ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some of the findings from a study of inmate perceptions at the Boys' Industrial School at Lancaster, Ohio, and inmate perceptions at the two open camps operated by the parent institution. The school is one of the oldest and largest state-operated training schools in the United States for boys committed by juvenile courts. The two open camps, located at Zaleski and Mohican State Forests, begun in 1956, have an average daily population of 65 boys selected by the camp directors a few weeks after their admission to the school. On the "self-labeling" inventory, the boys indicated whether they viewed themselves as delinquents, boarding-school pupils, military school privates, institutional inmates, or criminals. There was no difference between the school boys and camp boys at intake or release, and neither group changed during the stay. The boys viewed themselves primarily as delinquents at the beginning and at the end of the institutional experience.
