CRIMJ441:

Introduction

Lesson Overview

It is important that as we begin to explore the major tenets of the juvenile justice in America we first understand its underlying philosophy. Relatively speaking, the juvenile justice system is a new approach to managing the so-called problem child. To understand how we got to where we are today we must first return to an earlier time in history.

The purpose of this lesson is to retrace the history of attitudes toward and the treatment of children. This history can be traced all the way back to pre-American Revolution days, all the way back to Europe and to the early days of Colonial America. This history is rooted in Biblical principles and in Judeo/Christian beliefs, primarily coming from the Old Testament. Deeply held religious beliefs played a major role in how children were viewed and how they were treated by adults. During the emergence of nation-states, families were elevated to a point of non-intervention; governments were firm in their belief that family matters should be left entirely up to the parents -- primarily to the husband and father.

This lesson focuses on this earlier history as well as how history changed in later years. In essence, the lesson aims to describe the key historical developments that eventually led to the establishment of a separate justice system for young people -- separate from the adult system where they were treated the same as their older counterparts.

Lesson Objectives

By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

• Understand the importance of religious beliefs and early notions of total family autonomy regarding the treatment of children in Colonial America and beyond;
• Define the terms: patriarchy, patriae potestas, a fortiori, age of responsibility, Enlightenment Era, parens patriae, industrialization;
• Exhibit a working knowledge about the role that enlightenment thinking and the Industrial Revolution played in changes within the family and attitudes toward and treatment of children;
• Explore the impact of rapid immigration in the U.S. and the role this historical event played in ushering in the progressive era. 

Readings and Assignments

1. Read Chapters 1 and  2 in Sims and Preston (2006). You are expected to have completed the reading before you proceed to the instructor's commentaries for this lesson.
2. Read the Annie E. Casey Foundation's Kids Count Policy Report
3. Take RAT 1 (Reading Assessment Test for Lesson 1).
4. Complete the Thought Provoking Exercise
5. Complete the Wrap-Up Activity

Thought-Provoking Exercise

Contemporary Issues in Juvenile Justice – Attitudes Towards Children

In this course you will be afforded an opportunity to learn about early societies attitudes towards children and how adult perception influenced treatment towards youth.  Also as a student you will be asked to share your perspective regarding the efficacy of previous as well as current practices aimed towards juveniles.  As the professor for this course I am also interested in learning more about factors (i.e., personal and professional) that help to shape your respective views concerning the contemporary treatment of children.

Read this news story about adoptive parents accused of abandoning their 9-year-old son.  It has garnered national attention, and I'd like to hear your thoughts on the subject.  Please read the article and answer the following questions:

• Do you agree or disagree with the actions taken by Cleveland and Lisa Cox?
• In light of the child behavioral issues presented by their 9 year old adopted son, how might you have responded if this was your child?
• In your opinion what key factors should be considered when dealing with children in similar situations?
• What do you believe will be the long-term implications of the Cox’s decision?

Post your thoughts to the Lesson 01 Thought Provoking Exercise discussion forum.

Historical Views of Children in Biblical Items and "Old World" Europe

The Church Doctrine

There are deep-seated notions about child-rearing practices in modern time that are rooted in the religious beliefs of early human communities. The focus here is on that period of time between the 17th and 19th centuries; we begin here because it is this period of time most commonly thought of as having the greatest influence on today's attitudes toward and treatment of children.

In Western Europe (France, Spain, Great Britain, etc.), religious beliefs and leaders were very much intertwined with civil leaders. In fact, monarchs (kings and queens) quite often were advised by church leaders, primarily those of the Catholic church. Much of the religious dogma became the ruling force behind civil authority. Put another way, interpretations of the Bible (thought to be the ordained word of God) by church leaders were accepted without hesitation, and with few exceptions, by major heads of state.

Just as church doctrine was part and parcel of the civil discord in government during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries across Europe, and eventually in early Colonial America, so too was its hold on the masses. In other words, the church greatly influenced all social institutions and nowhere is this truer than within the institution of the family.

Within the family, it was held that God had ordained the man to be the head of the household. Under this patriarchal system, women and children were relegated to a much lower role. The male head of the household had complete autonomy in how he managed the family unit. Women had to subjugate themselves to their husbands and keep silent when it came to decisions regarding children. Children were to be absolutely obedient and the Biblical teaching of "spare the rod and spoil the child" was alive and well in these early households. Also, households very much believed in the old adage, "Children should be seen and not heard." Children who acted out were often accused of being "possessed by the devil." They were viewed as "evil" or "wicked."

Community Development

During early stages of community development, children were often viewed as a nuisance. The very poor, representing most of society during this time, struggled to care for these children. Because of extreme living conditions, a large number of infants did not survive beyond the first year. Some women committed infanticide, a common occurrence during this time in some areas, in order to reduce the number of mouths the family had to feed. Feral children is a term used to describe those young people who were taken deep into the woods and abandoned by their families. These throwaway children often survived somehow and made their way back to civilization where they were viewed as wild animals, kept in cages, and eventually starved or beaten to death.

As conditions for humans improved over time, there evolved more than two main classes of people, e.g. the wealthy property owners and those who had absolutely nothing. As production of goods and services became a way of living, and through the bartering system (the exchange of basic necessities between people, such as food, tools, etc.), there arose different classes of people. The lower classes continued to struggle under extreme poverty and unhealthy living conditions; the middle classes fared much better; and the upper classes continued with business as usual. Sometime in the 18th century or so, well into the 19th century, middle-class families began to model the lives of upper-class families. Children during this time were to be raised by women of the lower classes and to be dressed up and paraded out before guests almost like a show and tell moment, only to be quickly disposed of once the guests had been sufficiently impressed by how well the children were groomed and how well behaved they were.

Under this new way of child rearing, middle- and upper-class families would often send their infants away and into the arms of lower class women who would breast feed them and raise them up to about the age of three or so. There are accounts of many children of the lower classes either being killed by their parents or cast off into the woods in order to make room for middle- and upper -class children for whom they would be paid a sum of money for their care. Babies were swaddled (wrapped tightly in a blanket such that their movements would be restricted) in an effort to break their spirit, and corporal punishment was the primary disciplinary tool used across all classes of people. After a period of time, when children were past the toddler stage, they would be returned to the homes of their parents only to receive care from a live-in nanny or nursemaid. It simply was not fashionable during this time, leading into the Victorian age (1830s into the early 1900s), for mothers to show much attention to, much less actually care for, their children.

Attitudes Toward and Treatment of Children in Colonial America

The attitudes toward children held by our European forefathers and mothers, and particularly the English, greatly influenced the manner in which children were treated by early Americans. There are accounts of children who suffered greatly at the hands of their parents or, in some cases, of church leaders removing "wayward" youth from parents who were thought unable to break their child's spirit. Incidences of severe physical abuse of children, in an effort to cast out demons, are well documented.

It is important to note that in Colonial America, following precedents established by English and other European Biblical notions, corporal punishment of children was deeply embedded in child-rearing principles.  "Spare the rod and spoil the child," takes its meaning from Proverbs 13-24, "He that spareth his rod hateth his son" was a prevalent attitude espoused by adults during this period which also influenced how children were treated and disciplined.

In sum, in early American communities, children fared little better, at least initially, than they did in English and other European households of the time. Early Puritan settlers, however, believed it was necessary to study the Bible, so children were taught to read at an early age. But children were deemed to be responsible adults by the time they were ten years of age and as such received the same treatment as did their older counterparts when they acted out or got into trouble.

The Enlightenment Age and Its Influence on Attitudes toward Children

The Enlightenment Age, 1500-1800 AD, marked the beginning of the end of such a stronghold on human activities and social institutions by the church. During this time, there emerged scholars and writers who challenged the church and its puppet governments.

In the 1700s, scholars such as Cesare Beccaria, often referred to as the Father of the Classical School of Criminology, had to go into hiding out of fear for their lives at the hands of the Catholic church. Beccaria, for one thing, called for an end to torture and for a more humane method of punishment. He spoke out against the inquisitorial system of justice where people where deemed guilty unless they proved themselves innocent. Public whippings, and more barbarous methods of physical torture, were used to exact an admission of guilt from of the innocent and the guilty alike.

Other philosophers toward the end of the Enlightenment Age also joined Beccaria, calling abolition of strict adherence to Biblical injunctions and toward the use of free, rational, and independent thinking.It was believed that because people were equipped with the ability to reason, unlike the rest of the animal kingdom, they should be able to develop a course of self-government without undue interference by the church and the governments who had allowed its leaders to dominate all social institutions and cultures.

Although it took some time for the church and the state to loosen their stronghold on family life, little by little this did occur. More modern methods of child-rearing practices emerged, parallel with a backing away from a strict belief that acting-out behavior was the result of innate sin, and thus of the devil. Rather, there emerged a belief that perhaps there is something different about a child; that a child is not, after all, just a miniature adult.

Period of Industrialization in America (1750-1900 AD)

Quaker Belief

Religious beliefs remained an important element when it came to methods used to correct a child's behavior. But by the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a new kind of religion, namely that of the Quakers, began to take hold in our newly industrialized nation. Quakers believe in searching for one's inner light. If left alone long enough to reflect on one's behavior, children will come to see the errors of their ways.  The early houses of correction and later penitentiaries are grounded in this underlying philosophy.

Rapid Industrialization and Immigration

With the ushering in of massive industrialization, coupled with rapid immigration into American's heartland as well as in the northeast, these new-found religious beliefs would be challenged and would be applied to the management of children. Slowly, the agricultural society with smaller, close-knit communities quickly disappeared and was replaced with highly populated areas with new factories and other massive material producing mechanisms and systems. The division of labor, well defined on the farm and in the countryside, changed almost overnight. Men, women, and children went to work in the factories, and under less than humane and safe working conditions. Children were often left to roam the streets, a heretofore unheard of social phenomenon.

During this time of rapid industrialization, American cities were awash with European immigrants. For the first time in its early history, the country was dealing with pockets of dense populations consisting of people from different cultures, mores, and traditions. Culture conflict was an everyday occurrence as these differences emerged with little understanding or acceptance by different groups of people for those outside the dominant group. Children of the Irish, the Italian, the Polish, the Jewish immigrants found themselves more than a bit unsettled under these conditions. Attitudes about child rearing practices were far from the same from one group to another, for one thing, and for another, the rising middle classes, consisting of those citizens whose families had been settled for the past four or five decades or so, looked upon these immigrants as not "real" Americans at all, and began to seek out ways to get control of this rising class of problem children.

Summary

Thoughts about how children should be viewed and treated have changed over time. The brief description of this history was meant to demonstrate that some of the ideas about child rearing practices are very much alive and well in modern-day society. Even today, there is a generally held belief, across most cultures, that parents should be able to raise their children in the manner in which they see fit as long as those children are not being maltreated in some way. The more general society, however, now must adhere to certain laws, especially when it comes to labor laws in the U.S. and in most industrialized nations. Child labor laws protect children from the conditions that the children of the industrial revolution had to endure.

In Lesson 2, we will learn about a social phenomenon referred to as the child saving movement.  It was this movement that gave impetus to the development of a separate system of justice for children and remains today the topic of a rich discussion as to the true purpose of the child savers. The evolving approach to dealing with the misbehavior of children is important to understand as the child saving movement, as well as the modern-day juvenile justice system, takes root deep within that important history.

Wrap-Up Activity: Exploration of Child Development

Modern-day psychology consists of a separate and well-defined field of exploration referred to as child development.  Please read the article “The First Eight Years: Giving kids a foundation for lifetime success” reported by The Annie E. Casey Foundation in their Kids Count Policy Report. 

1. In reviewing the report what does it take for children to succeed (i.e., key variables)?
2. In examining the Casey Report what type of activity during the earlier periods examined in Lesson 1 support youth surviving?  Also discuss which activities you believe were a barrier to youth successfully thriving and transitioning into adulthood.
3. Based on what you know today where should our emphasis be in terms of ensuring the healthy development of youth?

Post your individual 2-4 minute video response to these questions in YouSeeU to the Lesson 1 Wrap-up Activity Assignment.  Responses should be thoughtful, respectful of others' ideas/opinions, and should demonstrate critical thinking regarding the issue. 

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