Virginia Law

The Board shall have the following powers and duties:

1. To establish and monitor policies for the programs and facilities for which the Department is responsible under this law.

2. To ensure the development of a long-range youth services policy.

3. To monitor the activities of the Department and its effectiveness in implementing the policies developed by the Board.

4. To advise the Governor and Director on matters relating to youth services.

5. To promulgate such regulations as may be necessary to carry out the provisions of this title and other laws of the Commonwealth.

6. To ensure the development of programs to educate citizens and elicit public support for the activities of the Department.

7. To establish length-of-stay guidelines for juveniles indeterminately committed to the Department and to make such guidelines available for public comment.

8. To adopt all necessary regulations for the management and operation of the schools in the Department except that the regulations adopted hereunder shall not conflict with regulations relating to security of the institutions in which the juveniles are committed.

9. To establish compulsory minimum entry-level, in-service, and advanced training standards, as well as the time required for completion of such training, for persons employed as juvenile correctional officers employed at a juvenile correctional facility as defined in § 66-25.3. For such juvenile correctional officers who may have contact with pregnant inmates, such standards shall include training on the general care of pregnant women, the impact of restraints on pregnant inmates and fetuses, the impact of being placed in restrictive housing or solitary confinement on pregnant inmates, and the impact of body cavity searches on pregnant inmates.

1989, c. 733; 1990, c. 679; 1996, cc. 755, 914; 2012, cc. 164, 456, 803, 835; 2019, c. 366; 2020, c. 526.