Reform Schools - Historical Perspective
For the first half of the 19th Century, children were treated as simply smaller versions of adults when it came to arrest, trial, conviction and incarceration. For young and old, conviction and sentencing meant confinement in “penitentiaries” with brutal and mind-numbing conditions, ranging from harsh physical labor, to beatings, to enforced silence whose violation was severely punished. Gradually, reformers, elected officials and judges began a form of nullification, refusing to convict or sentence youthful offenders to incarceration due to the appalling conditions they would experience in confinement.In the mid-1800’s states began to create separate but similar facilities for youthful offenders to imprison them apart from adults. In 1886, the Lyman School for Boys opened in Lyman, Massachusetts, the first in what would become a nationwide experiment with placing troubled youth into prison-like facilities to achieve their reformation.
Unfortunately, this perceived solution to the problem of what to do with juvenile offenders has not played out the way 19th advocates had hoped. Increasingly sophisticated studies have found that placement in congregate care facilities like reform schools may expose youth to more intensely delinquent or disturbed youth, increase recidivism, destabilize the mental health of young people and place them at greater risk of suicide, and retard employment and educational prospects. In 2006, Justice Policy Institute researchers took a critical look at the impact of the reform school setting on delinquent youth.
Careful studies of youth in Arkansas’ juvenile justice system found that, controlling for other factors, juvenile delinquents who’d spent time in a congregate care facility were much more likely to reoffend. The chances of being recommitted to the Arkansas Department of Youth Services increased 13-fold for youth with prior commitments. Repeatedly, researchers have shown that delinquent behavior, even serious delinquency, is normative behavior for teenage males, and that incarceration can slow the natural process of maturing out of delinquency. Thus, a more effective alternative such as: therapeutic boarding schools; residential treatment centers and wilderness programs have replaced the antiquated reform school model.
Reform Schools in America
Lyman School for Boys. Established 1846 in Westborough, Massachusetts; reorganized 1886. A large working farm of 500 acres that the residents maintained was able to finance most of the school’s operations until 1955.
Oregon State Training School. Established 1891 in Salem, Oregon. Students were required to spend four hours a day on class work and four hours a day working on learning a skilled trade, or working in the school’s farm and orchard.
Waukesha Home of Refuge. Established 1860 in Waukesha, Wisconsin. This school emphasized the importance of agricultural—especially dairying—skills, and employed residents in the manufacture of brooms, baskets, and other household goods.
Dozier School for Boys. Established in 1900 in Mariana, Florida. Became notorious over the course of several decades for harsh conditions, beatings, and repeated escape attempts made by residents.
