NCJ Number
114693
Date Published
1989
Length
19 pages
Annotation
This chapter reviews the history of juvenile institutional treatment from the 1700's to the 1950's.
Abstract
The early practice of incarcerating juvenile offenders with adult offenders is examined and traced to the development of completely separate facilities for juveniles in the 1800's. The deplorable conditions in juvenile detention homes are described, as are the efforts of reformers such as Enoch Wines and Homer Folks and advocacy groups such as the Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents. Sherwood Norman's study of conditions and deplorable problems that existed during the 1930's and 1940's. The emergence of forestry camps and junior probation camps in the 1940's and 1950's also is described. Such camps provided an intermediate alternative between sending delinquents back to the community with no treatment and putting youth in prisons or reformatories where rehabilitative and educational services were sorely lacking. Such camps provided educational services, meaningful work, and in some cases counseling, as well as an opportunity for improving relationship skills, presaging the development of outdoor adventure and wilderness challenge programs of the 1970's and 1980's. Chapter illustration, 8 discussion questions, and 24 references.