Degradation Ceremony of Removing Oneself from the Group

A degradation ceremony is a process in which an individual is removed from a group or making it so that one's social status is no longer connected with said group. Degradation ceremonies were created as an outlet for society to deal with individuals that have decided to go against their social norms. the child savers use the degradation ceremony, but The process in this case applies to juveniles who have committed a less serious crime, ultimately giving the children a second chance. Through every step of the degradation The Child Savers have a step by step process on how to deal with children that act out in deviant behavior because of The urban environment.

The first step to the degradation ceremony is the perpetrator and denouncer must be separated from the every day, and the Child Savers took the lower class children out of these urban areas And strip them from their everyday lives. when the Child Savers Movement started “Chicago [was] at the peak of its population” and “ a place of tremendous size diversity and activity”(Platt, 2009, pg.35). But “The city was depicted as the main breeding ground of criminals” and “ immigrants were regarded as unsocialized and the city's impersonality compounded their isolation and degradation”(Platt,2009,pg.36). At this time if you were a working or lower class individual, you were belived to be biologically prone to engaging in deviant acts of criminal behavior. Childsavers would take these children from their homes, due to the lack of parenting and failure to To provide for the children, because chicago was Facing social disorganization and “the concentration of population in cities, combined with economic instability, was a certain portent of criminal Behavior”(Platt, 2009, pg.38).

The second step to the degradation ceremony is that Both perpetrator and denouncer must be placed into a system of preference. The Child Savers wanted a system for juveniles that would make them feel more at home than scared, than treated like an adult in a courtroom with intimidating men in suits labeling him as a juvenile delinquent. In the system The Child Savers want changes that were different from the adult Court. They wanted the Juvenile system to be in a parlor, have no lawyers present and have a Rehabilitation model. Instead of a courtroom where the preceding would take place, The Child Savers wanted the proceedings to take place in a parlor As a more informal setting compared to the realness a courtroom. The Child Savers also wanted no lawyers present because technically the children we're not being charged with any particular crime, but rather taken to be rehabilitated. They believed that the outdoors what is a way to rehabilitate juveniles rather than locking them away in cells like in the adult system, because They become familiar with nature and learn honest hard work along with religion. Ultimately The Child Savers wanted to take the juveniles out of the harsh living conditions of the urban environment that highly stressed “An atmosphere of Suspicion and distrust, regarding the stranger as an intruder and treating him with open hostility”, and place them into a warm, loving home that would divert them from the track of criminal behavior (Platt, 2009, pg.38).

The third step to a successful decoration ceremony is that the denouncerMust be acting in the larger interest. The Child Savers, being donouncers, wanted to take care of children and protect them because it is believed that children are dependent. And since children are dependent on protection and materials provided from the parents, The Child Savers wanted pick up where the parents left off. The Child Savers would protect the children by taking them out of bad situations and placing them into a more nurturing environment, where more materials are easily accessible. The nurturing environment that the juveniles were placed into was known as The Cottage system. The cottage system would take children from the city and place them in the countryside, or farm land, to teach them good honest work and how to fulfill their gender-role as being a “man”. “Its administrators assumed that abnormal and troublesome individuals could be trained to become useful and productive citizens” (Platt, 47), meaning “Reformatories for children should develop as far as possible the conditions of home life and they should be built in the country, for the normal place of education for such children is in the fields” (Platt, 49).