The Juvenile Court and the ProgressivesToday's troubled juvenile court system has its roots in Progressive-era Chicago, a city one observer described as "first in violence" and "deepest in dirt." Examining the vision and methods of the original proponents of the Cook County Juvenile Court, Victoria Getis uncovers the court's intrinsic flaws as well as the sources of its debilitation in our own time. Spearheaded by a group of Chicago women, including Jane Addams, Lucy Flower, and Julia Lathrop, the juvenile court bill was pushed through the legislature by an eclectic coalition of progressive reformers, both women and men. Like many progressive institutions, the court reflected an unswerving faith in the wisdom of the state and in the ability of science to resolve the problems brought on by industrial capitalism. A hybrid institution combining legal and social welfare functions, the court was not intended to punish youthful lawbreakers but rather to provide guardianship for the vulnerable. In this role, the state was permitted great latitude to intervene in families where it detected a lack of adequate care for children. The court also became a living laboratory, as children in the court became the subjects of research by criminologists, statisticians, educators, state officials, economists, and, above all, practitioners of the new disciplines of sociology and psychology. The Chicago reformers had worked for large-scale social change, but the means they adopted eventually gave rise to the social sciences, where objectivity was prized above concrete solutions to social problems, and to professional groups that abandoned goals of structural reform. The Juvenile Court and the Progressives argues persuasively that the current impotence of the juvenile court system stems from contradictions that lie at the very heart of progressivism. |
Contents
The Progressive Vision | 9 |
Blazing a Trail | 53 |
Institutionalizing Delinquency | 79 |
Counting on the State | 105 |
Lofty Motives Outlawed | 133 |
Conclusion | 153 |
195 | |
209 | |
Common terms and phrases
agencies American Association Behavior Research Fund boys Breckinridge and Abbott Burgess Chicago Press Chicago reformers Chicago School Chicago Woman's Club chief probation officer Clinic Committee Cook County Cook County juvenile crime criminality Criminology dependent Edith Abbott emphasized environment Ernest Ethel Sturges Dummer functionary social workers girls Grace Abbott groups Healy and Bronner Healy's Henderson Herman Adler Hull-House Illinois Individual Delinquent ISCCC Jane Addams JCLC judge Julia Lathrop juvenile court bill juvenile court law juvenile delinquency Juvenile Research Kawin mental methods National organizations parents Park political professional psychology psychopathic Public Charities role School of Social scientific second quote settlement Shaw social problems social sciences social scientists Social Service society sociologists sociology Sophonisba Breckinridge Study of Delinquent T. V. Smith Thomas tion University of Chicago urban W. I. Thomas Welfare William Healy women wrote York