Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Closing the Massachusetts public training schools

  • Published:
Policy Sciences Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

One successful effort at policy termination—the closing of the Massachusetts public training schools—is examined. The analysis includes: how the tactics of survival which maintain most governmental organizations and most public policies were neutralized; how the barriers to implementation of the termination policy were overcome; how the new replacement policy—the privately operated, community-based, group-homes policy—was consolidated; and a preliminary evaluation of the termination tactics and the new policy.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Bakal, Yitzhak (1973a).Strategies for Restructuring the State Department of Youth Services, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Bakal, Yitzhak (1973b). “Closing Massachusetts' Institutions: A Case Study,” in Bakal, Y. ed.,Closing Correctional Institutions, pp. 151–180. Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath and Company.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Bakal, Yitzhak ed. (1973c).Closing Correctional Institutions: New Strategies for Youth Services. Lexington, Massachusetts: D.C. Heath and Company.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Bakal, Yitzhak, Polsby, Howard and Fitzpatrick, Joseph eds. (1972).The Conference Proceedings for “The Closing Down of Institutions and New Strategies in Youth Services”. Leominister, Massachusetts: The Village Press.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Coates, Robert B., Miller, Alden D. and Ohlin, Lloyd E. (1973). “A Strategic Innovation in the Process of Deinstitutionalization: The University of Massachusetts Conference,” in Bakal, Y. ed.,Closing Correctional Institutions, pp. 127–148. Lexington, Mass.: Heath and Company.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Dorsey, Jim (1974). “Smoke in Boston for a Chicago Fire?”Boston Magazine. Vol. 66, 8: 30–33.

    Google Scholar 

  7. Downs, Anthony (1967).Inside Bureaucracy. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Dye, Larry L. (1973). “The University's Role in Public Service to the Department of Youth Services,” in Bakal, Y. ed.Closing Correctional Institutions, pp. 117–125. Lexington, Mass.: Heath and Company.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Finnegan, William H. (1974).Management Audit of the Department of Youth Services. Boston: The Joint Committee on Post Audit and Oversight, Post Audit and Oversight Bureau.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Holden, Matthew Jr. (1966). “ ‘Imperialism’ in Bureaucracy,”The American Political Science Review Vol. 60 (December), 943–951.

    Google Scholar 

  11. Jones, Charles O. (1970).An Introduction to the Study of Public Policy. Belmont, California: Duxbury Press.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Neustadt, Richard E. (1960).Presidential Power. New York: John Wiley and Sons.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Ohlin, Lloyd E., Coates, Robert B. and Miller, Alden D. (1974). “Radical Correctional Reform: A Case Study of the Massachusetts Youth Correctional System,”Harvard Education Review Vol. 44,1: 74–111.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Pressman, Jeffrey L. and Wildavsky, Aaron B. (1973).Implementation. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  15. Rothman, David J. (1972). “Prisons, Asylums and Other Decaying Institutions,”The Public Interest,26: 3–17.

    Google Scholar 

  16. Rutherford, Andrew (1974).The Dissolution of the Training Schools in Massachusetts. Columbus, Ohio: The Academy for Contemporary Problems.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Schon, Donald A. (1971).Beyond the Stable State. New York: Random House.

    Google Scholar 

  18. Schucter, Arnold (1972).A Strategy for Youth in Trouble. Boston: The Department of Youth Services, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, mimeo.

    Google Scholar 

  19. Seidman, Harold (1970).Politics, Position and Power. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  20. Simon, Herbert A., Smithburg, Donald W. and Thompson, Victor A. (1950).Public Administration. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

    Google Scholar 

  21. Vachon, Brian (1972). “Hey Man, What Did You Learn in Reform School?”Saturday Review Vol. 55,38 (September 16): 69–76.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Duke University, 27706, Durham, North Carolina, U.S.A.

    Robert D. Behn

Authors
  1. Robert D. Behn
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Additional information

I am most grateful to all the people who were willing to be interviewed for this study. Many current and former employees of the Department of Youth Services and many observers inside and outside of the Massachusetts state government were very generous with their time. All quotations in this paper for which no reference is given come from these interviews. A longer, more detailed version of this study has been published as a Working Paper by the Institute of Policy Sciences and Public Affairs, Duke University.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Behn, R.D. Closing the Massachusetts public training schools. Policy Sci 7, 151–171 (1976). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00143912

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00143912

Keywords

Search

Navigation