Reform School - History

History

Social reformers in America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries almost invariably found fault with the then-usual practice of treating juvenile offenders essentially the same as adult criminals. It was recognized that the juveniles were often sexually and otherwise exploited by the older inmates and that they were often receiving instruction in more advanced and serious ways of crime by hardened criminals with little regard for law, society's morals, or even human life. As a result, rather than their sentences serving as a deterrent to future crimes, many juvenile offenders emerged from incarceration far worse than when they were first sentenced.

The reforms, which were adopted far more readily in some states than others, consisted of a two-pronged approach: a separate juvenile code and juvenile courts for offenders who had not reached the age of majority, and the building of separate institutions for juvenile "delinquents" (the stigmatizing term "criminal" not being used). Because the primary purpose of these institutions was to be rehabilitative rather than punitive, they were styled "reform schools". For the most part, these institutions were custodial.

In the 1950s and 1960s, many of the same problems that had occurred with the former system of incarcerating juveniles along with adults began to be noticed in reform school—older juveniles exploiting the younger ones, sexually and otherwise, and the younger ones taking the more hardened, usually older offenders as role models and mentors. Also, the term "reform school" itself, originally intended as destigmatizing, had developed its own stigma, much as the way "welfare payments" were intended to be the destigmatizing corrective term for "relief" or "the dole", but developed a stigma of its own.