The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-09-25 00:00:00

. JUVENILE OFFENDERS.

tine Tinte3 of the 18th published the following :-
-
- Sir, —I shall be much obliged to you if you will give pub-
licity to the enclosed letter which I have wldressed to the
Mayor of Manchester on the subject of the treatment of
juvenile offenders.—Your obedient servant,
Home Department, Sept. 16. W. V. HARCOURT.

"Home Department, Septemberl6.

"My dear Mr. Mayor,—l am very much obliged to
you for your letter forwarding to me the draft scheme
drawn up by the Manchester committee of which you
are the chairman with a view of obviating the painful
necessity of committing juvenile offenders to the
common gaol.
"The subject is one which, as you know, has for the
last few weeks engaged my anxious attention. I
received in May last a memorial from the Justices of
the Count of Quarter Sessions for the Hundred of
Salford, stating their opinion 'that it is inexpedient to
imprison jnvenile offenders in common gaols.' That
is an opinion which I believe is generally shared by all
who have given their attention to this most important
subject.
"The figures of the last judicial returns show that
in a single year 6,090 children between the ages of 16
and 12, and 720 children under 12 years of age are sent
to gaol. This, surely, is a sufficient demonstration
how much some effectual remedy is needed. The re-
turns which I have now daily made to me by the
governors of prisons of the commitals at .the present
time prove that the rate is not materially altered.
Many of these committals are for comparatively
trivialoffences. Children of ages between 0 and 13
go to prisoir for throwing stones, breaking windows,
playing at pitch-and-toss, obstructing thoroughfares,
bathing in canals, threatening people, common
assaults, trampling down grass, &c., though, of course,
many of the committals are. far more serious, offences,
which yet in children of such tender years- are of a
very different dye from similar crimes when com-
mitted by persons of riper age. A great number of
these cases are reported to me as first convictions,
but when the committals have ensued on former con-
victions the reports show ho W little the previods punish-
ments of this sort have tended to the reformation of
the little offenders. Nor is such a result surprising.
An unruly boy or reckless boy for an act of childish
mischief finds himself identified for the first time with
the criminal class; he consorts with adult andhardened
offenders guilty of heinous crimes; the distinction
between crime and petty transgression is obliterated
in his mind; he leaves the prison with the gaol taint
ineffaceably impressed upon him; his character is
gone among his companions of his own class; he
is no longer a naughty boy, he is a young gaol-bird;
and he becomes an outcast, doomed to a future of dis-
grace and crime. I have been most painfully struck
in many of the reports which have come to me by the
mariner in which the child from the moment of its first
imprisonment gradually ascends in the • scale of
criminalty. A boy of ten years old who has been to
prison for some petty offence is repeatedly brought up
at short intervals on fresh charges, which show -'a con-
tinual aggravation in the character of the crime.
" No one, I think, can be satisfied with such a
state of things, or be content to rest without some
effort to find a remedy for it. I am happy, to learn
from my communications with the magistrates
throughout the country on this subject, which have
now been pretty extensive, that, with a few excep-
tions, they agree generally with tire view S of your
committee, in which I need hardly say I cordially
concur. Nothing could be further from my wish or
my intention than to treat the decisions of the magis-
trates in the discharge of a responsible and difficult
duty with a want of respect or consideratio-A. I
' know too well the arduous nature of the functions
they discharge, and the pains and care with which
they fulfil them. rn a few out of the many cases which
have been brought under my notice, when it seemed
to me that the length of the imprisonment had been
already sufficient for a child of tender years, I have
advised the remission of the residue of. the sentence.
In most of the cases I have felt bound to rest satisfied
with an inquiry into the special causes which have,
in the opinion of the magistrates, Made it necessary
to send the child to gaol.. The result of these in-
quiries I have found full of instruction. In far the
majority of the cases the magistrates have expressed
great reluctance to send the childish offender to gaol,
but having pointed out defects in the present law
which have left them sometimes hardly any alter-
native. The discovery of these,defects and the appro-
priate remedy is one of the principal uses of the in-
quiry I am now conducting.

"It seems clear that the existing restrictions on
committals to industrial schools and on the employ-
ment of a moderate personal chastisements for small
offences as a substitute for imprisonment require to
be reconsidered. There is another evil which is very
con3picuous. Sinall fines, from 6d. to 2s. 6d., are often
imposed for petty acts of mischief. But, unfortunately,
the costs swell the amount to a sum which poor
narents are either unable or unwilling to pay. The
costs are often ten times the amount of the fine. The
child in default goes to prison; while his companions in
the offence whose parents are better off remain at large.
I have several cases before me where the older offenders,
and, no doubt, the ringleaders, have thus got off,
while the child of ten or eleven, who has been led
astray, has gone to prison, with the most fatal conse-
quences to his future life. These are surely defects in
the administration of justice, pressing as they do with
the greatest severity on the poor, which require
reform.
"It is a great satisfaction to me to know that, under
your auspices, so influential a body is addressing itself
to the consideration of the best methods, for remedy-
ing this deplorable state of things.. I need not say that
the suggestions you have sent me for the: separate
treatment of juvenile offenders deserve and Will com-
mand my most careful attention, and I shall look for-
ward with great interest to the report of the meeting
you propose to hold next month. You will not expect
me to pronounce any definite opinion on your plan
till I have had more information, and time to consider'
it.. You are aware that, in the absence of further
legislation, what I can do in this Matter is but little.
In a few extreme cases, when the child was very
youn,, or the offence trifling, I hue taken the re-
sponsibility of shortening the ter
•f imprisonment.
I have a case reported to me to-day with the follow-
ing particulars :—` Child, aged 10
.years'; offence, un-
lawfully beating down a boarded fence; sentence 14
days' hard labour, or to pay £1 15s. 3d. ; previous con-
victions, none,' The note on tide case by the governor ,

of the prison is—' A small, delicate boy, who can
neither read nor write.' It seems difficult to under-
stand how an imprisonment for 14 days with hard
labour can make such a child a better member of '
society. But it would not be safe or wise to clrry
interference with sentences to any large extent, nor
have I thought it right to interfere, except in a small
proportion of cases.
"Though I find that in some quarters my action in
this matter has been misunderstood, and I think not
altogether fairly dealt with, I am glad to say that by
the magistrates generally it has been met with kind-
ness and sympathy. It is upon their judgment, tact,
and tenderness in dealing with such cases, and with
the difficulties which the present state of the law
creates that the country has to- rely, and, in my
opinion, may confidently rely, to make the work-
ing of the law as little oppressive as possible.
And I am happy to find, from the more
recent returns that reach me, that the number
of Commitals of this class have been sensibly
diminished since public attention has be(M directed to
this subject. I may-add that in the return I now
daily receive the maximum age is fixed at 14 instead
of 15 years, as at first. Laborious as the task is, I
shall continue the daily examination of these cases
with a view to laying them before Parliament,
and I trust, with the assistance and advice of magis-
strates lixe yourself and your colleagues, some
effectual remedy may be found for a state of things
which seems to make the very act of repression
minister to the increase of the criminal population.
"I remain, my dear Mr. Mayor, yours very faith-
fully, "W. V. HARCOURT."
t 51

The Times has published several letters upon the
subject of "Juvenile Offenders," amongst others the
following from Mr. T. B. L. Baker, Hardwicke Court,
Gloucester :

Sir,—l have probably. spent as much time, thought, and
money as most people an the last 28 years in endeavouring
to benefit poor children who him committed offences or
crimes, and I hope that I may
.not be set down at once as
very cruel by gentlemen or ladies who have worked less at
the subject than myself ; and if any will show me that I am
wrong I will be truly grateful to them. • But I should wish
to reply to some ideas which I believe to be grievous errors,
as, if a question is to be argued in public, it is important
that false data should be corrected.

I am told that if a boy is once sent to prison .his whole
prospects in life are blighted. I have had above 600 boys
through my hands; some have turned out ill, but by far
the larger number are doing well. Some have risen very
considerably in the world, and I do not believe that any are,
at the end of five years' honest life after leaving us, thought
the worse of for having been in prison. I have never allowed
a boy on leaving us to take a place without his employer
knowing the truth.
I am told that children are contaminated by association
with hardened criminals. I feel pretty confident that there
is no prison in England where a boy ever has an opportunity
of exchanging one word with any other prisoner. There
may be one or two such prisons; but, if so, I should be
thankful to ay who can tell me where they are to be
found.

lam also told that if a boy once enters a prison he con-
stantly returns to it again and again. If we look to the
report of the Reformatory Inspectors to the Home Office, p.
17, which will probably be allowed to be authentic, and
take the average of the last five available years, we find that
9,310 children under 16 were convicted per annum, of whom
only 1,647 were admitted to reformatories, leaving 7,663
simply imprisoned, and—as soma appear to think
ruined. Yet the total number of relapses was only, on the
average, 666, or about one in eleven. I think that this shows
that boys committed to prison do not always relapse.

My own opinion is—from 28 years' experience, and from
the opinions expressed at a conference of Reformatory
-Alana,ers, whom I invited to meet at Malvern last April
(all the managers of England and Scotland being invited,
but only 28 being able to attend, of whom I think three out
of four took the same view as myself)—that the most desir-
able system would be that nearly every boy who committed
an offence should be sent to prison for a very short term,
but that if he relapsed he should be sent to a reformatory.
. In some cases a birthing may be sufficient for a first con-
viction-, and if sufficient it is certainly preferable, especially
for those under 12 or 13; but I have always found that
though a first whipping is generally efficacious, the effect
of a second is very doubtful, and that of a third or fourth
will probably only harden the boy and do harm. I believe
that no kind or degree of punishment ought to be repeated.
The feeling should be always kept up that the .use of
punishment is, not to repay or atone for the injury of the
past offence, not to purge or absolve the criminal, but to
prevent relapses, and that if a boy (or man either) will not
take warning from one punishment, his next must be far
more serious. .

Many gentlemen who have not had long experience in gaols
or reformatories may consider these ideas to be very cruel ;
but I can assure them that our principles are based, not on
a love of punishment or retaliation, but solely on the wish
to save and help boys or men, believing that the truest mercy
is to prevent any from a continuance in crime ; the greatest
cruelty is to allow any one to continue such a life when we
can prevent it.