Youth Correction: Institutional Facilities for Treatment

Abstract

The goal of the Youth Correction Authority Act is to protect society by returning the greatest possible number of youth offenders to the community as law-abiding citizens. That goal represents nothing new in the realm of progressive penology. It is the aim of probation, parole, the indeterminate sentence, diagnosis and classification, vocational training, and all other forward looking procedures whose rapid expansion has distinguished this century. In spite of these admirable developments, however, the statistics show that the prison population continues to swell, largely with recidivists recruited among youths, to tumorous proportions in the side of society. Our preventive and our correctional machinery are not yet good enough and we can afford to overlook no measure that will enable them to get better results. The contribution towards the strengthening of correction proposed by the Youth Correction Authority Act is not another piece of legal machinery to take the place of any effective method or agency for handling youth offenders. The Authority is not even intended to work apart from or in competition with existing institutional facilities. On the contrary, its purpose is to bring into an integrated system all procedures and agencies that have proven effective in returning youth offenders to good citizenship, in order: (i) that every youth offender in the state may be assured of the particular treatment that seems likely to do him the most good; (2) that each procedure and facility may have a chance to produce the maximum results and not as now be hamstrung by the chaos of the system and the inconsistencies of treatment described in a preceding article by Mr. MacCormick. The Act builds upon and seeks to make the most of what we have. Much of the trail it follows has been tested by successful pioneers. To examine some of the most promising developments in the field of penology which could serve as precedents for a Youth Correction Authority is the purpose of this article. The existence of the institutions and procedures to be discussed testifies to the range of possibilities open to an Authority without requiring it to go beyond the limits of tested experience. * B.A., 1920, Yale University; graduate study in history and sociology, Universities of Brussels and Ghent, Belgium. Since I940 in charge of public education relating to the Youth Correction Authority program of the American Law Institute. Official of various agencies of the Federal Government in the field of housing, 193I-I939; Managing Editor, Smithsonian Scientific Series, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C.; Chief, Historical and Statistical Divisions, American Relief Administration, Russia, 1921-1923. Writer and lecturer on sociology and economics, particularly housing and penology. Author' THE CARRIAGE OF PHILANTHROPY.