Orphanages, Training Schools, Reform Schools and Now This? – For centuries we have been searching for a humane way to treat children with “bad” behavior, and still we have not found our way. We have locked them up in orphanages, so-called schools for the “retarded,” “mental hospitals,” training and reform schools. We have dispatched them across the nation on orphan trains, farmed them out, drugged them, shocked, lobotomized and beaten them. We have exorcised and broken their spirits. We have scared them straight, made them climb mountains in wilderness camps and dig holes in boot camps, hoping they would learn to behave through starvation and sheer exhaustion. We have tortured our children and youth with all manner of horrors, from pepper spray to cattle prods. As if this isn’t bad enough, now we have decided these children are criminals and lock them up in juvenile justice facilities, adult jails, and prisons, sometimes placing them in solitary confinement (the “Hole,” or the “Box”) for weeks and months at a time. And, we treat some children worse than others. Prevalence studies have found that 65-70 percent of youth in the justice system meet the criteria for a disability, a rate that is more than three times higher than that of the general population. The difference between then and now is that we know better.