Randall’s Island: The New York House of Refuge

By: Afsana Islam 

New York City's Randall’s Island is an infamous testament to America's history of criminalization, exploitative labor, and systemic incarceration. Buried under its modern-day visage of greenery and recreational activity are the remnants of several institutional, medical, and social welfare facilities. The Island has served many roles since Dutch colonization in 1637, including farmland, a military post, a quarantine site, and a quarry. It was privately owned by British officer John Montresor in the 18th century and used by the British during the Revolutionary War. It was then passed to Jonathan Randel (a city error led to the modern-day spelling of Randall’s), and later the City of New York [1]. It was not until the 20th century that the city pivoted the island towards recreational use. The city began constructing the Tri-Borough Bridge, which connected the southern coast of the Bronx, Queens, and Manhattan, notably via 125th Street in East Harlem, a historically marginalized area [2]. The geography of the island lends itself to isolation; hence, it was largely used to house institutions for the sick and poor in different asylums, reflecting how society grouped delinquency and disability. 

One of those institutions was the New York House of Refuge (NYHR), the first juvenile reformatory established in the United States in 1825. However, it was actively in practice from 1857 until 1935. Meant to house delinquent, neglected, or dependent youth, its framework served as the template for institutions after its founding, including the Houses of Refuge in Boston and Philadelphia. The pedagogy around juvenile reform had little to no development despite institutions growing in numbers. It was so stagnant, that at the first convention of managers and superintendents of Houses of Refuge in 1857, all representatives of the seventeen institutions present agreed on matters [3]. The rhetoric was that these institutions would provide an alternative to adult prisons for incarcerating juvenile “delinquents” and child “vagrants.” The intention, however, was still to incarcerate, not rehabilitate.  

The New York House of Refuge established a national institutional response to juvenile justice. The House may have been designed for juvenile delinquents, but many children confined there likely had what we would now recognize as developmental or intellectual disabilities. In the 19th century, developmental disability was poorly defined, and children with cognitive or behavioral differences were often labeled “incorrigible” or "delinquent.” Just like poverty, disability was treated as a moral failure, not a medical or developmental condition. This reinforced the idea that developmental disability was a disciplinary problem, not a support need [4].

Demand

The NYHR was founded in response to rapid population growth in New York between 1825 and 1855, driven largely by Irish and German immigration, especially during the Irish potato famine. Industrialization and the rise of factory labor drew impoverished immigrants into cities, where many faced homelessness, dangerous working conditions, disease, and high mortality rates. Family instability was common, with children often sent away to work or left unsupervised due to death, illness, or incarceration of parents. These conditions led to increased vulnerability among immigrant children, who were frequently labeled delinquent for resorting to crime. Especially as they were turned away from employment due to prejudice towards immigrants, the streets of New York became riddled with youth gangs and crime. As a result, Irish immigrants became heavily overrepresented in the House of Refuge, making up nearly half of its inmates by 1840 and 63% between 1850 and 1855 [5].

American reformers, viewing this unrest as sinfulness, and conservatives, seeking stability, found common cause in trying to redeem or control those deemed a threat to security. Reformers, seeking to improve the conditions of their own youth, looked to European philosophical and educational developments. Riding the coattails of the transcendentalist movement, upper-class “non-immigrants” formed the Society for the Prevention of Pauperism, later the Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents (SRJD). This organization used its influence to establish the House of Refuge as a device to counteract existing “social evils” and become a permanent part of the American corrections scene. 

Regiment and Conditions

The children at the reformatory abided by a planned program of labor, education, religion, indentured servitude upon release, and discipline, which was intended to promote self-control and order in their lives. The children were inmates for hire by contract to businessmen who submitted closed bids for the labor of the boys [6]. Inmates performed regimented labor such as caning chairs, making shoes, and tools, repairing clothing, and completing gendered tasks—boys in production work and girls in domestic labor. They worked six days a week, attended church on Sundays, and were paid as little as one cent per hour, yet the boys’ labor alone generated over $11,000 in profit [7]. Despite this, the SRJD affirms that the purpose of employing children is for teaching the young workmen to support themselves in the world of honest labor once reintegrated and not for profit [8]. The educational program was a second important aspect of the reformation. The inmates were given mental, moral, and religious instruction in the classrooms for four hours each day. The inmates were sorted into four categories. Classes 1-4 were rated from best to worst behaved, distinguished by colored uniforms. Religious training remained the third element to reform [9].

Much of what is known about the true conditions inside the NYHR comes from former employees who spoke out. During a six-week investigation in 1870, former instructor Valentine Feldman gave damaging testimony, revealing that overseers smuggled in tobacco and food to push boys to work harder and physically abused those who failed to meet production quotas [10]. The abuse ranged from spankings, beatings, and whippings, none of which were uncommon practices. They were encouraged to steal from shops by contractors to exceed production quotas, as well as falsify charges on innocent boys to ensure they were not released [11]. Although the SRJD denied the accusations, inmate-led revolts in 1872 brought public attention to them and prompted another investigation. The inquiry examined claims of inadequate nutrition, excessive labor and punishment, an unfit superintendent, and religious discrimination against predominantly Irish Catholic inmates by the largely Protestant SRJD [12]. Their punishment reflected their prejudice as boys were hung by their thumbs, handcuffed to cells, and fed food scraps with excrement regularly. They lacked basic clothing and hygiene products, and often were covered in frostbite. These conditions revealed that the Refuge functioned as a punitive prison under the guise of moral reform. 

Rhetoric 

The legal principle under which the Refuge functioned is parens patriae. Parens patriae is a legal doctrine originating in medieval England's chancery courts that gave the state authority to act as a parental guardian for those unable to care for themselves, especially children. Initially focused on managing property, it evolved by the nineteenth century into the state assuming custody and decision-making power over children whose parents were absent or deemed unfit, forming the basis for court intervention in family and child welfare cases [13]. In the American colonies, for example, officials could “bind out” as apprentices, children of parents who were poor, not providing good breeding, neglecting their formal education, not teaching a trade, or were idle, dissolute, unchristian, or incapable [14].

The dominant Anglo-American social structure defined Irish families as dependent and often viewed poor children as a threat. Superintendents often attributed delinquency to the parents being "Irish and intemperate," reinforcing the belief that an Irish immigrant’s son was a poor risk. This prejudice led to early police apprehension and an "over-selection policy" for Irish youths, who were imprisoned even for minor offenses, as officials argued that any well-run institution provided a better home for such "potentially dangerous youth" [15].

Similarly, today, people with IDD are often viewed through a lens of incapacity and risk rather than rights and vulnerability. Communication difficulties and credibility biases cause their reports to be dismissed, while assumptions that they are unable to understand, self-advocate, or live independently increase surveillance and institutional control rather than protection. Like Irish youth, people with IDD are over-policed and under-protected- seen as potential problems to be managed instead of individuals needing support. In both cases, structural poverty, limited social support, and exclusion from data or public visibility reinforce narratives that justify intervention, confinement, or neglect—masking systemic failures as necessary care or public safety [16].

People with disabilities in early New York City were routinely shifted between institutions, resulting in instability and inadequate care, exacerbating the rate at which youth would act out. Institutions such as the NYHR, almshouses, asylums, and later facilities on Randall’s Island did not provide consistent support but instead functioned as holding spaces for those deemed undesirable or disruptive. Disability, poverty, and delinquency were often conflated, meaning individuals could be moved from one institution to another based on changing judgments about their behavior rather than their needs. Once individuals were no longer considered reformable, compliant, or useful, they were discharged or transferred without meaningful transition support, leaving them vulnerable to neglect, re-institutionalization, or homelessness. This constant movement prevented the formation of stable care networks and reflected a system more concerned with social control and isolation than with long-term well-being, reinforcing a cycle of instability that defined the experiences of disabled people in early NYC [18].

Conclusion

The NYHR helped normalize the idea that children who did not conform to social or behavioral expectations should be removed from their families and segregated from society, only to be placed in large institutions that ultimately do not have the methods or resources for adequate care. 

Rather than providing individualized support, the House emphasized strict routines, labor and discipline, and obedience and moral reform. Children with developmental disabilities often failed under this model, which confirmed false beliefs that they were untrainable or dangerous. Thus, justifying harsher treatment, lifelong segregation, and servitude.  The Refuge closed its doors in 1935 after 110 years of operations, transferring its inmates to various New York State institutions. The investigations on the reformatory highlighted that the study of social deviance reveals more about the fears and values of those controlling society than about the actual sources of juvenile misconduct. 

References

[1] https://randallsisland.org/timeline 

[2] https://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/randalls-island/highlights/6515 

[3] Pisciotta, A. W. (1985). Treatment on Trial: The Rhetoric and Reality of the New York House of Refuge, 1857-1935. The American Journal of Legal History, 29(2), 153. https://doi.org/10.2307/844932

[4] Stancliffe, R. J., & Frantz, B. L. (2024). Criminal Justice and People With Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. Intellectual and developmental disabilities, 62(3), 211–224. https://doi.org/10.1352/1934-9556-62.3.211

[5] Pickett, R. (1969). House of Refuge: Origins of Juvenile Reform in New York State, 1815-1857. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 4-27. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/book.61593.

[6] Pisciotta, A. W. (1985). Treatment on Trial: The Rhetoric and Reality of the New York House of Refuge, 1857-1935. The American Journal of Legal History, 29(2), 156. https://doi.org/10.2307/844932 

[7]  Ibid

[8] Ibid

[9]  Pisciotta, A. W. (1985). Treatment on Trial: The Rhetoric and Reality of the New York House of Refuge, 1857-1935. The American Journal of Legal History, 29(2), 157. https://doi.org/10.2307/844932 

[10] Pisciotta, A. W. (1985). Treatment on Trial: The Rhetoric and Reality of the New York House of Refuge, 1857-1935. The American Journal of Legal History, 29(2), 161-164. https://doi.org/10.2307/844932

[11] Ibid

[12]Ibid

[13] Rendleman, Douglas R. (1971) "Parens Patriae: From Chancery to the Juvenile Court," South Carolina Law Review: Vol. 23 : Iss. 2 , Article 2.

[14] Shelden, R. G. (2004, November 30). “from Houses of Refuge to ‘youth corrections’: Same story, different day”. Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED495133 

[15] Pickett, R. (1969). House of Refuge: Origins of Juvenile Reform in New York State, 1815-1857. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 112. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/book.61593.

[16] Stancliffe, R. J., & Frantz, B. L. (2024). Criminal Justice and People With Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. Intellectual and developmental disabilities, 62(3), 211–224. https://doi.org/10.1352/1934-9556-62.3.211

[17]  Moore, A. (1911). The feeble minded in New York: A report prepared for the Public Education Association of New York. State Charities Aid Association, Special Committee on Provision for the Feeble-minded, 51.