How to find the Case File of a Juvenile Female Inmate
Success in finding a case file on a particular juvenile female inmate depends on the time in question. With a few exceptions, case files or personal information similar to the information in case files are available for every girl admitted to the Wisconsin School for Girls from its beginning in 1875 until about 1954. Thereafter (1954 to 1990), the files were sampled in the Archives. While this bulk-reducing technique adequately documents juvenile crime in Wisconsin, it renders the later case files almost useless as genealogical sources. Some information, however, on all juvenile female offenders may be found in Series 2101, the Master File Cards.
From 1875-1926 personal information about inmates was recorded in the bound Case History Books (Series 1381), with the contemporaneous folders in Series 311 consisting only of commitment information and court transcripts. In 1926 the history book recordkeeping system was closed, and thereafter all personal information was contained in Series 311. Both of these series, which were created and maintained at the institution, are arranged by the institutional number assigned at the time of admission, and both are alphabetically indexed by Series 1382. Approximately 200 names and files which presumably represent cases still active when the filing system was closed in 1959 are missing from Series 311. (Because of the overlapping coverage between Series 311 and 2086 for the period 1954-1959, some files missing from the institutional records because the files were still active may be in Series 2086.)
During the 1950s documentary coverage of the juvenile female population becomes incomplete 1) because the Archives began accessioning the inmate files maintained in the Central Offices of the Corrections Division and 2) because these Central Office files, which included, first, the files of juvenile males and then all four inmate populations, were sampled by the Archives in order to reduce volume. The percentage of retained files varied over time.
|
Series #
|
Release date
|
Percentage of Case Files Retained
|
| 311 |
1954-1959 |
All inactive files retained; No active files retained |
| 2086 |
1954-1959 |
5% |
| 2086 |
1959-1967 |
5% |
| 2088 |
1967-1977 |
100% |
| 2088 |
1978-1980 |
No files received |
| 2088 |
1980-1982 |
100% |
| 2088 |
1983-1990 |
10% |
All of these files are arranged by T number assigned at the time of release and indexed by Series 2101, the Master File Cards. Researchers should ask the Reference Room Staff for the list of all retained T number files.
