Mettray Penal Colony, situated in the small village of Mettray, in the French département of Indre-et-Loire, just north of the city of Tours, was a private reformatory, without walls, opened in 1840 for the rehabilitation of young male delinquents aged between 6 and 21. At that time children and adolescents were normally imprisoned together with adults. Aspects of the progressive way in which the Colony was organised anticipated the English borstal system established at the beginning of the 20th century.