Reformatory

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section does not cite its references or sources.
Please help improve this article by introducing appropriate citations. (help, get involved!) This article has been tagged since November 2006.

A reformatory is a juvenile prison where legal minors are sent by (juvenile or general) courts to spend a custodial sentence, separate from the bad example of and abuse by adult (often hardened) convicts, usually gender-separated (mainly boys).

It is generally designed not just as a punishment but as a means for (re)education, to reform (hence the name) their hopefully still mendable character, through a combination of strict discipline (symbolic for its harsh reputation is the term reformatory cane) and schooling (hence many are officially called reformatory school or simply school) and/or labor.

The reality has all too often tended rather to penal harm and/or exploitation. Alternative forms of juvenile reeducation have therefore been devised, such as community services, in some cases with better results.

A well-known example is the British borstal.