Michael Schlossman publishes article on the historical role of activism in juvenile justice reform.
Research Assistant Professor Dr. Michael Schlossman (The Institute for Innovation and Implementation) recently published an article in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography titled “From Laggard to Innovator: Barbara Fruchter and the 1970s-Era Movement to Deinstitutionalize Juvenile Justice.” Schlossman sought to understand how a now more fully accepted idea in juvenile justice—treating the great majority of juvenile justice-involved young people in small community-based rather than large institutional programs—was first envisioned and introduced into American juvenile justice a half-century ago. Based on diverse archival sources and more than 30 oral history interviews, this essay examines how volunteer activist women in the 1970s galvanized support and took advantage of favorable political conditions to pass major legislative reforms that made Pennsylvania a model for how to implement the federal Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) of 1974 at the state level.
Horrified by conditions they witnessed on a tour of a nearby juvenile detention center, three Philadelphia area women created a broad-based coalition, centered in the Juvenile Justice Center (JJC) of Pennsylvania, to transform juvenile justice statewide. Schlossman’s research focuses on Barbara Fruchter, JJC cofounder and de facto leader of the state’s deinstitutionalization campaign. Following the passage of reform legislation in the late 1970s, Fruchter sought to engage a wide array of citizens in administering new forms of community-based programming and efforts to ensure system accountability. This included organizing regular visits to detention and residential placement facilities to observe how youth were actually being treated. While Fruchter’s vision of continuous citizen engagement proved difficult to sustain, it remains central to contemporary research and advocacy efforts to ensure that youth receive effective interventions and individualized care in primarily community-based programs.
For a NotebookLM (AI) podcast summary of Schlossman’s research, go to https://notebooklm.google.com/notebook/22dce300-f708-42d3-898f-d8e6ead90a78/audio.
Schlossman, M.B. From Laggard to Innovator: Barbara Fruchter and the 1970s-Era Movement to Deinstitutionalize Pennsylvania Juvenile Justice. The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 148(2): pp. 157-195. https://doi.org/10.1353/pmh.2024.a939837