juvenile justice guiding principles

21 The Rise of the Child-Saving Movement: A Study in Social Policy and Correctional Reform* By ANTHONY PLATT Anthony Platt, Ph.D., Berkeley, California, is Assistant Professor of Criminology, University of California, Berkeley, where he is completing research on the work and careers of criminal defense lawyers. From 1966 to 1968, he was Research Fellow, Center for Studies in Criminal Justice, University of Chicago, where this paper was written.* This paper is adapted from part of the author’s book, The Child-Savers: The Invention of Delinquency, which will be published by the University of Chicago Press in Spring 1969. I am grateful to Howard Becker, Gordon Hawkins, and Sheldon Messinger for their advice on many aspects of this paper. ABSTRACT: Contemporary programs of delinquency-control can be traced to the enterprising reforms of the child-savers who, at the end of the nineteenth century, helped to create special judicial and correctional institutions for the labeling, processing, and management of "troublesome" youth. Child- saving was a conservative and romantic movement, designed to impose sanctions on conduct unbecoming youth and to dis- qualify youth from enjoying adult privileges. The child- savers were prohibitionists, in a general sense, who believed in close supervision of adolescents’ recreation and leisure. The movement brought attention to, and thus "invented," new categories of youthful misbehavior which had been previously unappreciated or had been dealt with on an informal basis. Child-saving was heavily influenced by middle-class women who extended their housewifely roles into public service and emphasized the dependence of the social order on the proper socialization of children. This analysis of the child-savers offers an opportunity to examine more general issues in cor- rectional research: What are the dynamics of the popular and legislative drive to bring "undesirable" behavior within the ambit of the criminal law? What problems are caused by "agency-determined" research? What are the practical and policy implications of research on politically sensitive institutions? 22 STUDIES of crime and delinquency have, for the most part, focused on their psychological and environmental origins. Correctional research has tradi- tionally encompassed the relationship between prisoners and prison-manage- ment, the operation of penal programs, the implementation of the &dquo;rehabilita- tive ideal&dquo; and, in recent years, the ef- fectiveness of community-based correc- tions. On the other hand, we know very little about the social processes by which certain types of behavior come to be defined as &dquo;criminal&dquo; or about the ori- gins of penal reforms.’ If we intend rationally to assess the nature and pur- poses of correctional policies, it is of considerable importance to understand how laws and legislation are passed, how changes in penal practices are im- plemented, and what interests are served by such reforms. This paper analyzes the nature and origins of the reform movement in juve- nile justice and juvenile corrections at the end of the nineteenth century. Delinquency raises fundamental ques- tions about the objects of social control, and it was through the child-saving movement that the modem system of delinquency-control emerged in the United States. The child-savers were responsible for creating a new legal in- stitution for penalizing children (juve- nile court) and a new correctional insti- tution to accommodate the needs of youth (reformatory). The origins of &dquo;delinquency&dquo; are to be found in the programs and ideas of these reformers, who recognized the existence and carriers of delinquent norms. IMAGES OF DELINQUENCY The child-saving movement, like most moral crusades, was characterized by a &dquo;rhetoric of legitimization,&dquo; 2 built on traditional values and imagery. From the medical profession, the child-savers borrowed the imagery of pathology, in- fection, and treatment; from the tenets of Social Darwinism, they derived their pessimistic views about the intractabil- ity of human nature and the innate moral defects of the working class; finally, their ideas about the biological and environmental origins of crime may be attributed to the positivist tradition in European criminology and to anti- urban sentiments associated with the rural, Protestant ethic. American criminology in the last cen- tury was essentially a practical affair. Theoretical concepts of crime were im- ported from Europe, and an indiscrimi- nating eclecticism dominated the litera- ture. Lombrosian positivism and Social Darwinism were the major sources of intellectual justification for crime work- ers. The pessimism of Darwinism, how- ever, was counterbalanced by notions of charity, religious optimism, and the dig- nity of suffering which were implicit components of the Protestant ethic. Before 1870, there were only a few American textbooks on crime, and the various penal organizations lacked spe- cialized journals. Departments of law and sociology in the universities were rarely concerned with more than the de- scription and classification of crimes. The first American writers on crime were physicians, like Benjamin Rush and Isaac Ray, who were trained accord- ing to European methods. The social sciences were similarly imported from Europe, and American criminologists fitted their data to the theoretical frame- work of criminal anthropology. Herbert Spencer’s writings had an enormous im- pact on American intellectuals, and 1 This perspective is influenced by Howard S. Becker, Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance (New York: Free Press, 1966). 2 This term is used by Donald W. Ball, "An Abortion Clinic Ethnography," 14 Social Prob- lems, 1967, pp. 293-301. 23 Cesare Lombroso, perhaps the most sig- nificant figure in nineteenth-century criminology, looked for recognition in the United States when he felt that his experiments had been neglected in Europe. 3 Although Lombroso’s theoretical and experimental studies were not translated into English until 1911, his findings were known by American academics in the early 1890’s, and their popularity, like that of Spencer’s works, was based on the fact that they confirmed popular assumptions about the character and existence of a &dquo;criminal class.&dquo; Lom- broso’s original theory suggested the existence of a criminal type distinguish- able from noncriminals by observable physical anomalies of a degenerative or atavistic nature. He proposed that the criminal was a morally inferior human species, characterized by physical traits reminiscent of apes, lower primates, and savage tribes. The criminal was thought to be morally retarded and, like a small child, instinctively aggressive and pre- cocious unless restrained.4 It is not dif- ficult to see the connection between bio- logical determinism in criminological literature and the principles of &dquo;natural selection&dquo;; both of these theoretical po- sitions automatically justified the &dquo;erad- ication of elements that constituted a permanent and serious danger.&dquo; Ii Nature versus nurture Before 1900, American writers were familiar with Lombroso’s general prop- ositions but had only the briefest knowledge of his research techniques.’ Although the emerging doctrines of pre- ventive criminology implied human mal- leability, most American penologists were preoccupied with the intractability of the &dquo;criminal classes.&dquo; Hamilton Wey, an influential physician at Elmira Reformatory, argued before the Na- tional Prison Association in 1881 that criminals were &dquo;a distinct type of human species,&dquo; characterized by flat-footed- ness, asymmetrical bodies, and &dquo;degen- erative physiognomy.&dquo; 7 Literature on &dquo;social degradation&dquo; was extremely popular during the 1870’s and 1880’s, though most such &dquo;studies&dquo; were little more than crude polemics, padded with moralistic epithets and precon- ceived value judgments. Richard Dug- dale’s series of papers on the Jukes family, which became a model for the case-study approach to social problems, was distorted almost beyond recognition by anti-intellectual supporters of heredi- tary theories of crime.8 Confronted by the evidence of Darwin, Galton, Dug- dale, Caldwell, and many other disciples of the biological image of man, correc- tional professionals were compelled to admit that &dquo;a large proportion of the unfortunate children that go to make up the great army of criminals are not born right.&dquo; 9 Reformers adopted the rheto- 3 See Lombroso’s Introduction to Arthur MacDonald, Criminology (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1893). 4 Marvin E. Wolfgang, "Cesare Lombroso," in Hermann Mannheim (ed.), Pioneers in Criminology (London: Stevens and Sons, 1960), pp. 168-227. 5 Leon Radzinowicz, Ideology and Crime (London: Heinemann Educational Books, 1966), p. 55. 6 See, for example, Arthur MacDonald, Ab- normal Man (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Govern- ment Printing Office, 1893); and Robert Fletcher, The New School of Criminal An- thropology (Washington, D.C.: Judd and Detwiler, 1891). 7 Hamilton D. Wey, "A Plea for Physical Training of Youthful Criminals," in National Prison Association, Proceedings of the Annual Congress (Boston, 1888), pp. 181-193. 8 Richard L. Dugdale, "Hereditary Pauper- ism, as Illustrated in the ’Jukes’ Family," in Annual Conference of Charities, Proceedings (Saratoga, 1877), pp. 81-99; The Jukes: A Study in Crime, Pauperism, Disease, and Heredity (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1877).9 Sarah B. Cooper, "The Kindergarten as Child-Saving Work," in National Conference 24 ric of Darwinism in order to emphasize the urgent need for confronting the &dquo;crime problem&dquo; before it got com- pletely out of hand. A popular pro- posal was the &dquo;methodized registration and training&dquo; of potential criminals, &dquo;or these failing, their early and entire withdrawal from the community The organization of correctional work- ers through national representatives and their identification with the professions of law and medicine operated to dis- credit the tenets of Darwinism and Lombrosian theory. Correctional work- ers did not think of themselves merely as the custodians of a pariah class. The self-image of penal reformers as doctors rather than guards and the domination of criminological research in the United States by physicians helped to encourage the acceptance of &dquo;therapeutic&dquo; strate- gies in prisons and reformatories. As Arthur Fink has observed: The role of the physician in this ferment is unmistakable. Indeed, he was the dy- namic a.gent.... Not only did he pre- serve and add to existing knowledge-for his field touched all borders of science-but he helped to maintain and extend the methodology of science.ll Perhaps what is more significant is that physicians furnished the official rhetoric of penal reform. Admittedly, the crimi- nal was &dquo;pathological&dquo; and &dquo;diseased,&dquo; but medical science offered the possibil- ity of miraculous cures. Although there was a popular belief in the existence of a &dquo;criminal class&dquo; separated from the rest of mankind by a &dquo;vague boundary line,&dquo; there was no good reason why this class could not be identified, diagnosed, segregated, changed, and controlled By the late 1890’s, most correctional administrators agreed that hereditary theories of crime were overfatalistic. The superintendent of the Kentucky In- dustrial School of Reform told delegates to a national conference on corrections that heredity is &dquo;unjustifiably made a bugaboo to discourage efforts at rescue. We know that physical heredity tend- encies can be neutralized and often nullified by proper counteracting pre- cautions.&dquo; 13 E. R. L. Gould, a sociolo- gist at the University of Chicago, similarly criticized biological theories of crime for being unconvincing and senti- mental. &dquo;Is it not better,&dquo; he said, &dquo;to postulate freedom of choice than to preach the doctrine of the unfettered will, and so elevate criminality into a propitiary sacrifice?&dquo; 14 Charles Cooley was one of the first sociologists to observe that criminal behavior depended as much upon social and economic circumstances as it did upon the inheritance of biological traits. &dquo;The criminal class,&dquo; he said, &dquo;is largely the result of society’s bad workmanship upon fairly good material.&dquo; In support of this argument, he noted that there was a &dquo;large and fairly trustworthy body of evidence&dquo; to suggest that many &dquo;degenerates&dquo; could be converted into &dquo;useful citizens by rational treatment.&dquo; 15 of Charities and Correction, Proceedings (Madison, 1883), pp. 130-138. 10 I. N. Kerlin, "The Moral Imbecile," in National Conference of Charities and Cor- rection, Proceedings (Baltimore, 1890), pp. 244-250.11 Arthur E. Fink, Causes of Crime: Bio- logical Theories in the United States, 1800- 1915 (New York: A. S. Barnes, 1962), p. 247. 12 See, for example, Illinois, Board of State Commissioners of Public Charities, Second Biennial Report (Springfield: State Journal Steam Print, 1873), pp. 195-196. 13 Peter Caldwell, "The Duty of the State to Delinquent Children," National Conference of Charities and Correction, Proceedings (New Haven, 1895), pp. 134-143. 14 E. R. L. Gould, "The Statistical Study of Hereditary Criminality," National Confer- ence of Charities and Correction, Proceedings (New Haven, 1895), pp. 134-143. 15 Charles H. Cooley, " ’Nature v. Nurture’ in the Making of Social Careers," National Conference of Charities and Correction, Pro- 25 Urban disenchantment Another important influence on nine- teenth-century criminology was a dis- enchantment with urban life-an atti- tude which is still prevalent in much &dquo;social problems&dquo; research. Immigrants were regarded as &dquo;unsocialized,&dquo; and the city’s impersonality compounded their isolation and degradation. &dquo;By some cruel alchemy,&dquo; wrote Julia Lathrop, &dquo;we take the sturdiest of European peasantry and at once destroy in a large measure its power to rear to decent livelihood the first generation of offspring upon our soil.&dquo; 16 The city symbolically embodied all the worst fea- tures of industrial life. A member of the Massachusetts Board of Charities observed:

Children acquire a perverted taste for city life and crowded streets; but if introduced when young to country life, care of animals and plants, and rural pleasures, they are likely ... to be healthier in mind and body for such associations.&dquo; Programs which promoted rural and primary group concepts were encour- aged because slum life was regarded as unregulated, vicious, and lacking social rules. Its inhabitants were depicted as abnormal and maladjusted, living their lives in chaos and conflict.l8 It was consequently the task of social reform- ers to make city life more wholesome, honest, and free from depravity. Bev- erley Warner told the National Prison Association in 1898 that philanthropic organizations all over the country were making efforts to get the children out of the slums, even if only once a week, into the radiance of better lives.... It is only by leading the child out of sin and de- bauchery, in which it has lived, into the circle of life that is a repudiation of things that it sees in its daily life, that it can be influenced.19 Although there was a wide difference of opinion among experts as to the pre- cipitating causes of crime, it was gen- erally agreed that criminals were abnor- mally conditioned by a multitude of biological and environmental forces, some of which were permanent and ir- reversible. Biological theories of crime were modified to incorporate a develop- mental view of human behavior. If, as it was believed, criminals are condi- tioned by biological heritage and brutish living conditions, then prophylactic measures must be taken early in life. Criminals of the future generations must be reached. &dquo;They are born to crime,&dquo; wrote the penologist Enoch Wines in 1880, &dquo;brought up for it. They must be saved. 11 20 MATERNAL JUSTICE The 1880’s and 1890’s represented for many middle-class intellectuals and professionals a period of discovery of the &dquo;dim attics and damp cellars in poverty-stricken sections of populous towns&dquo; and of &dquo;innumerable haunts of misery throughout the land.&dquo; 21 The ceedings (Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1896), pp. 399-405.

16 Julia Lathrop, "The Development of the Probation System in a Large City," 13 Chari- ties (January 1905), p. 348. 17 Clara T. Leonard, "Family Homes for Pauper and Dependent Children," Annual Con- ference of Charities, Proceedings (Chicago, 1879), p. 174. 18 William Foote Whyte, "Social Disorgani- zation in the Slums," 8 American Sociological Review (1943), pp. 34-39. 19 Beverley Warner, "Child-Saving," in Na- tional Prison Association, Proceedings of the Annual Congress (Indianapolis, 1893), pp. 377-378.20 Enoch C. Wines, The State of Prisons and of Child-Saving Institutions in the Civilized World (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1880), p. 132. 21 William P. Letchworth, "Children of the State," National Conference of Charities and Correction, Proceedings (St. Paul, Minn., 1886), p. 138. The idea that intellectuals discovered poverty as a result of their own alienation from the centers of power has been fully treated by Richard Hofstadter, The Age 26 city was suddenly discovered to be a place of scarcity, disease, neglect, igno- rance, and &dquo;dangerous influences.&dquo; Its slums were the &dquo;last resorts of the pen- niless and the criminal&dquo;; here humanity reached its lowest level of degradation and despair.22The discovery of problems posed by &dquo;delinquent&dquo; youth was greatly influ- enced by the role of feminist reformers in the child-saving movement. It was widely agreed that it was a woman’s business to be involved in regulating the welfare of children, for women were considered the &dquo;natural caretakers&dquo; of wayward children. Women’s claim to the public care of children had some historical justification during the nine- teenth century, and their role in child-rearing was considered paramount. Women were regarded as better teachers than men and were also more influential in child-training at home. The fact that public education also came more under the direction of women teachers in the schools increased the pre- dominance of women in the raising of children. 28 Child-saving was a predominantly feminist movement, and it was regarded even by antifeminists as female do- main. The social circumstances behind this appreciation of maternalism were women’s emancipation and the accom- panying changes in the character of tra- ditional family life. Educated middle- class women now had more leisure time but a limited choice of careers. Child- saving was a reputable task for women who were allowed to extend their house- keeping functions into the community without denying antifeminist stereotypes of woman’s nature and place. &dquo;It is an added irony,&dquo; writes Christopher Lasch in his study of American intellectualism, that the ideas about woman’s nature to which some feminists still clung, in spite of their opposition to the enslavement of woman in the home, were these very clich6s which had so long been used to keep her there. The assumption that women were morally purer than men, better capa- ble of altruism and self-sacrifice, was the core of the myth of domesticity against which the feminists were in revolt.... [F]eminist and anti-feminist assumptions seemed curiously to coincide.24 Child-saving may be understood as a crusade which served symbolic and status functions for native, middle-class Americans, particularly feminist groups. Middle-class women at the turn of the century experienced a complex and far- reaching status revolution. Their tra- ditional functions were dramatically threatened by the weakening of domestic roles and the specialized rearrangement of family life.25 One of the main forces behind the child-saving movement was a concern for the structure of family life and the proper socialization of young persons, since it was these concerns that had traditionally given purpose to a woman’s life. Professional organizations -such as Settlement Houses, Women’s Clubs, Bar Associations, and penal or- aanizations-regarded child-saving as a problem of women’s rights, whereas their opponents seized upon it as an oppor- tunity to keep women in their proper of Reform (New York: Vintage Books, 1955) ; and Christopher Lasch, The New Radicalism in America, 1889-1963: The Intellectual as a Social Type (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1965).22 R. W. Hill, "The Children of Shinbone Alley," National Conference of Charities and Correction, Proceedings (Omaha, 1887), p. 231. 23 Robert Sunley, "Early Nineteenth Cen- tury American Literature on Child-Rearing," in Margaret Mead and Martha Wolfenstein (eds.), Childhood in Contemporary Cultures (Chicago. University of Chicago Press, 1955), p. 152; see also Orville G. Brim, Education for Child-Rearing (New York: Free Press, 1965), pp. 321-349. 24 Lasch, op. cit., pp. 53-54. 25 Talcott Parsons and Robert F. Bales, Family, Socialization and Interaction Process (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1955), pp. 3-33. 27 place. Child-saving organizations had little or nothing to do with militant sup- porters of the suffragette movement. In fact, the new role of social worker was created by deference to antifeminist stereotypes of a &dquo;woman’s place.&dquo; A woman’s place Feminist involvement in child-saving was endorsed by a variety of penal and professional organizations. Their par- ticipation was usually justified as an extension of their housekeeping func- tions so that they did not view them- selves, nor were they regarded by others, as competitors for jobs usually per- formed by men. Proponents of the &dquo;new penology&dquo; insisted that reformatories should resemble home life, for institu- tions without women were likely to do more harm than good to inmates. Ac- cording to G. E. Howe, the reformatory system provided &dquo;the most ample oppor- tunities for woman’s transcendant in- fluence.&dquo; 26 Female delegates to philanthropic and correctional conferences also realized that correctional work suggested the pos- sibility of useful careers. Mrs. W. P. Lynde told the National Conference of Charities and Correction in 1879 that children’s institutions offered the &dquo;truest and noblest scope for the public activi- ties of women in the time which they can spare from their primary domestic duties.&dquo; 21 Women were exhorted by other delegates to make their lives meaningful by participating in welfare programs, volunteering their time and services, and getting acquainted with less privileged groups. They were told to seek jobs in institutions where &dquo;the woman-element shall pervade ... and soften its social atmosphere with motherly tenderness.&dquo; 28 Although the child-savers were re- sponsible for some minor reforms in jails and reformatories, they were more par- ticularly concerned with extending gov- ernmental control over a whole range of youthful activities that had previously been handled on an informal basis. The main aim of the child-savers was to impose sanctions on conduct unbecoming youth and to disqualify youth from enjoying adult privileges. As Bennett Berger has commented, &dquo;adolescents are not made by nature but by being ex- cluded from responsible participation in adult affairs, by being rewarded for dependency, and penalized for pre- cocity.&dquo; 29The child-saving movement was not so much a break with the past as an affirmation of faith in traditional institu- tions. Parental authority, education at home, and the virtues of rural life were emphasized because they were in decline at this time. The child-saving move- ment was, in part, a crusade which, through emphasizing the dependence of the social order on the proper socializa- tion of children, implicitly elevated the nuclear family and, more especially, the role of women as stalwarts of the family. The child-savers were prohibitionists, in a general sense, who believed that social progress depended on efficient law en- forcement, strict supervision of chil- dren’s leisure and recreation, and the regulation of illicit pleasures. What seemingly began as a movement to humanize the lives of adolescents soon developed into a program of moral abso- lutism through which youth was to be 26 G. E. Howe, "The Family System," Na- tional Conference of Charities and Correction, Proceedings (Cleveland, 1880), pp. 212-213. 27 W. P. Lynde, "Prevention in Some of Its Aspects," Annual Conference of Charities, Pro- ceedings (Chicago, 1879), p. 167. 28 Clara T. Leonard, "Family Homes for Pauper and Dependent Children," in Annual Conference of Charities, Proceedings, 1879, loc. cit., p. 175. 29 Bennett Berger, Review of Frank Mus- grove, Youth and the Social Order, 32 Amer- ican Sociological Review, 1927, p. 1021. 28 saved from movies, pornography, ciga- rettes, alcohol, and anything else which might possibly rob them of their innocence.

Although child-saving had important symbolic functions for preserving the social prestige of a declining elite, it also had considerable practical signifi- cance for legitimizing new career open- ings for women. The new role of social worker combined elements of an old and partly fictitious role-defenders of fam- ily life-and elements of a new role- social servant. Social work was thus both an affirmation of cherished Amer- ican values and an instrumentality for women’s emancipation.

JUVENILE COURT The essential preoccupation of the child-saving movement was the recogni- tion and control of youthful deviance. It brought attention to, and thus &dquo;invented,&dquo; new categories of youthful misbehavior which had been hitherto un- appreciated. The efforts of the child- savers were institutionally expressed in the juvenile court, which, despite recent legislative and constitutional reforms, is generally acknowledged as their most significant contribution to progressive penology. The juvenile-court system was part of a general movement directed towards removing adolescents from the criminal- law process and creating special pro- grams for delinquent, dependent, and neglected children. Regarded widely as &dquo;one of the greatest advances in child welfare that has ever occurred,&dquo; the juvenile court was considered &dquo;an inte- gral part of total welfare planning.&dquo; 30 Charles Chute, an enthusiastic sup- porter of the child-saving movement, claimed:

No single event has contributed more to the welfare of children and their families. It revolutionized the treatment of delin- quent and neglected children and led to the passage of similar laws throughout the world.31 The juvenile court was a special tribu- nal created by statute to determine the legal status of children and adolescents. Underlying the juvenile-court movement was the concept of parens patriae by which the courts were authorized to handle with wide discretion the prob- lems of &dquo;its least fortunate junior citi- zens. )) 32 The administration of juvenile justice differed in many important re- spects from the criminal-court processes. A child was not accused of a crime but offered assistance and guidance; inter- vention in his life was not supposed to carry the stigma of criminal guilt. Judicial records were not generally avail- able to the press or public, and juvenile- court hearings were conducted in relative privacy. Juvenile-court procedures were typically informal and inquisitorial. Specific criminal safeguards of due proc- ess were not applicable because juvenile proceedings were defined by statute as civil in character.38 The original statutes enabled the courts to investigate a wide variety of youthful needs and misbehavior. As Joel Handler has observed, &dquo;the critical philosophical position of the reform movement was that no formal, legal dis- tinctions should be made between the 30 Charles L. Chute, "The Juvenile Court in Retrospect," 13 Federal Probation (September 1949), p. 7; Harrison A. Dobbs, "In Defense of Juvenile Courts," 13 Federal Probation (September 1949), p. 29. 31 Charles L. Chute, "Fifty Years of the Juvenile Court," 1949 National Probation and Parole Association Yearbook (1949), p. 1. 32 Gustav L. Schramm, "The Juvenile Court Idea," 13 Federal Probation (September 1949), p. 21.33 Monrad G. Paulsen, "Fairness to the Juvenile Offender," 41 Minnesota Law Review, 1957, pp. 547-567. Note: "Rights and Re- habilitation in the Juvenile Courts," 67 Columbia Law Review, 1967, pp. 281-341. 29 delinquent and the dependent or ne- glected.&dquo; 34 Statutory definitions of &dquo;delinquency&dquo; encompassed ( 1 ) acts that would be criminal if committed by adults; (2) acts that violated county, town, or municipal ordinances; and (3) violations of vaguely defined catch-alls -such as &dquo;vicious or immoral behav- ior,&dquo; &dquo;incorrigibility,&dquo; and &dquo;truancy&dquo;- which &dquo;seem to express the notion that the adolescent, if allowed to continue, will engage in more serious conduct.&dquo; 35 The juvenile-court movement went far beyond a concern for special treat- ment of adolescent offenders. It brought within the ambit of governmental con- trol a set of youthful activities that had been previously ignored or dealt with on an informal basis. It was not by acci- dent that the behavior selected for penal- izing by the child-savers-sexual license, drinking, roaming the streets, begging, frequenting dance halls and movies, fighting, and being seen in public late at night-was most directly relevant to the children of lower-class migrant and immigrant families. The juvenile court was not perceived by its supporters as a revolutionary ex- periment, but rather as a culmination of traditionally valued practices.38 The child-saving movement was &dquo;antilegal,&dquo; in the sense that it derogated civil rights and procedural formalities, while relying heavily on extra-legal techniques. The judges of the new court were empowered to investigate the character and social life of predelinquent as well as delin- quent children; they examined motiva- tion rather than intent, seeking to iden- tify the moral reputation of problematic children. The requirements of preven- tive penology and child-saving further justified the court’s intervention in cases where no offense had actually been committed, but where, for example, a child was posing problems for some per- son in authority such as a parent or teacher or social worker. The personal touch Judges were expected to show the same professional competence as doctors and therapists. The sociologist Charles Henderson wrote: A careful study of individuals is an es- sential element in wise procedure. The study must include the physical, mental and moral peculiarities and defects of the children who come under the notice of the courts. Indeed we are likely to follow the lead of those cities which provide for a careful examination of all school children whose physical or psychical condition is in any way or degree abnormal, in order to prevent disease, correct deformity and vice, and select the proper course of study and discipline demanded by the individual needs Juvenile court judges had to be care- fully selected for their skills as expert diagnosticians and for their appreciation of the &dquo;helping&dquo; professions. Miriam Van Waters, for example, regarded the juvenile court as a &dquo;laboratory of human behavior&dquo; and its judges as &dquo;experts with scientific training and specialists in the art of human relations.&dquo; It was 34 Joel F. Handler, "The Juvenile Court and The Adversary System: Problems of Function and Form," 1965 Wisconsin Law Review, 1965, p. 9. 35 Joel F. Handler and Margaret K. Rosen- heim, "Privacy and Welfare: Public Assistance and Juvenile Justice," 31 Law and Contempo- rary Problems, 1966, pp. 377-412. 36 A reform movement, according to Herbert Blumer, is differentiated from a revolution by its inherent respectability and acceptance of an existing social order. "The primary func- tion of the reform movement is probably not so much the bringing about of social change, as it is to reaffirm the ideal values in a given society."—Herbert Blumer, "Collective Behav- ior," in Alfred McClung Lee (ed.), Principles of Sociology (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1963), pp. 212-213. 37 Charles R. Henderson, "Theory and Prac- tice of Juvenile Courts," National Conference of Charities and Correction, Proceedings (Portland, 1904), pp. 358-359. 30 the judge’s task to &dquo;get the whole truth about a child&dquo; in the same way that a &dquo;physician searches for every detail that bears on the condition of a patient.&dquo; 38 The child-savers’ interest in preven- tive strategies and treatment programs was based on the premise that delin- quents possess innate or acquired char- acteristics which predispose them to crime and distinguish them from law- abiding youths. Delinquents were re- garded as constrained by a variety of biological and environmental forces, so that their proper treatment involved dis- covery of the &dquo;cause of the aberration&dquo; and application of &dquo;the appropriate corrective or antidote.39 &dquo;What the trouble is with the offender,&dquo; noted William Healy, &dquo;making him what he is, socially undesirable, can only be known by getting at his mental life, as it is an affair of reactive mechanisms.&dquo; 40 The use of terms like &dquo;unsocialized,&dquo; &dquo;maladjusted,&dquo; and &dquo;pathological&dquo; to describe the behavior of delinquents im- plied that &dquo;socialized&dquo; and &dquo;adjusted&dquo; children conform to middle-class moral- ity and participate in respectable insti- tutions.41 The failure empirically to demonstrate psychological differences between delinquents and nondelinquents did not discourage the child-savers from believing that rural and middle-class values constitute &dquo;normality.&dquo; The unique character of the child-saving movement was its concern for predelin- quent offenders-&dquo;children who occupy the debatable ground between criminal- ity and innocence&dquo;-and its claim that it could transform potential criminals into respectable citizens by training them in &dquo;habits of industry, self-control and obedience to law.&dquo; 42 This policy justified the diminishing of traditional procedures in juvenile court. If children were to be rescued, it was important that the rescuers be free to provide their services without legal hindrance. De- linquents had to be saved, transformed, and reconstituted. &dquo;There is no essen- tial difference,&dquo; said Frederick Wines, &dquo;between a criminal and any other sinner. The means and methods of restoration are the same for both.&dquo; 43 THE REFORMATORY SYSTEM It was through the reformatory sys- tem that the child-savers hoped to demonstrate that delinquents were capa- ble of being converted into law-abiding citizens. The reformatory was initially developed in the United States during the middle of the nineteenth century as a special form of prison discipline for adolescents and young adults. Its underlying principles were formulated in Britain by Matthew Davenport Hill, Alexander Maconochie, Walter Crofton, and Mary Carpenter. If the United States did not have any great penal theorists, it at least had energetic penal administrators who were prepared to experiment with new programs. The most notable advocates of the reforma- tory plan in the United States were 38 Miriam Van Waters, "The Socialization of Juvenile Court Procedure," 12 Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 1922, pp. 61, 69.

39 Illinois, Board of State Commissioners of Public Charities, First Biennial Report (Springfield: Illinois Journal Printing Office, 1871), p. 180. 40 William Healy, "The Psychology of the Situation: A Fundamental for Understanding and Treatment of Delinquency and Crime," in Jane Addams (ed.), The Child, The Clinic and The Court (New York: New Republic Inc., 1925), p. 40. 41 C. Wright Mills, "The Professional Ideol- ogy of Social Pathologists," in Bernard Rosen- berg, Israel Gerver, and F. William Howton (eds.), Mass Society in Crisis (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1964), pp. 92-111. 42 Illinois, Board of State Commissioners of Public Charities, Sixth Biennial Report (Springfield: H. W. Rokker, 1880), p. 104. 43 Frederick H. Wines, "Reformation as an End in Prison Discipline," National Confer- ence of Charities and Correction, Proceedings (Buffalo, 1888), p. 198. 31 Enoch Wines, Secretary of the New York Prison Association; Theodore Dwight, the first Dean of Columbia Law School; Zebulon Brockway, Superin- tendent of Elmira Reformatory in New York; and Frank Sanborn, Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Charities.

The reformatory was distinguished from the traditional penitentiary by its policy of indeterminate sentencing, the &dquo;mark&dquo; system, and &dquo;organized persua- sion&dquo; rather than &dquo;coercive restraint.&dquo; Its administrators assumed that abnor- mal and troublesome individuals could become useful and productive citizens. Wines and Dwight, in a report to the New York legislature in 1867, proposed that the ultimate aim of penal policy was reformation of the criminal, which could only be achieved by placing the prisoner’s fate, as far as possible, in his own hand, by enabling him, through industry and good conduct to raise himself, step by step, to a position of less restraint; while idleness and bad conduct, on the other hand, keep him in a state of coercion and restraint.44 But, as Brockway observed at the first meeting of the National Prison Congress in 1870, the &dquo;new penology&dquo; was tough- minded and devoid of &dquo;sickly sentimen- talism.... Criminals shall either be cured, or kept under such continued restraint as gives guarantee of safety from further depredations.&dquo; 45 Reformatories, unlike penitentiaries and jails, theoretically repudiated pun- ishments based on intimidation and re- pression. They took into account the fact that delinquents were &dquo;either physi- cally or mentally below the average.&dquo; The reformatory system was based on the assumption that proper training can counteract the impositions of poor fam- ily life, a corrupt environment, and pov- erty, while at the same time toughening and preparing delinquents for the strug- gle ahead. &dquo;The principle at the root of the educational method of dealing with juvenile crime,&dquo; wrote William Douglas Morrison, &dquo;is an absolutely sound one. It is a principle which recognizes the fact that the juvenile de- linquent is in the main, a product of ad- verse individual and social conditions. 46 The reformatory movement spread rapidly through the United States, and European visitors crossed the Atlantic to inspect and admire the achievements of their pragmatic colleagues. Mary Carpenter, who visited the United States in 1873, was generally satisfied with the &dquo;generous and lavish expenditures freely incurred to promote the welfare of the inmates, and with the love of religion.&dquo; Most correctional problems with regard to juvenile delinquents, she advised, could be remedied if reformatories were built like farm schools or &dquo;true homes.&dquo; At the Massachusetts Reform School, in Westborough, she found an &dquo;entire want of family spirit,&dquo; and, in New York, she complained that there was no &dquo;natural life&dquo; in the reformatory. &dquo;All the ar- rangements are artificial,&dquo; she said; &dquo;instead of the cultivation of the land, which would prepare the youth to seek a sphere far from the dangers of large cities, the boys and young men were being taught trades which will confine them to the great centers of an over- crowded population.&dquo; She found similar conditions in Philadelphia where &dquo;hun- dreds of youth were there congregated under lock and key,&dquo; but praised the Connecticut Reform School for its &dquo;ad- mirable system of agricultural train- 44 Max Grünhut, Penal Reform (Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1948), p. 90. 45 This speech is reprinted in Zebulon Reed Brockway, Fifty Years of Prison Service (New York: Charities Publication Committee, 1912), pp. 389-408. 46 William Douglas Morrison, Juvenile Of- fenders (New York: D. Appleton, 1897), pp. 274-275. 32 ing.&dquo; 47 If she had visited the Illinois State Reformatory at Pontiac, she would have found a seriously overcrowded &dquo;minor penitentiary&dquo; where the in- mates were forced to work ten hours a day manufacturing shoes, brushes, and chairs.

To cottage and country Granted the assumption that &dquo;nurture&dquo; could usually overcome most of nature’s defects, reformatory-administrators set about the task of establishing programs consistent with the aim of retraining de- linquents for law-abiding careers. It was noted at the Fifth International Prison Congress, held in Paris in 1895, that reformatories were capable of ob- literating hereditary and environmental taints. In a new and special section de- voted to delinquency, the Congress pro- posed that children under twelve years should always be sent to institutions of preservation and unworthy parents must be deprived of the right to rear children.... The preponderant place in rational physical training should be given to manual labor, and particularly to agricultural labor in the open air, for both sexes.4$ The heritage of biological imagery and Social Darwinism had a lasting influence on American criminology, and penal re- formers continued to regard delinquency as a problem of individual adjustment to the demands of industrial and urban life. Delinquents had to be removed from contaminating situations, segre- gated from their &dquo;miserable surround- ings,&dquo; instructed, and &dquo;put as far as possible on a footing of equality with the rest of the population.&dquo; 40 The trend from congregate housing in the city to group living in the country represented a significant change in the organization of penal institutions for young offenders. The family or cottage plan differed in several important re- spects from the congregate style of traditional prisons and jails. According to William Letchworth, in an address delivered before the National Confer- ence of Charities and Correction in 1886:

A fault in some of our reform schools is their great size. In the congregating of large numbers, individuality is lost.... These excessive aggregations are overcome to a great extent in the cottage plan.... The internal system of the reformatory school should be as nearly as practicable as that of the family, with its refining and elevating influences; while the awakening of the conscience and the inculcation of religious principles should be primary aims.5o The new penology emphasized the corruptness and artificiality of the city; from progressive education, it inherited a concern for naturalism, purity, and innocence. It is not surprising, there- fore, that the cottage plan also entailed a movement to a rural location. The aim of penal reformers was not merely to use the countryside for teaching agri- cultural skills. The confrontation be- tween corrupt delinquents and unspoiled nature was intended to have a spiritual and regenerative effect. The romantic attachment to rural values was quite divorced from social and agricultural realities. It was based on a sentimental and nostalgic repudiation of city life. Advocates of the reformatory system 47 Mary Carpenter, "Suggestions on Re- formatory Schools and Prison Discipline, Founded on Observations Made During a Visit to the United States," National Prison Reform Congress, Proceedings (St. Louis, 1874), pp. 157-173. 48 Negley K. Teeters, Deliberations of the International Penal and Penitentiary Con- gresses, 1872-1935 (Philadelphia: Temple Uni- versity Book Store, 1949), pp. 97-102. 49 Morrison, op. cit., pp. 60, 276. 50 William P. Letchworth, "Children of the State," National Conference of Charities and Correction, Proceedings (St. Paul, Minnesota, 1886), pp. 151, 156. 33 generally ignored the economic attrac- tiveness of city work and the redun- dancy of farming skills. As one economist cautioned reformers in 1902: Whatever may be said about the advan- tages of farm life for the youth of our land, and however much it may be regret- ted that young men and women are leaving the farm and flocking to the cities, there can be no doubt that the movement city- ward will continue.... There is great danger that many who had left the home [that is, reformatory], unable to find em- ployment in agricultural callings, would drift back to the city and not finding there an opportunity to make use of the technical training secured in the institution, would become discouraged and resume their old criminal associations and occupations.51 The &dquo;new&dquo; reformatory suffered, like all its predecessors, from overcrowding, mismanagement, &dquo;boodleism,&dquo; under- staffing, and inadequate facilities. Its distinctive features were the indetermi- nate sentence, the movement to cottage and country, and agricultural training. Although there was a decline in the use of brutal punishments, inmates were subjected to severe personal and physi- cal controls: military exercises, &dquo;train- ing of the will,&dquo; and long hours of tedious labor constituted the main pro- gram of reform. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS The child-saving movement was re- sponsible for reforms in the ideological and institutional control of &dquo;delinquent&dquo; youth. The concept of the born delin- quent was modified with the rise of a professional class of penal administrators and social servants who promoted a de- velopmental view of human behavior and regarded most delinquent youth as sal- vageable. The child-savers helped to create special judicial and correctional institutions for the processing and man- agement of &dquo;troublesome&dquo; youth. There has been a shift during the last fifty years or so in official policies con- cerning delinquency. The emphasis has shifted from one emphasizing the crimi- nal nature of delinquency to the &dquo;new humanism&dquo; which speaks of disease, ill- ness, contagion, and the like. It is es- sentially a shift from a legal to a medical emphasis. The emergence of a medical emphasis is of considerable significance, since it is a powerful rationale for or- ganizing social action in the most diverse behavioral aspects of our society. For example, the child-savers were not con- cerned merely with &dquo;humanizing&dquo; condi- tions under which children were treated by the criminal law. It was rather their aim to extend the scope of governmental control over a wide variety of personal misdeeds and to regulate potentially disruptive persons.52 The child-savers’ reforms were politically aimed at lower- class behavior and were instrumental in intimidating and controlling the poor. The child-savers made a fact out of the norm of adolescent dependence. &dquo;Every child is dependent,&dquo; wrote the Illinois Board of Charities in 1899, &dquo;even the children of the wealthy. To receive his support at the hands of an- other does not strike him as unnatural, but quite the reverse.&dquo; 53 The juvenile court reached into the private lives of youth and disguised basically punitive policies in the rhetoric of &dquo;rehabilita- 51 M. B. Hammond’s comments at the Illi- nois Conference of Charities (1901), reported in Illinois, Board of State Commissioners of Public Charities, Seventeenth Biennial Report (Springfield: Phillips Brothers, 1902), pp. 232-233. 52 This thesis is supported by a European study of family life, Phillipe Ariès, Centuries of Childhood (New York: Vintage Books, 1965).53 Illinois, Board of State Commissioners of Public Charities, Fifteenth Biennial Report (Springfield: Phillips Brothers, 1899), pp. 62-72. 34 tion.&dquo; 54 The child-savers were prohibi- tionists, in a general sense, who believed that adolescents needed protection from even their own inclinations. The basic conservatism of the child- saving movement is apparent in the re- formatory system which proved to be as tough-minded as traditional forms of punishment. Reformatory programs were unilateral, coercive, and an inva- sion of human dignity. What most ap- pealed to correctional workers were the paternalistic assumptions of the &dquo;new penology,&dquo; its belief in social progress through individual reform, and its nos- talgic preoccupation with the &dquo;natural- ness&dquo; and intimacy of a preindustrial way of life. The child-saving movement was heav- ily influenced by middle-class women who extended their housewifely roles into public service. Their contribution may also be seen as a &dquo;symbolic cru- sade&dquo; in defense of the nuclear family and their positions within it. They re- garded themselves as moral custodians and supported programs and institutions dedicated to eliminating youthful im- morality. Social service was an instru- mentality for female emancipation, and it is not too unreasonable to suggest that women advanced their own fortune at the expense of the dependency of youth. This analysis of the child-saving movement suggests the importance of (1) understanding the relationship be- tween correctional reforms and related changes in the administration of crimi- nal justice, (2) accounting for the mo- tives and purposes of those enterprising groups who generate such reforms, (3) investigating the methods by which com- munities establish the formal machinery for regulating crime, and (4) distin- guishing between idealized goals and enforced conditions in the implementa- tion of correctional reforms. IMPLICATIONS FOR CORRECTIONS AND RESEARCH The child-saving movement illustrates a number of important problems with the quality and purposes of correctional research and knowledge. The following discussion will draw largely upon the child-saving movement in order to ex- amine its relevance for contemporary issues.

Positivism and progressivism It is widely implied in the literature that the juvenile court and parallel re- forms in penology represented a progres- sive effort by concerned reformers to alleviate the miseries of urban life and to solve social problems by rational, enlightened, and scientific methods. With few exceptions, studies of delin- quency have been parochial and inade- quately descriptive, and they show little appreciation of underlying political and cultural conditions. Historical studies, particularly of the juvenile court, are, for the most part, self-confirming and support an evolutionary view of human progress.55 The positivist heritage in the study of social problems has directed attention to (1) the primacy of the criminal actor rather than the criminal law as the major point of departure in the con- struction of etiological theory, (2) a rigidly deterministic view of human be- 54 Francis A. Allen, The Borderland of Crim- inal Justice (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), passim. 55 See, for example, Herbert H. Lou, Juve- nile Courts in the United States (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1927) ; Negley K. Teeters and John Otto Reinemann, The Challenge of Delinquency (New York: Pren- tice-Hall, 1950) ; Katherine L. Boole, "The Juvenile Court: Its Origin, History, and Pro- cedure" (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1928). One notable exception is Paul W. Tappan, Delinquent Girls in Court (New York: Columbia University Press, 1947). 35 havior, and (3) only the abnormal features of deviant behavior.56 The &dquo;rehabilitative ideal&dquo; has so dominated American criminology that there have been only sporadic efforts to undertake sociolegal research related to govern- mental invasion of personal liberties. But, as Francis Allen has suggested: Even if one’s interests lie primarily in the problems of treatment of offenders, it should be recognized that the existence of the criminal presupposes a crime and that the problems of treatment are derivative in the sense that they depend upon the determination by law-giving agencies that certain sorts of behavior are crimes.57 The conservatism and &dquo;diluted liberal- ism&dquo; 58 of much research on delinquency results from the fact that researchers are generally prepared to accept prevail- ing definitions of crime, to work within the premises of the criminal law, and to concur at least implicitly with those who make laws as to the nature and distribu- tion of a &dquo;criminal&dquo; population. Thus, most theories of delinquency are based on studies of convicted or imprisoned delinquents. As John Seeley has ob- served in another context, professional caution requires us &dquo;to take our prob- lems rather than make our problems, to accept as constitutive of our ’intake’ what is held to be ’deviant’ in a way that concerns enough people in that soci- ety enough to give us primary protec- tion.&dquo; b9 Money, encouragement, co- operation from established institutions, and a market for publications are more easily acquired for studies of the social- ization or treatment of delinquents than for studies of how laws, law-makers, and law-enforcers contribute to the &dquo;registration&dquo; of delinquency. Law and its implementation have been largely dismissed as irrelevant topics for inquiry into the &dquo;causes&dquo; of delinquency. According to Herbert Packer, it is typi- cal that the National Crime Commission ignored the fundamental question of: &dquo;What is the criminal sanction good for?&dquo; 6° Further research is needed to understand the dynamics of the legis- lative and popular drive to &dquo;criminal- ize.&dquo; gl Delinquency legislation for ex- ample, as has been noted earlier, was not aimed merely at reducing crime or liberating youth. The reform movement also served important symbolic and in- strumental interests for groups who made hobbies and careers out of saving children.

Policy research Correctional research in this country has been dominated by persons who are intimately concerned with crime and its control. The scholar-technician tradi- tion in corrections, especially with re- gard to delinquency, has resulted in the proliferation of &dquo;agency-determined&dquo; re- search whereby scholarship is catered to institutional interests. 62 Much of what passes under the label of &dquo;research&dquo; takes the form of &dquo;methods engineer- ing,&dquo; produced in the interest of respon- sible officials and management. 63 It is only rarely, as in Erving Goffman’s 56 David Matza, Delinquency and Drift (New York: John Wiley, 1964). 57 Allen, op. cit., p. 125. 58 This phrase and its perspective are taken from C. Wright Mills (ed.), Images of Man (New York: George Braziller, 1960), p. 5. 59 John R. Seeley, "The Making and Taking of Problems: Toward an Ethical Stance," 14 Social Problems, 1967, pp. 384-385. 60 Herbert L. Packer, "A Patchy Look at Crime," New York Review of Books, Vol. 17, October 12, 1967. 61 Sanford H. Kadish, "The Crisis of Over- criminalization," THE ANNALS, Vol. 374, No- vember 1967), pp. 157-170. 62 Herbert Blumer, "Threats from Agency- determined Researching: The Case of Cam- elot," in Irvin Louis Horowitz (ed.), The Rise and Fall of Project Camelot (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1967), pp. 153-174. 63 See, for example, Daniel Glaser, The Ef- fectiveness of a Prison and Parole System (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1964). 36 study of &dquo;total institutions,&dquo; that sym- pathetic consideration is given to the perceptions and concerns of subordinates in the correctional hierarchy. 1,4 There are many historical and prac- tical reasons why corrections has been such a narrow and specialized field of academic interest. First, corrections has been intellectually influenced by the problematic perspective of scholar- technicians, which limits the scope of &dquo;research&dquo; to local, policy issues. In the last century especially, penology was the exclusive domain of philanthropists, muckrakers, reformers, and missionaries. Secondly, the rise of the &dquo;multiversity&dquo; and of federal-grant research has given further respectability to applied re- search in corrections, to the extent that social science and public policy are in- extricably linked.65 Nevertheless, such research is minimal when compared, for example, with that done under the aus- pices of the Defense Department .66 It is quite true, as the National Crime Commission reports, that research in corrections has been unsystematic, spo- radic, and guided primarily by &dquo;intui- tive opportunism.&dquo; 87 Thirdly, it should be remembered that correctional institu- tions are politically sensitive communi- ties which resist instrusions from aca- demic outsiders unless the proposed research is likely to serve their best inter- ests.68 Research which undermines pol- icy is generally viewed as insensitive and subversive, aside from the fact that it helps to justify and harden administra- tors’ suspicions of &dquo;intellectuals.&dquo; The lack of critical research is, no doubt, also due to &dquo;the reluctance of scholars to address the specific problems faced by those charged with the perplexing task of controlling and rehabilitating offenders.&dquo; 69 Politics and corrections Correctional institutions have been generally regarded as distinct, insulated social organizations. Their relationship to the wider society is viewed in a bu- reaucratic, civil-service context, and their population is defined in welfare terms. Prisons and their constituency are stripped of political implications, seemingly existing in an apolitical vac- uum. Corrections as an academic spe- cialization has focused on the prison community to the neglect of classical interest in the relationship between po- litical decision-making and social policies. As Hans Mattick has observed: There is very little appreciation ... that this &dquo;contest between good and evil,&dquo; and the whole &dquo;drama of crime,&dquo; is taking place within the larger arena of our politi- cal system and this, in part, helps to deter- mine public opinion about the nature of crime, criminals and how they are dealt with .70 64 Erving Goffman, Asylums (New York: Anchor Books, 1961). 65 Clark Kerr, The Uses of the University (New York: Anchor Books, 1961). 66 "Approximately 15 per cent of the Defense Department’s annual budget is allocated for research, compared with one per cent of the total federal expenditure for crime control."— U.S., President’s Commission on Law Enforce- ment and Administration of Justice (National Crime Commission), The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society (the General Report) (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Print- ing Office, 1967), p. 273. 67 U.S., President’s Commission on Law En- forcement and Administration of Justice (National Crime Commission), Task Force Report: Corrections (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1967), p. 13. 68 Controversial studies of official institu- tions run the risk of hampering further aca- demic investigations, as was apparently the case with Jerome Skolnick’s study of a Cali- fornia police department, Justice without Trial (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1966). 69 The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society, op. cit., p. 183. 70 Hans W. Mattick (ed.), "The Future of Imprisonment in a Free Society," 2 Key Issues, 1965, p. 5. 37 As the gap between social deviance and political marginality narrows, it be- comes increasingly necessary to examine how penal administrators are recruited, how &dquo;new&dquo; programs are selected and implemented, and how local and na- tional legislatures determine correc- tional budgets. The crisis caused by white racism in this country also re- quires us to appreciate in what sense prisons and jails may be used as instru- mentalities of political control in the &dquo;pacification&dquo; of black Americans. Similarly, it furthers our understanding of &dquo;delinquency&dquo; if we appreciate the motives and political interests of those reformers and professionals who perceive youth as threatening and troublesome. Faith in reform, The child-saving movement further illustrates that corrections may be understood historically as a succession of reforms. Academics have demon- strated a remarkably persistent opti- mism about reform, and operate on the premise that they can have a humani- tarian influence on correctional adminis- tration. As Irving Louis Horowitz has observed, to the extent that social sci- entists become involved with policy- making agencies, they are committed to an elitist ideology: They come to accept as basic the idea that men who really change things are at the top. Thus, the closer to the top one can get direct access, the more likely will in- tended changes be brought about .71 There is little evidence to support this faith in the ultimate wisdom of policy- makers in corrections. The reformatory was not so much an improvement on the prison as a means of extending control over a new constituency; probation and parole became instruments of supervi- vision rather than treatment; halfway houses have become a means of extend- ing prisons into communities rather than democratically administered sanctuaries; group therapy in prisons has justified invasion of privacy and coercive treat- ment on the dubious grounds that pris- oners are psychologically unfit; com- munity-based narcotics programs, such as the nalline clinic, disguise medical authoritarianism in the guise of rehabili- tation. Nevertheless, the optimism con- tinues, and this is nowhere more apparent than in the National Crime Commission’s Task Force Report on Corrections, which reveals that, in Robert Martinson’s words, correctional policy consists of &dquo;a redoubling of efforts in the face of persistent failure.&dquo;’2 Finally, we have neglected to study and appreciate those who work in cor- rections. Like the police and, to an increasing extent, teachers and social workers, correctional staffs are con- strained by the ethic of bureaucratic re- sponsibility. They are society’s &dquo;dirty- workers,&dquo; technicians working on people. As Lee Rainwater has observed: The dirty-workers are increasingly caught between the silent middle class, which wants them to do the dirty work and keep quiet about it, and the objects of that dirty work, who refuse to continue to take it lying down.... These civilian colonial armies find their right to respect from their charges challenged at every turn, and often they must carry out their daily duties with fear for their physical safety.73 Correctional workers are required to accommodate current definitions of crim- inality and to manage victims of politi- cal expediency and popular fashion- drug users, drunks, homosexuals, va- grants, delinquents, and &dquo;looters.&dquo; They 71 Horowitz (ed.), loc. cit., p. 353. 72 Robert Martinson, "The Age of Treat- ment : Some Implications of the Custody- Treatment Dimension," 2 Issues in Criminol- ogy (Fall 1966), p. 291. 73 Lee Rainwater, "The Revolt of the Dirty- Workers," 5 Trans-action (November 1967), p. 2. 38 have minimal influence on law-makers and rarely more than ideological rapport with law enforcers. They have no clear mandate as to the purpose of corrections, other than to reduce recidivism and re- form criminals. They have to live with the proven failure of this enterprise and to justify their role as pacifiers, guards, warehouse-keepers, and restrainers.74 They are linked to a professional system that relegates them to the lowest status in the political hierarchy but uses them as a pawn in electoral battles. They are doomed to annual investigations, blue-ribbon commissions, ephemeral re- search studies, and endless volumes of propaganda and muckraking. They live with the inevitability of professional mediocrity, poor salaries, uncomfortable living conditions, ungrateful &dquo;clients,&dquo; and tenuous links with established insti- tutions. It is understandable that they protect their fragile domain from intru- sive research which is not supportive of their policies. 74 Henry McKay’s "Report on the Criminal Careers of Male Delinquents in Chicago" con- cludes that "the behavior of significant num- bers of boys who become involved in illegal activity is not redirected toward conventional activity by the institutions created for that purpose."—U.S., President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Jus- tice (National Crime Commission), Task Force Report: Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Crime (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1967), p. 113.