ABSTRACT
Leaving incarceration was the thing girls dreamed about and adults discussed in a variety of contexts. In juvenile incarceration education, the future was constantly being discussed. Girls once again experienced creative destruction in unprepared exits and the lessons they learned from juvenile incarceration were mixed, and yet girls invented spaces for themselves and developed strategies of resistance. Teachers worked to (re)construct girls as criminals and argued that only the redemptive power of juvenile incarceration could provide them with appropriate behaviors. Overall, all teachers accounted for great things that juvenile incarceration education did. However, many teachers expressed concern over the ability of the program to adequately prepare the girls for release. In the face of the complex realities of exiting juvenile incarceration, many adults focused on the redemptive powers of juvenile incarceration as the only places capable of teaching the girls needed behaviors.
