children as farm labor. Children were imprisoned for things like "deserting home," being "ungovernable," and merely being seen as a "neglected child." They were forced to perform all their tasks, including the burial of their fellow inmates, in "paramilitary formation." Children who died at the School - sometimes in attempts to escape, sometimes as a result of "farming accidents" - were buried in the nearby woods with plastic headstones. Today What was once the Western House of Refuge is now known as the Industry Residential Center, a 120-acre prison for children enclosed by barbed wire. As one journalist put it, "there is nothing nurturing about the place. Everything about it is depressing." Children age 10 to 17 are sent to Industry from family court "for infractions ranging from assault to drug possession," and spend "less than a year in confinement." Children spend as much as 20 hours a week working on things like growing vegetables and raising fish. While state rules ban the prison from selling the fruits of its children's labor, "friendly transactions" allow local chefs to obtain food grown by inmates in exchange for a "donation." Prison leaders say the children's labor is "not so much about growing food as building character"; inmates, on the other hand, say they do the work so they can "go home." In 2021, the Monroe County public defender called the prison's approach to COVID-19 among inmates "unconscionable" and "undoubtedly contributing to the trauma those children suffered by being incarcerated." References Juvenile detention centers in the United States Buildings and structures in Rochester, New York 1849 establishments in New York (state) 1960 disestablishments in New York (state)