“New-Type Reformatory Opened at Brampton – Rehab Centre Offers New Start,” The Globe and Mail, February 4, 1947. Page 08.
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By GODFREY SCOTT
Brampton, Feb. 3 (Staff). – Life began anew for three dozen youths, who made the mistake of breaking the law, when they were transferred to the new Ontario Reformatory here today. From now on they will be inmates of a reformatory, as it is generally known, but will be in the position of students attending a rehabilitation school.

There are no old grey walls or dark cell blocks here: only wide open spaces and neat tidy barrack rooms for the students. It is a former army detention camp converted into a reformatory.

Classification and segregation, the twin pillars of successful penology are at last being accomplished, according to Reform Institutions Minister Dunbar, who visited the reformatory today to welcome the youth as they arrived from Guelph.

First offenders will be sent to the Guelph Reformatory as soon after they have been received their sentence as possible, the minister stated. There they will be placed in a reception wing, where they will be given tests to ascertain to which reformatory they will be despatched. Boys 16 and 17 years of age will be transferred to Bowmanville, while others under 21 years of age, who are found suitable, will be sent to the Brampton Reformatory.

‘Education, instead of incarceration, of first offenders is the experiment we are making,’ stated Deputy Minister C. F. Neelands. ‘The first offenders will be prevented from being mixed with repeaters so that they will not gain the philosophy that society is against them.’

Speaking to the ‘students,’ Mr. Dunbar declared that the school would endeavour to do something to assist them to earn a good living when they leave. He pointed out that they have the same opportunity to learn a trade as had the returned veterans.

Equipment formerly used at the Veteran’s Rehabilitation School at London, was purchased by the Ontario Government and has been set up in the school. Instructors for the various trades were formerly Instructors at veterans’ schools.

Three shops, for the instruction of radio, sheet metal work and welding, have already been set up in the huts, while a machine shop is also being prepared.

Academic training will be made available to the students, for those who wish it, within the near future. Sports will also play an important part in the rehabilitation of the first offenders and a former drill hall is being prepared for physical training and indoor games.

Students will have an two-week sampling of each trade before deciding which trade to take up, according to J. A. Graham, superintendent of the reformatory. Mr. Graham, who served in the RCAF for 4 ½ years, was a former school teacher in Ottawa before the war.

Escape Is Not Impossible
All ‘students’ will be placed on an honor and integrity system, stated Mr. Graham. ‘The guards carry no arms and there are no bars of any of the windows. There are steel grills on the windows of the dormitories but the doors are of plain wood and a man would have little difficulty in getting out if he really wanted to.’

‘We will use a positive approach to make the chap see his mistake,’ said Mr. Graham. ‘If he is co-operative, he will receive a good training by the time he leaves and will be able to take his place in society.’

Instructors and guards are all ‘hand-picked’ and must have no prejudices against the students because they have committed a crime, according to the superintendent. ‘They will lead the fellows along by example and teaching, not by the old method of watching them constantly.’

‘It’s grand; it’s okay; it’s A-1,’ were the comments of several of the new students, when asked of their impression of the school. ‘There are no hacks (guards) standing at your back all the time,’ declared one. ‘There is a feeling of freedom and it will help us to learning something,’ declared another. ‘It almost makes me wonder when pay-day will roll around.’

Students will wear blue working clothes during their stay at the school. They will have single beds, the bottom half of the double army cots, with blankets and clean sheets. Meat tables will have table-clothes and dishes of plastic will replace the usual tin plates. 

[Top picture is from the 1948-49 Annual Report of the Department of Reform Institutions]