Race,Sex,and Rehabilitation: A Study of Differential Treatment in the Juvenile Reformatory,1825-1900

Abstract

Although a significant amount of research has been completed on the history of the American Juvenile Justice system, researchers have presented narrow and misleading accounts by focusing their analyses upon white males and overlooking the care and control of blacks and females. In response to this problem, this paper provides an overview of the treatment of blacks and females from the opening of the nation's first juvenile reformatory-the New York House of Refuge, which opened in 1825—to the close of the nineteenth century. An examination of the annual reports of reformatories, as well as other primary data sources, reveals that nineteenth century child savers never intended the presumed benefits of reform to be applied equally to all children. Reformatory keepers, acting in accordance with racist and sexist sentiments which pervaded the nineteenth century social order, employed three versions of parens patriae: White males received the full benefits of reform and were trained as skilled artisans and farmers; black males were either denied admission or trained as manual laborers; and females were prepared for roles as wives and/or domestics. A brief review of contemporary practices is included to demonstrate that contemporary child savers have continued to distort the doctrine of parens patriae in accordance with racist and sexist sentiments, and provide blacks and females with different and less benevolent care than is provided to white males.