Devout but iron-willed Father Flanagan leads a community called Boys Town, a different sort of juvenile detention facility where, instead of being treated as underage criminals, the boys are shepherded into making themselves better people. But hard-nosed petty thief and pool shark Whitey Marsh, the impulsive and violent younger brother of an imprisoned murderer, might be too much for the good father's tough-love system.

Threatened with separation, two young brothers escape from an orphanage and make a perilous journey from New York to Boys' Town in Nebraska.

Father Flanagan raises funds, helps a disabled boy, and saves an older boy from reform school.