Abstract
The United States was the first country in the modern world to develop a distinct and comprehensive juvenile justice system that encompassed social services, the courts and separate detention institutions for juveniles . Justice and penal workers aspired to be part of a growing set of professionals who would rebuild the nation and the world after the Second World War to be better, progressive and just. They wanted to align themselves with other professions who were organising and making a positive difference. Medicine was the model of a profession that science and professional organisation had transformed into a force for good. Criminal justice, seen in its best light, is a discipline that also tries to heal the sick: if a society truly believes in second chances and rehabilitation, then its justice system must repair the damaged citizen and return them to civic health. Children, due to their youth and supposed innocence, have often been seen as ideal candidates for this process. However, political reluctance to use limited government funds in support of those seen as proto-criminals, as well as the inheritance of institutions built based on a very different set of goals, hobbled attempts to create a truly rehabilitative set of institutions.
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Notes
- 1.
Margo Horn, Before It’s Too Late (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989).
- 2.
David R. Mayhew, “The Long 1950s as a Policy Era,” in The Politics of Major Policy Reform in Postwar America, eds. Jeffrey A. Jenkins and Sydney M. Milkis (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 27–47.
- 3.
Judith Sealander, The Failed Century of the Child (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
- 4.
James Gilbert, A Cycle of Outrage (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).
- 5.
Matthew Smith, Hyperactive (London: Reaktion Books, 2012).
- 6.
The official journal of the American Prison Association, both renamed to the American Journal of Correction and American Correctional Association, respectively, in 1954 to reflect their growing emphasis on both correction/rehabilitation and attempts to project a professional image.
- 7.
Prison World 5, no. 3 (1943).
- 8.
Thorsten Sellin, “Recommended: A Standard for Penal Statistics,” Prison World 5, no. 3 (1943): 4–5 (4).
- 9.
Saul D. Alinsky, “Crime Prevention,” Prison World 5, no. 3 (1943): 5–6 (5).
- 10.
G. Howland Shaw, “Juvenile Delinquency,” Prison World 5, no. 3 (1943): 8–9 (8).
- 11.
William J. Ellis, “Qualified Personnel—A Correctional Requisite,” Prison World 5, no. 3 (1943): 11–12 (11).
- 12.
Joseph W. Sanford, “Penology Must Make Its Post-war Plans Now,” Prison World 5, no. 3 (1943): 16–17 (16).
- 13.
Leo Kanner, “Child Psychiatry. Mental Deficiency,” American Journal of Psychiatry 101, no. 4 (1945): 528–30 (528).
- 14.
Ibid., 529.
- 15.
Douglas A. Thom, “Sociological Changes Predisposing Toward Juvenile Delinquency,” American Journal of Psychiatry 100, no. 4 (1944): 452–55 (452). An important figure worth mentioning in his own right, Thom was a pioneer of infant mental health in Boston in the 1920s who became a Lt. Col. in the US military. The clinic he founded is still practicing today.
- 16.
Ibid., 453.
- 17.
A. D. Buchmueller and Margaret Gildea, “A Group Therapy Project with Parents of Behaviour Problem Children in Public Schools,” American Journal of Psychiatry 106, no. 1 (1949): 46–52 (46).
- 18.
William C. Menninger, “Psychiatry in Military Correctional Institutions,” Prison World 7, no. 4 (1945): 4, 27–29 (4).
- 19.
Harvie Coghill, “The Proposed Youth Correction Authority Act,” American Journal of Psychiatry 99, no. 6 (1943): 890–93 (890).
- 20.
Jerome Hall, “Youth Correction Authority Act—Progress or Menace?” American Bar Association Journal 28, no. 5 (1942): 317–21 (317) and William Draper Lewis, “The Youth Correction Authority Act, A Model,” American Bar Association Journal 28, no. 5 (1942): 322–24 (322).
- 21.
O. H. Close, “The California Youth Authority,” Prison World 5, no. 5 (1943): 15, 27–28 (15).
- 22.
Ibid., 28.
- 23.
Charles Breitel, “Governor Dewey’s Program for the Prevention of Delinquency,” Prison World 8, no. 1 (1946): 4–5, 32 (4).
- 24.
This may seem to cut against the larger point that juvenile justice administrations inflated sentence length, but 5 years would be a long sentence when the average sentence length of people released in 1955 (and thus incarcerated around this time) was 23 months. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Historical Corrections Statistics, United States, 1850–1984, 164.
- 25.
Glenn M. Kendall, “Elmira Reception Centre,” Prison World 8, no. 2 (1946): 8–9, 27–29 (9).
- 26.
See Sealander, The Failed Century of the Child, for discussion of statistical manipulation and different definitions of delinquency between the FBI and Children’s Bureau for more.
- 27.
Kendall, “Elmira Reception Centre,” and “Flash! Crime,” Prison World 8, no. 2 (1946): 8–9, 27–29 (11).
- 28.
Thomas J. Hanlon, “The Defective Delinquent and the Institutional Program,” Prison World 10, no. 1 (1948): 12–13, 29–31 (12).
- 29.
Roy L. McLaughlin, “Is Youth Authority a Design for Children?” Prison World 10, no. 5 (1948): 8–9 (8).
- 30.
John R. Ellingston, “Is the Youth Authority Idea Really Paying Off?” Prison World 12, no. 6 (1950): 10–11 (10). One reason the New York model didn’t conform to the “Youth Authority” model defined here was the limit of 5 years on sentences. Ellingston is clear that the first condition of the Youth Authority model of treatment was indeterminate sentencing.
- 31.
James V. Bennett, “The Federal Youth Corrections Program,” Prison World 13, no. 1 (1951): 13, 27–28 (13).
- 32.
J. G. Wilson, “Psychiatric Aspects of Crime as It Affects Social Security After the War,” Prison World 5, no. 3 (1943): 23–24 (23).
- 33.
Albert Deutsch, Our Rejected Children (Boston: Little Brown, 1950).
- 34.
Edward M. Wallack and Frederick C. Bennett, “Correctional Officers’ Training Section,” Prison World 9, no. 4 (1947): 16–17, 26, 30 (16).
- 35.
Deutsch, Our Rejected Children, 85.
- 36.
Walter M. Wallack and Heinz R. Weisheit, “Correctional Officer’s Training Section,” Prison World 12, no. 1 (1950): 16–17, 24–29 (24).
- 37.
Heather Munro Prescott, A Doctor of Their Own: The History of Adolescent Medicine (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998).
- 38.
Basic Concepts in Child Psychiatry (Report No. 12), Committee on Child Psychiatry of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry (New York: Group for Advancement of Psychiatry, 1950).
- 39.
“Dr. David M. Levy, 84, A Psychiatrist, Dies,” New York Times (4 March 1977): 33.
- 40.
David M. Levy, “Critical Evaluation of the Present State of Child Psychiatry,” American Journal of Psychiatry 108, no. 7 (1952): 481–94 (481, 485 and 489).
- 41.
Ibid., 492.
- 42.
Chris Nottingham, “The Rise of the Insecure Professionals,” International Review of Social History 52, no. 3 (2007): 445–75 (446–59).
- 43.
Vicky Long, Destigmatising Mental Illness? Professional Politics and Public Education in Britain, 1870–1970 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014), 81.
- 44.
Ibid., 65.
- 45.
Henry A. Davidson, “Review: A Physician Looks at Psychiatry,” American Journal of Psychiatry 115, no. 10 (1959): 952–53 (952).
- 46.
Richard Clendenen, “The U.S. Senate Looks at Juvenile Delinquency,” American Journal of Correction 16, no. 6 (1954): 11–12.
- 47.
Donald Clemmer, “A Brief Review of the Report on Juvenile Delinquency by a Committee of the United States Senate,” American Journal of Correction 20, no. 1 (1958): 3–5, 23 (3).
- 48.
Ian Stevenson, “Is the Human Personality More Plastic in Infancy and Childhood?” American Journal of Psychiatry 114, no. 2 (1957): 152–61 (152).
- 49.
Leo Kanner, “Child Psychiatry. Mental Deficiency,” American Journal of Psychiatry 114, no. 7 (1958): 608–11 (609).
- 50.
Starke R. Hathaway and Elio Monachesi, “The Prediction of Juvenile Delinquency Using the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory,” American Journal of Psychiatry 108, no. 6 (1951): 469–73 (469).
- 51.
Clarence C. Sherwood and William S. Walker, “Some Unanswered Questions About Highfields,” American Journal of Correction 21, no. 3 (1959): 8–9, 25–27 (8).
- 52.
Albert Elias, “Reply to Some Unanswered Questions About Highfields,” American Journal of Correction 21, no. 4 (1959): 28–31, 34–35 (28).
- 53.
Alfred C. Schnur, “Correctional Research: A Review and Critique,” American Journal of Correction 24, no. 1 (1962): 24–26, 28–29 (28).
- 54.
Peter P. Lejins, “From the President,” American Journal of Correction 24, no. 6 (1962): 31, 36 (31).
- 55.
Peter P. Lejins, “From the President,” American Journal of Correction 25, no. 5 (1963): 6–12 (6, 8 and 12).
- 56.
Sanger B. Powers, “From the President,” American Journal of Correction 23, no. 1 (1961): 35.
- 57.
Milton Luger, “The Edward R Cass Youth Rehabilitation Camp,” American Journal of Correction 24, no. 2 (1962): 30–31 (30).
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Lux, E.J. (2019). Preventing Mental Illness, Preventing Delinquency: Juvenile Justice and Child Psychiatry in Post-war America. In: Kritsotaki, D., Long, V., Smith, M. (eds) Preventing Mental Illness. Mental Health in Historical Perspective. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98699-9_4
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