Happy 35th Jerome Miller

Fitting that the inaugural post of Over the Bar, the blog inspired by and related to the Penikese Island School, concerns Jerome G. Miller, the first Commissioner of Massachusetts’ Department of Youth Services, appointed in 1969 by Governor Francis X. Sargent.

An ardent believer in rehabilitation over punishment, Miller spent two years attempting reforms from within the state’s antiquated juvenile corrections system before losing patience and closing down its infamous training schools. During the ensuing upheaval, minds and opportunities opened to alternative approaches working with delinquent youth, a heady and generative time that helped give birth to Penikese in 1973.

Now residing in Vermont, Miller recently submitted a letter to the Boston Globe in response to a Globe article about proposals for an ombudsman for youth in state custody. Never one to spare his words, Miller clearly has lost nothing off his fastball, at one point buzzing a nasty heater under DYS' and the reader’s chin by decrying our “nation besotted with a violent, decency-deprived juvenile justice system.”

Love him, despise him, appalled or enthralled by him, Penikese is here today in part because of events he set in motion three decades ago. On the eve of Penikese’s 35th anniversary coming this summer, we tip our hats to the redoubtable Jerome G. Miller.