The Rise of the Child-Saving Movement: A Study in Social Policy and Correctional Reform

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?