Reclamation of Young Citizens: Reform of Utah's Juvenile Legal System, 1888-1910 BY M A R T H A S O N N T A G B R A D L E Y
Utah Territorial Reform School, ca. 1889, from Ogden City, Utah: Picturesque and Descriptive.
O N MARCH
8,1888, THE UTAH
TERRITORIAL LEGISLATURE
provided
for a reform school "for the confinement, discipline, education, employment, and reformation of Juvenile offenders." 1 In so doing, Utah legislators began a period of reform in the juvenile legal system that would change legal procedures, improve legislation regulating the actions of both children and those responsible for them, establish a reform school for boys and girls, and, finally, in 1905, create the juvenile court system, all of which expressed a belief in man's ability to improve society through progressive action. Mrs. Bradley is a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Utah. 'Utah Territory, Actofthe Utah Territorial Legislature to Establish aTerritorial Reform School, Statutes (March 8, 1888), sec. 1.
