Hello, I’m Zhan Qingyun.

Chicago became the first city to enact a Juvenile Court Act and establish a juvenile court largely because of its historical circumstances.

The late nineteenth century brought extraordinarily rapid industrial development to the northern United States, drawing vast numbers of immigrants into industrial work.

The influx into industrial centers such as those in Illinois created severe difficulties. Cities were unprepared to supply housing, education, medical care, and employment. New immigrants provided essential labor and momentum, but rapid growth also produced social problems, including juvenile crime.

Reportedly, children arrested and sentenced in Chicago each year amounted to one fifth of the city’s juvenile population. So many arrests overcrowded prisons. Young offenders were confined with adults and received no age-appropriate education or rehabilitation; instead, they entered criminal circles and sank further. Minor offending could develop into serious crime inside a mixed prison population.

Creating judicial and correctional systems distinct from those for adults therefore became an urgent social necessity.

Industrial expansion also brought rapid growth in labor movements. International Workers’ Day traces to Chicago’s 1886 labor strike, and International Women’s Day is associated with struggles by women workers in the same city not long afterward. Chicago was a place where much was happening.

It was an era and place of energetic development, new social problems, and flourishing reform movements. A reformer named Jack Thorny launched a child-saving movement that joined the larger currents of labor and women’s activism. Together, reformers sought better environments, education, and opportunities for children. They advocated leniency toward juvenile offenders, social assistance, and vocational training that could guide them toward productive lives instead of mere punishment.

Supported by workers and other social reformers, the child-saving movement finally achieved results in Illinois: the world’s first Juvenile Court Act and juvenile court, established in 1899.

The Act covered offenders under sixteen and also protected abandoned, neglected, and homeless children. Juvenile institutions therefore served two purposes, as noted earlier: education and protection, but also punishment and confinement.