"If a child is participating in a juvenile drug court program, the drug court may order the child detained. The child may be detained twice during the child’s participation in the program but the total period of detention under this subsection may not exceed four days in a one-year period."

The facility features three different cottages: Brown, Hickory, and Pine. 

Brown Cottage is a 16-bed structure housing female juveniles for Detention, Assessment, and Treatment. Hickory Cottage is a 35-bed structure, housing male treatment status juveniles. A Mental Health Specialist, a Nurse Practitioner, a dentist office, nurse’s offices, and a medical examination room is located on the lower level of Hickory Cottage. An Intensive Outpatient Drug and Alcohol Treatment Program is also located on the lower level of this cottage.

Pine Cottage is a 25-bed structure housing male juveniles. Cottage staff provide a variety of programs including Assessment, Detention, Time Out, and Special Management. Additionally, this cottage houses high risk or high maintenance male juveniles. It also serves as the intake cottage for all new male admissions.

Prison Insights

Visiting Hours and Rules

The North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is utilizing a phased strategy approach to resume visitation at its facilities. The Youth Correctional Center (YCC) began outdoor visitation June 27, 2020.

YCC family visits allow for two adults per visitation. Each cottage will have a 60-minute visitation period on Saturdays and Sundays as follows:

Hickory Cottage 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm
Pine Cottage 1:30 pm to 2:30 pm
Brown Cottage 3:00 pm to 4:00 pm

Social distancing etiquette will remain in place for youth and their visitors, tables will be sprayed down with disinfectant between visitations, and hand sanitizer will be available.

All visitors youth from YCC will be issued masks; visitors will have their temperature taken and asked screening form questions. Anyone who has a fever of 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit or greater or who answers yes to any of the questions on the screening questionnaire will not be permitted. 

Families wishing to visit at YCC may contact the Juvenile Correctional Institute Case Manager for the designated Cottage of whom they wish to visit. 

Visiting Applications

All visitors must complete a visiting application and be pre-approved and placed on the inmate’s visiting list prior to visitation.

Visitor application forms are supplied to inmates during orientation and are also available in the housing units. The form is to be completed, in full, and returned to the facility so it can be approved before you are placed on the visiting list and allowed to visit. 

It is the inmate’s responsibility to make sure visitors receive and return the forms. Incomplete forms are not accepted. Everyone will be required to complete the form except minors under the age of 16. Minor children must be listed on the applications of the parent or guardian who will accompany them. 

Dress Code

The visiting room is a family experience, so there are rules governing the type and amount of physical contact allowed during the visit. 

All visitors must be fully dressed in appropriate, conventional clothing which is not unduly provocative or revealing and does not resemble resident attire. For the intent of this policy, resident attire is any combination of plane white or grey t-shirt, collared khaki shirt, blue jeans, or khaki pants.

Visitor clothing standards include:

• No obscene language, gang references, drug and alcohol references, or other objectionable messages on clothing.
• Visitors are not to wear any garment which unduly exposes the chest, shoulders, back, stomach, midriff, underarm, sweatpants or pajamas. Necklines must be within two inches of the notch of the neck.
• Clothing designed or intended to be tightly worn to excessively accent the body, e.g. spandex, tights, yoga pants, tank tops, etc. is not allowed.
• Shorts shall not be worn if more than two inches above the kneecap when standing. Dresses and skirts shall not be less than mid-calf in length. Slit dresses/skirts shall be allowed only if the slit is not more than two inches above the kneecap while standing.
• Clothing made of sheer, transparent, net/mesh materials, with metallic ornamentation or any decoration not directly related to the functionality of the clothing is not allowed.
• Pants are not to have holes in them.
• Appropriate undergarments are required but should not be visible.
• Close-toed shoes are required.
• Visitors are not to wear hats, gloves, scarves, or outer garments, such as topcoats, raincoats, jackets, and similar inclement weather attire in the visiting area.
• No jewelry – including no watch – is allowed with the exception of one ring and a pair of studded earrings.

JPay gives family and friends the option to instantly purchase stamps and send electronic mail to a resident at North Dakota Youth Correctional Center. Click here for JPay.com so you can send a letter right now. Your email will be printed in the mail room and distributed along with the day’s regular mail.

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Programs For Inmates

Recreation

Recreational activities for juveniles housed at the North Dakota Youth Correctional Center are detailed in a weekly schedule prepared by the Director of Recreation. All activities are aligned to the Physical Education and Health standards that all students will experience. At least 90 minutes of "major muscle group" activities are scheduled for each week day and two hours on weekends and holidays.

In addition, students who are in need of physical education credit towards their high school diploma will gain the hours and instruction needed for this credit during the physical education time scheduled within the students' day. Students are given a monthly fitness test to ensure they are maintaining or improving their general physical fitness. All activities are closely supervised, instructions of the rules are provided, and all participate in a supervised stretching and a warm-up prior to daily activity.

Treatment Services

One Circle Foundation Program

This program is designed in the evidence-based principles of Motivational Interviewing and Strengths-Based approaches that target resilience and protective factors, in addition to stimulating and critical thinking and moral reasoning through experiential activities and guided discussions.

Girls Circle is a female-responsive program for girls 9-18 years of age regardless of risk factor. Girls Circle focuses on being responsive to adolescent female development rom a holistic perspective which takes into consideration the effects of a girl’s culture, gender, relationships and environment, as well as trauma by establishing a safe group experience that recognizes and fosters girls’ capacities for healthy relationships, empathy (being a primary and essential social skill), self-expression, the development of meaningful educational, career, and relationship goals and interpersonal skills.

Boys Council focuses on being responsive to adolescent male development from a holistic perspective, which takes into consideration the effects of trauma and violence, and on a boy’s culture and environment by establishing a safe group experience that fosters social-emotional development and empathy (being a primary and essential skill) while holding youth accountable and responsible for their behavior and choices. Additionally, it stimulates emotion management in a supportive way that establishes healthy and caring relationships with peers and adults and reconnects them to society in a pro-social capacity with the primary goal being a successful re-entry from correctional settings.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy

Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) treatment is a type of psychotherapy — or talk therapy — that utilizes a cognitive-behavioral approach. DBT emphasizes the psychosocial aspects of treatment. The theory behind the approach is that some people are prone to react in a more intense and out-of-the-ordinary manner toward certain emotional situations.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is an integrative psychotherapy approach that has been extensively researched and proven effective for the treatment of trauma. EMDR is a set of standardized protocols that incorporates elements from many different treatment approaches.

Drug & Alcohol Programming

The North Dakota Youth Correctional Center (NDYCC) provides Intensive Outpatient Drug and Alcohol Treatment at Level II.1 for qualified juveniles placed at the NDYCC, as well as an aftercare program at Level I.

The current model of substance abuse treatment is Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Substance Abuse or CBI-SA. The CBI-SA model provides a curriculum designed for individuals who are moderate to high risk and moderate to high need in the area of substance abuse. It relies on a cognitive-behavioral approach to teach participants strategies for avoiding substance abuse. The program places a heavy emphasis on skill-building activities to assist with cognitive, social, emotional, and coping skills development.

It is a 10 to 12 week cognitive behavioral intervention that covers Seven Modules: Optional Pre-treatment Sessions, Motivational Engagements, Cognitive Restructuring, Emotional Regulation, Social Skill Development, Problem Solving Skill Development, and Relapse Prevention. The curriculum is designed for juveniles to receive 42 lessons, as well as numerous Advanced Practice sessions to continue implementing skills.

Mental Health Services

The North Dakota Youth Correctional Center’s Sexual Offender Pretreatment Program

This program works with juveniles who have been adjudicated with a sexual offense and are court ordered for treatment. The juveniles receive pre-treatment programming with a certified NDYCC case manager to prepare them for more intensive therapy upon release. The Sexual Offender Pre-Treatment Program does not have a specific timeframe for completion, as it is tailored to focusing on each juvenile’s needs. Pre-Treatment programming focuses on the following areas, but are not limited to: Psycho-education; Relationships/Boundaries; Moral; Values and Core Beliefs; Offense Cycle; Cognitive Distortions; Empathy; Creating a Safety Plan; and the importance to being committed to their treatment.

Structured Psychotherapy for Adolescents Responding to Chronic Stress (SPARCS)

SPARCS is a group intervention that was specifically designed to address the needs of chronically traumatized adolescents who may still be living with ongoing stress and are experiencing problems in several areas of functioning. These areas include difficulties with affect regulation and impulsivity, self-perception, relationships, somatization, dissociation, numbing and avoidance, and struggles with their own purpose and meaning in life as well as worldviews that make it difficult for them to see a future for themselves. Overall goals of the program are to help teens cope more effectively in the moment, enhance self-efficacy, connect with others and establish supportive relationships, cultivate awareness, and create meaning.

Phoenix New Freedom (PNF)

PNF is a state-of-the-art resource including 100 one-hour lessons organized into five 20-session modules. These intensive interventions are based on cognitive-behavioral (CBT), motivational interviewing (MI), and social learning concepts. They are designed to reduce resistance to behavioral change and decrease antisocial behaviors, including gang activity, while increasing linkage to protective factors and pro-social elements.

Education

The North Dakota Youth Correctional Center offers education to all individuals who are eligible for schooling. All educational offerings are based on the individual’s own needs. This unique environment of small class sizes and more one-on-one opportunities can be very effective for the NDYCC students. The offerings are diverse and rich in variety. The school is accredited by the Department of Public Instruction and AdvancED. The students have the opportunity to participate in the following educational environments:

• Adult Basic Education Program working toward General Education Development (GED)
• Basic Skills Training
• Career and Technical Educational Courses
• Core Subject Areas
• Elective Courses
• Junior High and High School Courses
• All Marmot High School students will participate in home-base programming

Career Resources

The North Dakota Youth Correctional Center provides a full time school career counselor who meets individually and in small groups with all students. During these working sessions, students have the chance to explore interests as well as build a resume and resources to take with them upon leaving our facility.

• Career Plan
• College Related Services
• FAFSA (Financial Aid Applications)
• Scholarships
• College Applications
• Cover Letters
• Interests Inventory
• Interview Practice
• Resumes
• Testing Opportunities
• ACT
• ASVAB

Orientation Program

Orientation is a requirement for all new students in their first week on campus. It familiarizes students to the expectations and procedures of the school at the NDYCC. It also gives students the opportunity to reflect on their current situation as well as examine their educational program. The final element of orientation is a school tour to better transition the students smoothly into their first day of school.

Pictures of North Dakota Youth Correctional Center

Careers at North Dakota Youth Correctional Center