Citation

Sutton JR. Am. J. Sociol. 1990; 95(6): 1367-1400.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1990, University of Chicago Press)

DOI

10.1086/229458

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Child welfare was a central item on the Progressive reform agenda. But contrary to the professed goals of leading reformers, institutions for delinquent and dependent children expanded rapidly around the turn of the century. Nationwide, private agencies grew faster than those in the public sector. This article attempts to account both for the general rise in juvenile incarceration and for the trend toward privatization. It begins by exploring potential accounts of institutional expansion based on socioeconomic resource flows and social movement influence. The main concern however, is to develop a political model that focuses, first, on the internecine politics of the national charity organization movement and, second, on variation in patterns of state building among the American states. Dynamic quantitative methods are used to test these approaches. Results suggest strongly that the relative growth of public and private institutions was determined largely by political issues, including previous social policy commitments and patronage.