Treating Juveniles in Institutional and Open Settings (From Juvenile Justice Sourcebook: Past, Present, and Future, P 129-161, 2004, Albert R. Roberts, ed. -- See NCJ-206597)

• NCJ Number: 206602
• Author(s): Albert R. Roberts
• Date Published: 2004
• Length: 33 pages
• Sale Source: Oxford University Press, Inc
• Publication Format: Book (Hardbound)
• Publication Type: Historical Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This chapter traces the history of institutional treatment for juveniles, beginning with the early colonial practice of magistrates ordering parents to take their rowdy, out-of-control youths home for a whipping.

Abstract

It was common practice in both England and the American colonies for the head of the house to discipline all the youth who lived in the house. Punishment for juvenile delinquent acts was generally implemented in the home rather than in public institutions; however, during the 1700's there was increasing doubt about the ability of poor families to raise their children, coupled with dissatisfaction with the operation of the law as it applied to delinquent children. When the 1800's began, the label of juvenile delinquent was already being applied to children in the lower socioeconomic classes. The children who were apprehended were imprisoned with hardened adult offenders in rat-infested cells with little, if any, recreation, education, or rehabilitation. The movement to establish separate institutions for juvenile offenders began in New York City in 1819, when the Society for the Prevention of Pauperism reported on the horrendous conditions at Bellevue Prison. The juvenile institutions, called houses of refuge, were built to counteract the poverty, vice, and neglectful families that were breeding grounds for delinquency. By the beginning of the Civil War, these institutions had become overcrowded, and their conditions had deteriorated. The late 1800's saw the flourishing of the reformatory movement under the philosophy that proper training in a residential environment could offset detrimental early experiences of poverty, dysfunctional family life, and delinquent behaviors. In the early 1900's, there was renewed concern about the plight of institutionalized juveniles. The focus of reformers was on safety and healthful conditions and the strengthening of the court intake process to ensure that juveniles were not unnecessarily placed in detention. Attention was also given to the strengthening of community services. The final section of this chapter describes the emergence of forestry camps and junior probation camps during the 1940's and 1950's. 24 references