Mar
5
Jailed teens in the pink
Filed Under juvenile justice, single stories |
By KATHLEEN CHAPMAN
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Pink is the color of ballerinas and Barbie dolls, frilly dresses and little girls.
Now, it’s the color of cells for Florida’s violent teen offenders, too.
The secretary of Florida’s Department of Juvenile Justice, Anthony Schembri, hopes the pleasingly pink walls will help soothe angry, unruly youth.
After mixing paint and studying swatches to achieve the perfect blush, state workers painted one room pink at two juvenile lockups - one in the Panhandle and one in the Tampa Bay area.
If it works, more detention centers statewide could be pretty in pink.
“I want us to be bold,” Schembri said this week. “I want us to do things like this.”
Florida’s project is based on researcher Alexander Schauss’ popular study two decades ago that found pink walls help people relax.
According to Schauss, who tested hundreds of colors, the pink must be precise. It cannot be hot pink; it cannot be too pale. It must be a middling shade, about the color of Pepto-Bismol.
Schembri, a former New York corrections commissioner who likes to be known as a maverick, decided to give the theory a try. His staff took a swatch to the Benjamin Moore paint store in December, then sent a swatch to Schauss to make sure they had a pleasing pink.
Workers painted one cell at a treatment program for delinquent boys in Jackson County and one in the state-run detention center in western Hillsborough County. They plan to paint a room in a third center this spring.
The state is monitoring the two centers to see if rose-colored rooms really do work better than the standard beige or blue.
When a teen gets agitated or threatens to attack staff, workers lead him to a small pink room. They wait for up to 15 minutes and keep an eye on him while he cools down.
Ideally, Schembri said, the pink cells will reduce the number of kids and staff members hurt in Florida’s lockups for young offenders.
When kids in the centers get dangerously aggressive, workers are trained to pin their arms or take them down to the floor. Struggles can lead to bruises, broken arms and more serious injuries.
It costs the state about $50 to bathe a room in pink - less than a trip to the emergency room. If it might prevent injury, Schembri said, an unconventional idea is worth a try.
When Schauss’ research was first released, the country was captivated by his idea that something as simple as color could make anyone behave. Public schools experimented with colors, and Dan Rather did a segment. One film played the cool jazz Pink Panther theme while showing footage of a man unable to lift a weight while looking at pink-colored poster board.
The Department of Defense tried the color for a holding cell at a Navy base in Seattle and got good results. Several police departments followed suit.
The city of Greenacres was one pioneer in Pepto-Bismol pink. Police opened a station on Jog Road around the time of Schauss’ study and tried the color on a holding cell.
The bubble-gum color, which Lt. Steve Booth can only describe as “pink, I mean pink,” has stayed up for more than two decades. The department uses the room to house recently arrested criminals for a few hours while they are booked, before they are released or transferred to the main county jail.
Greenacres never kept before-and-after data on violent outbursts in the pink room, Booth said. Anecdotal data is mixed:
“Everyone is a case by case situation,” Booth said, “depending what type of alcohol or drugs might be onboard.”
Scientists differ on how much a color can affect mood. Some don’t believe that pink is more soothing than baby blue or mint green. But there does seem to be a consensus that pastel colors are relaxing while bright primary colors are more exciting.
Many in fields from marketing to interior design believe that color does make a difference. Hospital rooms are painted in neutral or light colors, while casinos and amusement parks go for bold. Retailers spend millions on color, lighting, music and even scents that will manipulate customers into staying longer and buying more.
A host of recent studies have claimed that red catches our attention, blue suppresses appetite and even that the right shade of orange helps new mothers breast feed.
Warren Reeves, the assistant superintendant of the Jackson County boys program, was skeptical about the pink project at first.
The program treats nearly 100 boys and men, most aged 14 to 22 and arrested for violent crimes such as battery or assault. Reeves didn’t know if a pink cell would make the difference.
Most of the boys are just sent to their own cells when they get upset, but about five so far have gone to the pink room. It really does seem to be working, Reeves said, though the center will need more evidence.
“It’s not enough for me to get behind it and say it works 100 percent of the time,” Reeves said. “But it has changed my outlook.”
Copyright 2005 The Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc.
Palm Beach Post (Florida)
March 5, 2005 Saturday
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