§8902. Establishment

The State shall maintain the Maine Youth Center located at South Portland.

1.__Coeducational. The center is coeducational.

2.__Separate housing. The center shall fully separate the housing facilities for boys and girls.

§8903.__Purposes

1.__Statement. The purposes of the Maine Youth Center are:

A.__To detain juveniles pending a court proceeding or pending a preliminary hearing under Title 17-A, section 1205;

B.__To administer court-ordered diagnostic evaluations pursuant to Title 15, section 3309-A and court-ordered examinations pursuant to Title 15, section 3318;

C.__To rehabilitate juveniles committed to a juvenile correctional facility pursuant to Title 15, section 3314, subsection 1, paragraph F; and

D.__To protect the public from dangerous juveniles.

2.__Accomplishment. To accomplish the purposes set out in subsection 1, the disciplines of education, casework, group work, psychology, psychiatry, medicine, nursing, vocational training and religion as they are related to human relations and personality development must be employed.__Security measures, whether in the form of physically restrictive construction or intensive staff supervision, when appropriate, may be taken to accomplish these purposes.

3.__Funding sources.__The commissioner may use the following funding sources.

A.__The commissioner may accept for the State any federal funds appropriated under federal law relating to the juvenile offender and may do whatever is necessary to carry out the federal law.

B.__The commissioner may accept, from any other agency of government, person, group or corporation, any funds that may be available in carrying out this Title.