The first juvenile facilities were founded by religious leaders and were meant to separate young people from adults, keeping them out of workhouses and jails. However, there was no judicial process put into place, and these first juvenile facilities were plagued with problems such as forced labor, abuse, and deplorable conditions. Government gradually became more involved in overseeing these troubled facilities. The model of the training school developed in Massachusetts and persisted into the late 1900s. After the revelation of scandals led to a series of reforms in Massachusetts by Dr. Jerome Miller, the movement for reducing youth prison populations in favor of smaller, community-based corrections approaches began to take hold.

However, a conservative political climate in the 1990s led to the weakening of reforms. Abuse, harsh conditions, and the resulting lawsuits plagued many states. Several states such as Florida, California, Texas, and Illinois turned the administration of state juvenile facilities over to prison officials—often with disastrous results. Litigation against juvenile justice agencies over the conditions and treatment of youth has become more frequent. There has also been an increase in lawsuits alleging that juvenile corrections systems are not providing adequate educational and mental health services to incarcerated children. These lawsuits have resulted in some limited improvements as well as higher costs, at least in the short term.

Current juvenile sanctions range widely across jurisdictions, as do juvenile correctional facilities in terms of their size, their type, and who runs them. Nonetheless, youth of color are disproportionately represented in juvenile corrections. The debate goes on over whether confinement of youth in juvenile facilities reduces or increases the likelihood of future criminal conduct. Recidivism rates among juveniles are difficult to measure and complex to interpret. However, research indicates high recidivism among youth. Youth advocates would like to see the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention play a larger role in improving the conditions of juvenile corrections in terms of training in evidence- based practices, exposing dangerous conditions in juvenile corrections facilities, and routinely collecting data on recidivism and other juvenile justice outcomes.

• To understand the origins of the juvenile justice system.
• To be able to discuss the factors that led to the juvenile justice system reforms in Massachusetts.
• To understand the impetus for the passage of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974.
• To gain an overview of the current juvenile system.
• To discuss differential treatment based on gender, race, or ethnicity.
• To name several important ways that juvenile and adult facilities are different.
• To grasp the basics of the measurement of youth program effectiveness.
• To be able to discuss programs such as boot camps and how their effectiveness should be determined.