Figure 1.--This 1981 photo shows two boys under the tight structure of the Mount View School, a Colorado reformatory. There were 87 boys at the fascility.

America generally referred to institutions dealing with juvenile delinquents and other difficult children as reformatories. The actual names of specific refornatories varied widely. There were no national system of reformatories, but rather each state had their own system. Many charity groups set up instituions to deal with orphaned children, but reformatories were for children who usually had parents. They were designed to handle children deamed incorigible, but not yet convicted of serious crimes. This varied as children with behavioral problems such as truancy might be mixed with children running away from abusive parents or children involved with petty crimes. Or their might be some children who had committed serious crimes, but because of their youth were not committed to adult prisons. One of the first reformatories we are aware of is the experimenatal residential John Worthy School established in Chicago (1891), Unfortunately we have no inforation on its success. It was closed (1916). We do no know why. Conditions at many of these facilities were often very severe, if not brutal. One account exposes the physical abuse of the boys at Westbrook reformatory for Boys outside Toowoomba during the 1960s, describing vicious guard. [Fletcher] There are many similar accounts. The states passed laws which provided for trying youthfulm offenders in juvenile courts. This prevented many abuses, but the juvenile courts do not provide the same rights to accused iffenders as the adult couurts. Court decisions in the 1970s began to bring more enlightened regimes to these facilities. Many states have adopted group home approaches in recent years. A disturbing tendency in recent years has been the level of violence which youths get involved. This has caused many states to pass laws allowing procecuters to try especially violent youths as adults. Most American reformatories do not require uniforms.

Created: 6:05 AM 6/21/2010
Last update: 4:22 PM 3/5/2025