Method: Weekly ethnographic observations were conducted for 16 months at a juvenile correctional facility for severe male offenders in Minnesota. A series of five in-depth ethnographic interviews with twelve residents were conducted throughout their 4-6 month stay at the facility and up to three months after their transition home.

Findings: Three significant paradoxes were revealed through thematic analysis of field notes and interview transcripts. 1) In the treatment frame, staff encourage residents to “express their anger.” However, the correctional approach treats these expressions in a punitive manner and therefore contradicts the treatment messages.  2) The treatment model suggests that residents’ delinquent conduct stems from larger issues such as family and community problems, yet the correctional model teaches individualized explanations of delinquency such as “bad choices” and “criminal thinking. These mixed messages result in confusion for residents. 3) As staff use residents’ apparent investment in treatment to gage residents’ progress in the correctional program, residents learn to fake their emotions to expedite their release date. In this sense, treatment itself becomes a way to manipulate the system and reinforces a criminal thinking pattern.

Implications: This paper provides critical information for social workers and correctional workers seeking to understand how clinical social work modalities can effectively function in the context of a juvenile correctional setting. For a juvenile population, progress in “treatment” should not be used to reflect progress in a correctional program. Moreover, social workers and criminal justice professionals should be wary of mixed messages that arise when these two approaches are juxtaposed in one setting.