Between 1750 and 1850 new theories of crime and punishment swept through Western Europe and America, inspiring an energetic prison reform movement and laying the foundations for the modern penitentiary system. At the same time, a new Romantic construction of childhood made its appearance, contributing in no small measure to the launching of child welfare campaigns whose initial victories in the area of child-labor legislation and education policy would pave the way for increasingly interventionist state policies toward children in the second half of the nineteenth century. When social reform activists and government officials began a concerted effort to address the problem of juvenile criminality in July Monarchy France, they drew on both currents of thought. The result was the construction of specialized children’s prisons.
-- Dr. Kathleen Nilan, The Big Book of Petite Prisons, p. 1.
