Kansas Industrial School for Girls

Last updated
Beloit Juvenile Correctional Facility
Former name
Youth Center at Beloit, Kansas Industrial School for Girls
ActiveFebruary 1, 1888–August 28, 2009
AffiliationKansas Juvenile Justice Authority

The Kansas Industrial School for Girls was established on February 1, 1888, in Beloit, Kansas by the Women's Christian Temperance Union. [1] The State of Kansas took over the operations in 1889. [1] The school was one of the longest operating reformatories for juvenile girls, having been open for 121 years. [2] Other names for the school include the State Industrial School for Girls, the Kansas Girls' Industrial School, the Youth Center at Beloit, and the Beloit Juvenile Correctional Facility.

Contents

History

When the State of Kansas acquired the Girls' School, the institution sat on 80 acres of land North of the then-current city limits of Beloit, Kansas. [3] By 1926, the school included 200 acres of farmland. [3] Girls who were committed to the school were deemed in need of correctional work by Kansas courts. [3] In the early years of the school, girls were taught a variety of subjects including domestic arts, healthcare, fine arts, religious instruction, and school subjects. [4] They were involved in the daily operations of the farm, garden, and kitchen. Girls also hosted and organized holiday events, such as the Independence Day Parade in 1938. [4]

The school implemented a cottage system of housing in 1908. [5] This allowed the girls to have a greater amount of freedom while staying under the careful watch of the officer in charge. [5]

The school's first parole officer, Emma Sells Marshall, gave her first report in the 1914 Biennial Report of the school. [6]

In 1919, an investigation into the management of the school occurred after two students tried to escape after an unsuccessful attempt to burn one of the buildings. the superintendent, Lillian M. Mitchner, subsequently resigned. [7]

In December 1945, the school's Administration Building, which had housed employee apartments, girls' dorms, offices, and the chapel, was lost to a fire. [8] The building was original to the state's acquisition of the school, having been donated by the city of Beloit in 1890. [1] Though the state originally allotted $135,000 for the reconstruction of the building in 1945, ground could not be broken. [8] Construction on the new building started during the 1948-1950 biennium. [9] The new Administration-Dormitory Building was completed in 1952. [10]

A TV special was made about the school entitled "Beloit--Girls with Hope" which was directed by Charles G. Gardiner and aired on KTVH. [11]

According to the Handbook for Students and Parents published by the school in 1972, the girls would first arrive to the school with their parents. [12] Both parents and girls were introduced to staff and given a tour of the facility. [12] The girl would then be separated from her parents, given an interview, and then be settled into one of the three first-level admissions cottages, where they would stay for nine to twelve months. [12] After that initial time period, in which girls would receive various medical, psychological, and educational tests, they would be moved to the Grandview second-level cottage, where they would begin evaluations to be released home. [12] This cottage came with an extra level of freedom. [12] The third-level cottage, Prairie Vista Cottage, provided more treatment for girls who had a difficult time adjusting. [12] Parents were not allowed to visit their daughters at the school until the social worker had approved visitation rights. [12] Boyfriends were not allowed to visit. [12]

The school name changed to the Youth Center at Beloit on July 1, 1974. [13]

The 100th Anniversary Celebration for the center was held on February 9, 1990. [14] This celebration included a ribbon cutting, a presentation of the center's history, and a speech by the then-current president of the Kansas Women's Christian Temperance Union. [14] Former residents of the school returned to the center to catalogue how their time spent at the Youth Center had been valuable in their lives. [14] The Youth Center also hosted the annual Women's Christian Temperance Union's state convention in September of that same year. [14]

The center's name officially changed for the last time to The Beloit Juvenile Correctional Facility on July 1, 1997. [15] The facility also switched state governing agencies from the Child Welfare System to the Kansas Juvenile Justice Authority at this time. [16]

The Beloit Juvenile Correctional Facility was closed by the state in 2009 due to its decreasing need and high cost. [17] Those who were still housed at the school at its closing were moved to the Kansas Juvenile Correctional Complex in Topeka, Kansas. [18]

Education

In her 1922 Biennial report, Superintendent Lyda J. McMahon alludes to the idea that the school's academic department was lacking upon her arrival to the school. [19] Temporary school rooms were set up in the school's Administration Building and Lula Coyner was appointed the school principal. [19]

By 1924, the school's academic work was divided into a morning and an afternoon session. [20] Girls from the third through the ninth grade were taught subjects such as reading, arithmetic, history, English, physiology, and home nursing. [20] Average class size at this time was fifteen to twenty students. [20]

To combat the cycle of abuse, the Youth Center implemented parenting classes in the Spring of 1980. [13] The program was originally started by the normal educational staff with the intent that it be taken over by a full-time instructor. [13]

Treatments

By 1966, the school was no longer considered a place of punishment for incarcerated girls, but became an institution more focused on the healthy mental and emotional development of the girls and to give them the foundation needed to enter society. [11] The four areas of treatment at this time were academic, vocational, milieu therapy, and psychotherapy. [11]

The first comprehensive annual report of the Youth Center at Beloit was filed in 1985. [21] This report details the treatments used by the school including room confinement and security and seclusion control. [21] These measures were put in place to allow students to calm down or to protect students from themselves and others. [21] The report states that these confinements were monitored by staff. [21] The longest use of the security status for a student in 1985 was 248 hours. [21]

Approximately 30 documented assaults on staff were carried out by residents of the center in 1990. [14] Because of this increase in physical violence, the center introduced Aggression Replacement Training (ART) led by Greg Peak, the center's Psychologist I. [14]

Sterilizations

The first forced sterilization law was passed in Kansas in 1913. [22] It was later repealed and replaced on February 27, 1917, by Chapter 205 of the Kansas statutes. [22] The Revised Statutes of Kansas for 1923 mentioned the girls' school in sections 76-149 and 76–155, which gave the school and seven other institutions legal power to sterilize inmates. [23] Under these laws and statutes, 71 inmates of the Girls' Industrial School were recommended for sterilization and 62 inmates of the Girls' Industrial School received sterilization operations by 1936. [23] The sterilizations were carried out at Lansing Correctional Facility in Lansing, Kansas, then called the Women's Industrial Farm. [24] Lula Coyner, the superintendent of the school from 1926 to 1936, cited venereal diseases and other physical and mental illnesses as the deciding factor in these sterilizations. [23] Coyner was replaced by superintendent Blanche Peterson shortly after the sterilizations were reported. [2] Peterson did not mention the sterilizations nor the subsequent media coverage of the sterilizations in her 1938 biennial report. [25]

Recommendations for sterilization were made by Dr. George A. Kelly and his associates from Fort Hays State University—then Fort Hays Kansas State College—who held psychology clinics for the inmates of the girls' school at the request of administration. [23] Dr. Kelly continued to work with the girls' school through the 1938 biennium. [25]

Kansas congresswoman Kathryn O'Loughlin McCarthy condemned the sterilizations in 1937 in a newspaper article. [22] The article started a national conversation about the ethics of forced sterilization on young women. [26] McCarthy called for the State of Kansas to begin an investigation into the sterilizations, alleging that parents had not given consent for their daughters to be operated on and that the reasons behind the sterilizations didn't fall in line with state standards. [27] The sterilizations at the girls' school were condemned by the Franklin D. Roosevelt Club in Kansas City, Kansas in November 1937. [26]

The sterilization of inmates of Kansas prisons remained legal until 1965. [24]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction</span>

The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction is the administrative department of the Ohio state government responsible for oversight of Ohio State Correctional Facilities, along with its Incarcerated Individuals. Ohio's prison system is the sixth-largest in America, with 27 state prisons and three facilities for juveniles. In December 2018, the number of inmates in Ohio totaled 49,255, with the prison system spending nearly $1.8 billion that year. ODRC headquarters are located in Columbus.

A reformatory or reformatory school is a youth detention center or an adult correctional facility popular during the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Western countries. In the United Kingdom and United States, they came out of social concerns about cities, poverty, immigration, and gender following industrialization, as well as from a shift in penology to reforming instead of punishing the criminal. They were traditionally single-sex institutions that relied on education, vocational training, and removal from the city. Although their use declined throughout the 20th century, their impact can be seen in practices like the United States' continued implementation of parole and the indeterminate sentence.

Coxsackie Correctional Facility is a maximum security state prison in Coxsackie, Greene County, New York. It currently houses approximately 900 inmates. It is classified as a maximum security general confinement facility and detention center for men.

Winlaton Youth Training Centre was a Government owned and run female youth correctional facility located on 18 acres (73,000 m2) at 186 Springvale Road Nunawading, Victoria, Australia. The facility was designed to accommodate 14- to 18-year-old wards of the state. It opened in 1956 as the Winlaton Juvenile School, and closed in 1993 as the Nunawading Youth Residential Facility. A housing estate now occupies the site.

The Oklahoma State Reformatory is a medium-security facility with some maximum and minimum-security housing for adult male inmates. Located off of State Highway 9 in Granite, Oklahoma, the 10-acre (4.0 ha) facility has a maximum capacity of 1042 inmates. The medium-security area accommodates 799 prisoners, minimum-security area houses roughly 200, and the maximum-security area with about 43 inmates. The prison currently houses approximately 975 prisoners. The prison was established by an act of the legislature in 1909 and constructed through prison labor, housing its first inmate in 1910. The facility is well known for the significant roles women played in its foundation and governance, most notably having the first female warden administer an all-male prison in the nation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ohio Reformatory for Women</span>

The Ohio Reformatory for Women (ORW) is a state prison for women owned and operated by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction in Marysville, Ohio. It opened in September 1916, when 34 female inmates were transferred from the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus. ORW is a multi-security, state facility. As of July 2019, 2,394 female inmates were living at the prison ranging from minimum-security inmates all the way up to one inmate on death row. It was the fifth prison in the United States, in modern times, to open a nursery for imprisoned mothers and their babies located within the institution. The Achieving Baby Care Success (ABC) program was the first in the state to keep infants with their mothers.

The Indianapolis Juvenile Correctional Facility was a minimum, medium, and maximum state juvenile facility of the Indiana Department of Correction. It was located on Girls School Road, 8 miles (13 km) west of downtown Indianapolis. The facility currently houses 185 female inmates ranging in age from twelve years to twenty-one years. The facility was originally established in 1907 as an all-girls school and was known for most of its history as the Indiana Girls School. In 2006, juvenile male offenders were assigned to the facility as well. In late 2007 all male offenders were transferred to other state facilities and the Indianapolis Juvenile Correctional Facility reverted to being an all female facility. In 2009 the girls were moved to the Madison Juvenile Correctional Facility, and the former IJCF became the current location of the Indiana Women's Prison.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stonewall Jackson Youth Development Center</span> Historic school building in North Carolina, United States

Cabarrus Youth Development Center is a juvenile correctional facility of the North Carolina Department of Public Safety located in unincorporated Cabarrus County, North Carolina, near Concord.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maine Department of Corrections</span>

The Maine Department of Corrections is a government agency in the U.S. state of Maine that is responsible for the direction and general administrative supervision, guidance and planning of both adult and juvenile correctional facilities and programs within the state. The agency has its headquarters in Augusta. As of January 2016, the Maine DOC had 2,223 inmates in its custody.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wisconsin Department of Corrections</span> Wisconsin state government department

The Wisconsin Department of Corrections (WIDOC) is an administrative department in the executive branch of the state of Wisconsin responsible for corrections in Wisconsin, including state prisons and community supervision. The secretary is a cabinet member appointed by the governor of Wisconsin and confirmed by the Wisconsin Senate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fred C. Nelles Youth Correctional Facility</span> Former youth detention center in Whittier, California

The Fred C. Nelles Youth Correctional Facility was in essence a prison for youth located on Whittier Boulevard, in Whittier, California. Operated by the California Youth Authority, now part of California Department of Corrections, it once quartered young people incarcerated for law-breaking until it was closed by the state of California in June 2004. Open for 113 years, it had been the oldest juvenile facility in the state, and became registered as California Historical Landmark #947. It was closed because of the reduction in the number of juveniles being housed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hillcrest Youth Correctional Facility</span> Juvenile correctional facility in Salem, Oregon

Hillcrest Youth Correctional Facility was a state-run juvenile correctional facility located in Salem, Oregon, United States, established in 1914. Hillcrest was run by the Oregon Youth Authority (OYA), Oregon's juvenile corrections agency. It was closed on September 1, 2017, and all youth, staff, and programs were moved to MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility in Woodburn as part of a major project to consolidate the two facilities.

The Ohio Department of Youth Services (DYS) is the administrative department of the Ohio state government responsible for juvenile corrections. It has its headquarters in Columbus.

The Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) is a state agency of Virginia, headquartered in the Main Street Centre building at 600 East Main St. in Richmond. The DJJ operates 30 court service units and one juvenile correctional center.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Connecticut Department of Children and Families</span> State agency of Connecticut, US

The Connecticut Department of Children and Families (DCF) is a state agency of Connecticut providing family services. Its headquarters is in Hartford.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kansas Juvenile Justice Authority</span> Kansas juvenile correction agency

The Kansas Department of Corrections (KDOC) is a state agency of Kansas, headquartered in Suite 300 of 714 S.W. Jackson St. in Topeka. The former agency of the Juvenile Justice Authority (JJA), which began on July 1, 1997, was merged with the Kansas Department of Corrections by Governor Sam Brownback on July 1, 2013 to increase internal efficiencies and provide more secure operations. The KDOC operates the state's juvenile correctional facilities. In 1996, the Kansas Legislature had passed the Juvenile Justice Reform Act, stipulating that only the most chronic, serious, and violent juvenile delinquents are sent to secure juvenile correctional facilities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women</span>

North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women (NCCIW) is the primary North Carolina Department of Public Safety prison facility housing female inmates on a 30-acre (12 ha) campus in Raleigh, North Carolina, and serves as a support facility for the six other women's prisons throughout the state. The facility's inmate population, which is the largest in the state, consists of inmates from all custody levels and control statuses including death row, maximum security, close custody, medium security, minimum security, and safekeepers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mimico Correctional Centre</span>

The Mimico Correctional Centre was a provincial medium-security correctional facility for adult male inmates serving a sentence of 2-years-less-a-day or less in Ontario, Canada. Its history can be traced back to 1887. The Mimico Correctional Centre is one of several facilities operated by the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services and was located at 130 Horner Avenue in the district of Etobicoke which is now a part of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The facility was closed in 2011 and demolished to make room for the new Toronto South Detention Centre which opened in 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wisconsin Industrial School for Girls</span> Girls school for delinquent and uncared for

Wisconsin Industrial School for Girls was a 19th-century American reform school in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Industrial School for Girls was the only secular reformatory institution in the state where delinquent and neglected girls could make a home. The school's purpose was the prevention of crime and pauperism of unfortunate girls; and the restoration of those who had fallen into bad habits, or inherited vicious tendencies. The system of discipline and education was adapted to the condition and needs of the pupils. There were several buildings associated with the school, including the Main Building, Russell Cottage, Lynde Cottage, Cottage Annex, Merrill Model Home, Assembly Hall, Steward's Home, Steam Heating Plant and Barn

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virginia Home and Industrial School for Girls</span>

The Virginia Home and Industrial School for Girls, a reformatory, opened in 1910 in Bon Air, Chesterfield County as a private charity to confine and train “incorrigible” White girls under the age of eighteen. Black girls were sent to the Virginia Industrial Home School for Colored Girls.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Kansas. Girls' Industrial School (1890). Biennial Report 1890. Vol. 1.
  2. 1 2 "Closed reformatory remembered as horror, haven". LJWorld.com. Retrieved 2022-10-24.
  3. 1 2 3 Kansas. Girls' Industrial School (1926). Biennial report of the Girls' Industrial School, Beloit, Kan., for the two years ending 1926. Vol. 19.
  4. 1 2 "Kansas Girls Industrial School. Graduating into society - Kansas Memory". www.kansasmemory.org. Retrieved 2022-10-23.
  5. 1 2 Kansas. Girls' Industrial School (1908). Biennial report of the Girls' Industrial School, Beloit, Kan., for the two years ending 1908. Vol. 10.
  6. ↑ Kansas. Girls' Industrial School (1914). Biennial report of the Girls' Industrial School, Beloit, Kan., of the two years ending 1914. Vol. 13.
  7. ↑ "Girls Paroled. Mrs. Mitchner Resigns". The Beloit Gazette. 24 September 1919. p. 1. Retrieved 19 February 2024– via Newspapers.com.PD-icon.svg This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain . Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg
  8. 1 2 Kansas. Girls' Industrial School (1946). Biennial report of the Girls' Industrial School, Beloit, Kan., for the two years ending 1946. Vol. 29.
  9. ↑ Kansas. Girls' Industrial School (1950). Biennial report of the Girls' Industrial School, Beloit, Kan., for the two years ending 1950. Vol. 31.
  10. ↑ Kansas. Girl's Industrial School (1952). Biennial report of the Girls' Industrial School, Beloit, Kan., for the two years ending 1952. Vol. 32.
  11. 1 2 3 Kansas. Secretary of State. (1966). "Girl's Industrial School". Kansas Biennial Report, 1966. Kansas Secretary of State: 1233–1246 – via Kansas State Library.
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Kansas State Girls' School (1972). Handbook for Students and Parents.
  13. 1 2 3 Kansas. Secretary of State. (1980). "Youth Center at Beloit". Kansas Biennial Report, 1980: 572–577 – via Kansas State Library.
  14. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Youth Center at Beloit FY90 Annual Report. Youth Center at Beloit. 1990.
  15. ↑ "2006 Kansas Code - 76-2201". Justia Law. Retrieved 2022-10-28.
  16. ↑ Youth Center at Beloit FY97 Annual Report. Youth Center at Beloit. 1997.
  17. ↑ "Advances in Juvenile Justice Reform: 2009-2011 | Facility Closures and Downsizing". www.njjn.org. Retrieved 2022-10-23.
  18. ↑ "Beloit Juvenile Facility Closing". McClatchy - Tribune Business News. 2009. ProQuest   458018761 – via ProQuest.
  19. 1 2 Kansas. Girls' Industrial School (1922). Biennial report of the Girls' Industrial School, Beloit, Kan., for the two years ending 1922. Vol. 17.
  20. 1 2 3 Kansas. Girls' Industrial School (1924). Biennial report of the Girls' Industrial School, Beloit, Kan., for the two years ending 1924. Vol. 18.
  21. 1 2 3 4 5 Youth Center at Beloit FY'85 Annual Report. Youth Center at Beloit. 1985.
  22. 1 2 3 C., Lovett, Christopher. Bad girls : sex, shame, public health, and the forgotten legacy of Samuel J. Crumbine in Kansas, 1917-1955. OCLC   1061558463.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  23. 1 2 3 4 Kansas. Girls' Industrial School (1936). Biennial report of the Girls' Industrial School, Beloit, Kan., for the two years ending 1936. Vol. 24.
  24. 1 2 Perry, Nicole (2015). Diseased Bodies and Ruined Reputations: Venereal Disease and the Construction of Women's Respectability in Early 20th Century Kansas. University of Kansas, Ann Arbor. ProQuest   1761798052.
  25. 1 2 Kansas. Girls' Industrial School (1938). Biennial report of the Girls' Industrial School, Beloit, Kan., for the two years ending 1938. Vol. 25.
  26. 1 2 Bailey, Hannah Anneliese (2020-12-17). ""Saturated with Vice": Angelic White Children, Incorrigible Youth, and Reformable Subjects". Left History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Historical Inquiry and Debate. 23 (2). doi: 10.25071/1913-9632.39578 . ISSN   1913-9632.
  27. ↑ "Nazi eugenic programs were based on grisly experiments like this in the United States. This story ran Oct. 23, 1937. 62 GIRLS UNDER 16 ARE STERILIZED IN U.S. REFORMATORY "Reasons Ridiculous," Ex- Congress Woman States - One for Bad Temper: [AM Edition]". Toronto Star. 1937. ProQuest   436703025 – via ProQuest.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.