REFORMATORY SCHOOL, an institution for the voca tional training of juvenile offenders. In Great Britain this means offenders over 12 and under 16 years of age, who have been con victed of offences which, in the case of adults, would be punishable by penal servitude or imprisonment. The period of committal to a reformatory school is for not less than three years and not more than five years, and not beyond the age of 19. The schools are supported in the main from public funds, are regulated by the Children Act, 1908, and are supervised by the home secretary. The departmental committee on young offenders recommended, in March 1927, the substitution of 17 for 16 as the upper limit of age at the time of committal to a reformatory school and the abolition of the distinction between these schools and industrial schools (q.v.). See also BORSTAL SYSTEM. (X.) The reformatory system of the United States, as distinguished from the penitentiary or prison system, may be considered under two heads : (a) reform schools and industrial schools for youths under 16 or 18 committed for violations of the criminal law or for the want of proper guardianship, and (b) reformatories for adolescents between the ages of 16 or 18 and 3o convicted of criminal acts. The former is an outgrowth of the houses of refuge, which developed in the early part of the 19th century, under private and charitable organizations.
Beginning with the last quarter of the 19th century, a number of States established industrial schools or State homes for the correction and training of their delinquent youths. The reforma tory for older adolescents had its birth in the United States in 1869, when the New York State legislature enacted legislation and appropriated funds to build the New York State Reformatory at Elmira. The Elmira reformatory system of academic and
trade training is still regarded as the best of its kind in the United States. Almost every State has at least one reformatory. In practically all cases the system of discipline, training and release established at Elmira has been more or less followed. The inde terminate sentence is an integral part of the American reforma tory system. Beginning with 1925 there has been a decided trend towards specialized vocational training in connection with the educational work of all American reformatories. In the most progressive reformatories the academic and vocational training is being carefully guided by psychological and psychiatric work in the clinics of the institutions. This has led to marked improve ment in the classification and training of prisoners. It is signifi cant that more and more the clinical studies are being used as a basis for determining fitness for release.
The U.S. Government opened its first Federal reformatory for adolescent male offenders in March 1926, at Chillicothe, 0. In 1927 the first Federal Industrial Institution for Women was opened at Alderson, W.Va. Prior to this time, Federal offenders of all types over 16 years were received at the Federal penitentiaries. The Federal Government follows the practice of boarding many of its offenders in State reformatories and county workhouses.