In response to legislation that statutorily excludes certain violent adolescents from juvenile court jurisdiction, Pennsylvania has chosen to incarcerate its violent young adult offenders in a new facility (SCI Pine Grove) designed and built for this population. The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (PaDOC) has contracted with Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) to evaluate programs being implemented at SCI Pine Grove. The unique aspects of this collaboration are: (1) inclusion of evaluators on the PaDOC's program design committee; (2) use of a cooperative work group model to design and implement the evaluation; and (3) incorporation of the PaDOC in the evaluation via a steering committee. The evaluation team has begun to develop the survey instruments needed to measure staff and inmate perceptions about the programs. The planning efforts have been complicated by concerns as to the types of information that can be collected from the staff. There also will be confidentiality issues associated with doing multiple observations on inmates. Notes, table, references