4. The Reform School Era in California

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© Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice 2013
40 Boardman Place
San Francisco, CA 94103
The Industrial School legacy and the search for
new answers
California Enters the Reform School Era

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19th century explanations about what went wrong:
Questioning the congregate institutional model
The inherent problems of the congregate
institution:
 The failure of institutional design
 Failure of private institutional management
and the need for state administration
 Deficiencies of institutional programing
 Lack of age and gender segregation leads
to institutional abuse
 The need for a more nurturing institutional
environment

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Creation of the California State Penological Commission
(1885)
Founded to examine penal practices around the country and issue
recommendation on two issues:
• How to reform the states adult penitentiaries
• How to develop and administer youth reform schools

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Commission Recommends a New Era of Institutional
Care
• End the practice of housing
youth with adult criminals
• Create trade schools for youth
with “incorrigible” or “vicious”
characters
• Create cottage-based institutions
that emphasize development of
sound work habits in a more
nurturing environment
• Maintain separate institutions for
boys and girls

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The Cottage System and the Search for a new
Institutional order
• Reject penitentiary design
• Need for “a well regulated
Christian home”
• Small semi-autonomous home
like “cottages”
• Cottages would house between
30 and 40 youth supervised by a
husband and wife
• Attempt to create a more
nurturing environment
• Emphasis remained on instilling
sound work habits and self
reliance

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“The internal system of
the reformatory school should be, as nearly as practicable, that of the
family, with its refining and elevating influences; while awakening of
the conscience and the inculcation of religious principles should be primary aims.
Perhaps a boy enters the school feeling that the hand of every man is against him,
and with revenge in his heart; but let him there find a corps of just but merciful
guides ready to teach him and help him and love him, and it is reasonable to
expect that he will soon be actuated by better feelings and nobler resolves.”
State Penological Commission (1895)

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Commission’s Recommendations for California
• Adopt the cottage system for future youth institutions
• Maintain separate facilities for boys and girls

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State Board of Prison Directors weighs in
• Created in 1880 as a permanent
body overseeing California’s adult
prisons
• Argued for the removal of youth
from adult prisons
• Advocated building of two state-run
youth reform schools
• Sent fact finding delegation around
the country to determine best
institutional design
• Advocated for a return to a single
centralized building that retained
most elements of the congregate
system

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Legislature approves creation of two state administered reform schools at
Whittier and Ione (1889)
• Ignored calls for cottage system
• Called for a renewed emphasis on
basic education and vocational
training
• Intended for youth deemed to be on
the path to delinquency
Governor Robert Waterman

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Original Plan for the Whittier State School based on
cottage system model (1891)

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Whittier State Reform School opened in 1891
following single building Victorian design

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Whittier State School (opened in 1891)
• Housed males and females up to
age 21 who were sentenced before
age 16
• Commitments were determinant up
to 5 years
• Youth could earn up to 10 days off
per month for good behavior
• Youth housed in 3 large dormitories
holding up 150.
• Basement included a washroom
with 150 individual faucets
• Plunge bath was also located in the
basement to cleanse youth upon
admittance

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End of the Industrial School Era
Opening of Whittier State School resulted in:
 SF Board of Supervisors vote to
close the institution on Oct 29,
1891
 Board opts to send Industrial
school youths to Whittier as it
“would be an unwise and cruel
thing to turn them adrift”
 Option to bind industrial school
youth out to learn trades deemed
unworkable

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Whittier Governance and Organization
• Overseen by a 3 person Board of Trustees appointed by the Governor
• Board of Trustees appointed the superintendent
• Superintendent oversaw daily operations

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Staffing the Whittier State School
• Administrative staff
• Gardener
• Housekeeper
• Teachers
• Deputies
• Farmer

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Primary responsibility of all staff
• “Preserving order”
• “Preventing and pursuing
escapes”

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The daily regimen and the emphasis on order
• Used merit system (based on
Maconochie’s mark system)
• Youths could earn 300 merits each month
until they achieved 5000 and were entitled
to discharge
• Followed traditional congregate
institutional regimen with emphasis on
work, education, and religious instruction
• Youth were organized into military
companies led by a staff captain and
designated cadet officers
• All movement was according to military
order and drill
• Youth employed in institutional work details
• Youth attended school for 3 hours a day

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Emerging programmatic and policy issues at Whittier
• Lack of qualified teachers
• Limited institutional space for educational needs despite stated priority
• Inability to separate according to academic ability
• Determinant versus indeterminate commitments
• Lack of standards for determining appropriate commitments
• Abolition of police court jurisdiction over commitments
• Public perceptions of reform schools

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First Scandal: “Cruelty”
• Use of strait jacket, dark cells, and
flogging against girls for minor
transgressions
• Girls placed in lockers overnight
• Girls hands and feet tied and
clothes wrapped around their
mouths
• Boys beaten with cat-o-nine tails
until blood ran down their backs

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Investigation of 1896
• Governor James Budd orders investigation of boys and girls departments
• Conducted by Board of Trustee member Adina Mitchell
• System of discipline condemned as “barbaric” and “relic of the dark ages”
• Treatment of girls called repugnant
• Called for creating a separate girls institution with separate system of
management
• Called for new buildings to separate youth by age

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Policy Recommendations following Whittier Scandal
• Calls for adoption of a cottage system for younger boys
• Calls for raising the age limit for institutional commitments

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Preston School of Industry
• Created under 1889 legislation, but construction
delayed by Governor Markman
• Site of Ione in Amador County, a gold rush era town,
selected as political accommodation for Senator
Preston who championed the institution
• Governed by a three person Board of Trustees
appointed by the Governor
• Began operations on June 13, 1894 with the arrival of
“seven boys” from San Quentin where they had been
imprisoned
 Males (no females) 8-18 could be committed and held
under a determinant sentence until age 21
• Maximum sentence lengths set by the courts
• Early release could be obtained through the earning
of good time credits

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The Preston Building
• Main building intended to be “model
of its kind”
• Including new hygienic innovations
urinals and flush toilets, plunge
bath, shower bath.
• 1st floor contained bakery kitchen
and storeroom
• 2nd floor contained reception rooms,
classrooms, staff quarters, dinning
rooms and staff quarters
• 3rd and 4th floors contained youth
dormitories

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Preston Opening
Carl Bank appointed
Superintendent
Opened on June 13th with
the arrival of “seven boys”
from San Quentin

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Expected Impact of Preston School of Industry
• Relieve crowding at Whittier
• Provide alternative to adult
prison
• Address the effects of child
neglect brought about by
economic downturn

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Organization of Preston followed Whittier
• Academic dept.: required 4 ½
hours of daily schooling
• Military dept.: Boys organized
into companies with older
boys serving as cadet
captains
• Industrial dept.: consisted
mostly of institutional
maintenance

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Who Were the Inmates

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Escape from Preston (circa 1899)

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Controversy and Chaos at Preston (1895)
• Superintendent E. Carl Bank
accused of poor management
and cruel treatment of youth
• Youth overworked, underfed
and poorly clothed
• No recreational facilities or
activities
• Youth “herded into dark
basement on a concrete floor”

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Controversy continues
• Banks ousted as superintendent with election of James Budd (D) and replaced
by political ally Dr. E. S. O’Brien
• Controversy continues with reports of youth being flogged until “blood ran” and
“salt thrown on the wounds”
• Investigation by Secretary of State described Preston management as a
“howling farce” and that it might be better to “wipe it entirely out of existence”
• Assembly committee investigation found widespread use of flogging in
combination with food deprivation and extended isolation
• Sacramento Bee (1901) reports that gang rape is common practice in a story
where details “were too vile to print”
• Preston Board of Trustees denied the allegations claiming that reform school
training was effective at “stamping out this special evil”

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Dormitories and violence
• Preston dormitory design came
under attack because they render
vulnerable youth easy targets of
assault by older youth
• Average sleeping unit held up to 50
or more youths
• Investigation by the State Board of
Charities and Corrections called “to
break up the dormitory system”
• Led to repeated calls for a cottage
system

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Legal challenges and the growing unease with
absence of due process in matters of children

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Ex Parte Becknell (1897) and Reform School
Commitment
• Declared that young people could not be committed to a state reform school
(Whittier) for a criminal offense without trial by jury
• Parents could not be declared unfit or unwilling to perform parental duties
without a legal proceeding
• Did not challenge right of the state to impose institutional commitment when
deemed to be in the child’s best interest
• Ruling led California child savers to pursue creation of juvenile court to re-
impose state’s discretion

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In re Peterson (1903)
• Reflects growing recognition that commitments to a state reform school is a
punitive sanction
• Forbade the superior court practice of committing youth to a state institution
on the recommendation of a lower court or police judge
• Required a conviction in superior court before an institutional commitment
could be imposed
• Essentially brought an end to the practice of confining non-delinquents in
state reform schools

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Scenes of Reform School Life

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Typical Dormitory for 60 to 100 Boys

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Sewing workshop

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Common Dining Room (Circa 1900)

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Typical Class Room (circa 1900)

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Play Structure at Preston

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Institutional Slaughter and Butcher Barn

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Constructing the Institution

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Institutional Band

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Superintendent’s Office

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Congregate Workshop

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Preston’s Youthful Inmates

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Youthful Inmates

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Military Drill and Institutional Structure

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Military Structure

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Preston’s Trades Building

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Preston’s Experiment in Self Government

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Military Drill at Preston

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Preston Work Crew

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Preston Work Shop

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Preston Swimming Hole

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Preston Baseball Team circa (1910)

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Disciplinary Unit (the Jail) Circa 1920s

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The Disciplinary Unit Through The Decades
Circa 1920s 2006 Photo by author

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Preston Cadets marching past the honor cottage

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New Preston commitments

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The Preston Grave Yard

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Some youth never left Preston

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Preston Auto Shop (circa 1915)

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Preston School of Industry (circa1915)

4. The Reform School Era in California

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4. The Reform School Era in California