The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-10-09 00:00:00

LORD DERBY ON JUVENILE
OFFENDERS.

A public meeting was held at Manchester Town-hall on
Tuesday to consider the present state of the law with regard
to the imprisonment of children. The Mayor (Mr. Patterson)
presided. _ _ _ . . _ _

The Deputy Town Clerk stated that letters sympathising
with the object of the meeting had been received from Sir U. J.
Kay-Shuttieworth, Vice-Chancellor Greenwood (Victoria Uni-
versity), and Mr. Kynnersley, stipendiary magistrate of Bir-
mingham. The letter of Mr Kynnersley contained a remark to
the effect that while the criminal treatment of boys was
one of difficulty for magistrates, the girls never troubled
them, because people thought it more kind to turn them out
without characters than to send them to police-courts,
where some chance of reformatory discipline might be
afforded them.

The Mayor, after a few introductory remarks, called
upon

Lord Derby, who moved the first resolution, and was
received with cheers:* He said :
There is, I Suppose, no question as to the importance of
the subject which this meeting has been called to discuss.
It is one which affects the fate of some thousand, every year
of our future men and women. It is a subject to which, as
we all know, attention has been recently called by letters
and by the action of the Mine Secretary. I will say further
that it is a subject 'with which every magistrate who has had
much judicial experience has often found himself compelled
to deal, one with which he has probably often had to deal in
a manner not altogether satisfactory to his own convictions
or to his own feelings, and I think most of those who have
had to do with the administration of justice will concur
with me in thinking that it involves questions of greater
complexity and difficulty than, perhaps, on the face of
matters would appear. You have in all punishment two
separate and distinct objects to aim at—one is to deter and
the other is to reform, and no symptom of punishment will
be altogether satisfactory which does not more or less com-
bine both these results. I am not sure that even in the case
of adults we have reached entirely satisfactory conclu-
sions in regard to these matters. Practically, except
in -very few and rare cases, imprisonment is our sole
penalty, and I have often been painfully impressed
with the fact that after two or three terms of imprison-
ment the same offenders come again and again, ap-
parently neither deterred nor reformed by the discipline
which they have undergone, but.accepting their penalty as
the inevitable condition of the life they have chosen to lead.
However, that is not the matte.r immediately before us.
What we have to consider is how we are to deal with the
particular class of offenders—offenders who are old enough
to be mischievous and sometimes to be dangerous, who are
old enough to know that they are doing wrong and to. incur
a certain amount of 'moral- responsibility, but who, never-
theless, are not of an age to realize the full gravity of the
situation in which they have placed themselves, to know the
full extent of the injury which they have inflicted upon
others, and the manner in which their act will affect their
own future career. Now, whatever we ought to do
for offenders of that class, there is one thing which in any
mind it is perfectly clear that we ought not to do, and that
is to send them to gaol. (Applause.) I say that not on the
ground which I have sometimes seen put .forward—that of
the bad associations to which they might be exposed in gaol,
because in a well-conducted prison there ought to be power
to prevent any association of that kind; but I say because—
as the Mayor remarked'lust now—imprisonment is a life-long
stigma. It is a mak of disgrace which cannot be wiped out,
and which is too heavy a penalty for childish or boyish acts.
(Hear, hear.) People only ask whether it is really true that
so and so was ever in gaol or not, and if they hear that he was
they do not always stop to inquire at what age the offence
was committed and how far he ought to have been treated
as a really responsible person. I entirely agree with what
Sir William Harcourt has said and written upon that sub-
ject, and as a Chairman of Sessions I have always acted, as
far as the law allowed, upon the lines which he has laid
down. The reformatory or some analogous institution ought
to be the substitute for the gaol in all cases to which it can
properly be applied. I don't know why it is that a month's
imprisonment is prescribed by law before the provisions
for sending a boy to a reformatory take effect. I have
never heard any good reason for it, and I think that the
sooner we are free, from that obligation the better. The
question remains how far the present reformatory system
admits of modification in that sense and for the purpose
with which we are now dealing. Managers at present
object as a rule—at least, that has been the result of my
observations and experience—to receive boys for a term at
the lowest of throe years, and sometimes they object to
receive them for less than five years. Abviausly there are
a great many cases in which some penal detention, as we
may call it, even for three years is quite in excess of the
offence committed, or where Ills an unfair burden upon the
parents and an unnecessary charge upon the community.
What we want to find is some punishment for boys from
10 to 14 and 15 years of age which shall not inflict perma-
nent disgrace, which shall met confound them in after life
with the criminal class, which shall not impose a heavy
burden on parents in cases where the parents themselves
may be free front blame, which shall not create a misplaced
sympathy by nay appearance of over-severity, and which
shall, on the other hand, be sufficient enough to act as a de-
terrent. These conditions are hard to reconcile, perhaps
iffpossible to reconcile, in the fullest sense ; but unless WO
can to some extent satisfy them we shall not have ficcom-
plished tshat we are endeavouring to do. Note, some people,
as you all know, recommend flogging as a kind of universal
remedy in such cases. I do not hold with that. (Hear, hear.)
I believe there are many cases where it is useful and unob-
jectionable, and I should not be averse from extending th e
power of magistrates so as to make it possible for them to
apply that kind of punishment in sonic cases to which it is
not at present applicable. As far as I know, the limits
upon its application are rather arbitrary and formal,
and are not based on any real principle. But we
must bear in mind that if the questic;n is to be the question
of applying corporal punishment as a general rule in such
cases, there are objections to that kind of punishment which
it is impossible to ignore, and which would be sure to ope-
rate very strongly against it. In the first place, I imagine
it is about the most unequal kind of punishincut that can
be devised. There is no one respect in which individuals
differ more o ne.frone another than in their susceptibility to
bodily pain. In the next place, we live in times when
public opinion is somewhat impulsive, and
.vhen the fact
that a strong current of feeling is miming in a particular
direction to-day is no guarantee that it will not run in a
contrary direction a few months hence. A single case of
ovonseveritY, such as might very well occur when power
was given to a very large number of magistrates throughout
the country—a single case of severity in the application of
corporal punishment would very likely cause a reaction
against its use which would prevent that kind lf punish-
ment from being applied even in cases where it miTht be per-
fectly legitimate and fitting. Pen, again, if it is very slightly
and leniently administered, it -does not serve the purpose of
deterring, and I think you may take it as a rule that punish-
ments of this kind, where they fail to deter, have a contrary
effect of tending to harden. (Hear, hear.) Therefore, while
I would give power to employ corporal punishment to
moderate extent in some cases where the power does nt
now exist, I should be sorry to look upon it as a genera,
means of correction in such cases as those with which we
have to deal. I believe that what we want can be best ob-
tained by a modification in or addition to our present
system of reformatory treatment. (Hear, hear.) Two or
three months' detention in a school where the work is hard,
.where there is little or no play, and where the life gene-
rally is rough and unattractive, ought to answer all the
purposes in the case of a boy, which are met in the case
of men by a short term of imprisonment. No had who had
gone through the discipline, if it were properly applied,
would wish to be exposed to it again, while being boys, and
young boys only, it would not leave a stain upon
their character in after-life nor destroy the feel-
ing of self-respect in tile manner which arises from
imprisonment in a gaol. I quite admit that what is
proposed in the-resolution which I shall move is not an
ideally perfect scheme. There is one risk attending it,—
that where a number of not very well-conducted lads are
brought together in any institution—call it by what name
you please—there is the danger that the worst will have a
corrupting influence upon the others; but that is an ob-
jection which may equally be applied to reformatory

schools as at present administered, and we know, notwith-
standing that, the reformatory system has been fairly suo-
ce.ssful. (Hear, hear.) I would add that I think magis-
trates dealing with very young offenders, boys of nine or
ten, or even eleven—you cannot go preciselyby age, because
character does not always depend upon years: but in deal-
ing with young offenders I think they might, more even
than they do at present, take upon themselves the respon-
sibility ef remitting all legal punishment on condition of
the parents undertaking to see that the boy is effectually
punished at home. That is always the best solution where
it is possible, for there is something incongruous, as every-
body, must feel who has had to do it, in bringing the machi-
nery of the law to hear upon children who have no idea
of legal responsibility and very little idea of any authorify
except that of their parents. I should not be sorry to see
an inquiry, whether by a 'Commission or a Parliamentary
committee, into the whole subject of juvenile offences.
The laws of Continental punishment differ very much from
ours. We know that on the Continent questions of this
kind have been very closely studied. I think we might pro-
bably obtain information from foreign States which would
be useful to us here : but that is a question for Government
to determine, and it is beyond the scope of our present
meeting. If I may sum up what I believe to be immediately
desirable, I would put it under three heads. First, no
prison in any case for boys under 14 ; secondly, an extended
power of moderate corporal punishment up to that age;
and thirdly, the provision of distinct and separate
places of detention for young offenders, so that they
should not escape punishment altogether merely be-
cause it is undesirable to send them to gaol. There is
only one other remark which I should like to make. It is
common to see magistrates attacked and found fault with
at public meetings and in the Press In cases where young
lads have been imprisoned ; but very often the fault is rather
with the law than with those who have to administer the
law. If a boy has put a stone under a railway train, there-
by risking hundreds of lives, or if he has out of malice and
revenge set a haystack on fire, or if he has brutally and vio-
lently assaulted and injured some younger child, you can
hardly let him go free of all punishment, and if he is
to be punished at all, it can only be in the manner
which the law sanctions. (Year, hear.) I think this
meeting will be of use in.showing that the recent action of
the Home Secretary meets with our approval, and that
in this, as well as in other counties, magistrates will be
ready to support him, and to act with him in the doing away
with unwise and demoralizing forms of punishment. (Ap
plauso.) I will just mention, in concluding, that what I
have said about oorporal punishment is the expression of
my own personal opinion only. It is possible some of you
may not agree with me on the point, and, therefore, I wish
to point out to you that what I have said is in no way
embodied in the resolution which is before us, and if any
of you differ from me on that branch of the subject, that
need not prevent you from supporting the resolution I have
to move.

"That in the opinion of this meeting, legislation is ur-
gently required to prevent juvenile offenders (the age to be
left to be determined by the legislators) being sent to
common gaols either for terms of punishment or preliminary
to their committal to reformatory or industrial schools;
and this meeting is also of opinion that suitable provision
ought to be made for the detention of such juvenile offenders
separate from adults between the time of arrest and that of
the hearing of the charges against them." (Applause.)

Lord litoughton seconded tio resoiction, which was
carried. The Bishop of Manchester, Mr. Jacob Bright,
MP., and Mr. Agnew, M.P., were amongst the
other speakers.