Aftercare

Historical Perspective

During the 18th century, youth were placed in an apprenticeship at about age 8 to learn a skill, responsibility, and discipline. The practice began to decline in popularity in the latter half of the 18th century, leading to a breakdown in the supervision of youth. The result was that disorderly youth had time to be involved in antisocial extracurricular activities—crime.

Due to the increasing number of unsupervised and unruly youth, there was a rise in the number and type of individuals being detained. Hence the early 1800s witnessed a move to separate detained children from detained adults. The first facility exclusively for children opened in 1825. The New York House of Refuge detained vagrant, neglected, and criminal youth in the hope of providing them with a more positive environment. Children were required to attend school and were taught a trade during their incarceration, which lasted between one and three years. An assessment committee determined the length of the youth's detainment. The committee had to establish the youth's readiness for release into the community, based on his or her behavior within the House of Refuge.

[Page 4]After a period of detainment, the youth was released to a family to work in a private home as an indentured servant. This has been seen as the beginning stages of the current juvenile aftercare movement. The goal of the indentured phase was to provide supervision to the youth while in the community and teach the child a job skill. In addition, this step provided the youth with a nurturing environment to try to reduce the factors that may have led her or him to engage in illegitimate behaviors. Starting in the late 1860s, the indentured committee, which originally granted release, required an official agent to check on the youth's progress.

The indentured component of the House of Refuge ended in the late 19th century because it was no longer viewed as profitable. However, many argue that it did not truly disappear; rather, the job titles changed (Pisciotta, 1993). Indentured changed to aftercare, or parole, and visiting agents became parole agents. The only difference is that the indentured process released youth to “masters,” whereas the aftercare/parole method releases youth to their families or guardians.

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