Juvenile offenders : a report based on an inquiry instituted by the Committee of the Howard Association, 1898 / with contributions from the Right Hon. Lord Rookwood [and others].

  • Howard Association (London, England)
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Juvenile offenders : a report based on an inquiry instituted by the Committee of the Howard Association, 1898 / with contributions from the Right Hon. Lord Rookwood [and others]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    I know from the Police how beneficial this punishment has proved to many boys who were getting into bad ways.” The Chief Constable OF Liverpool reports “ wliipping lias been found a most efficient and htnunne punishment. No other punishment can show such a record.” Lobi) Rookwood writes: “From a long experience as a Magistrate, I believe that the best remedy lies in an extension of the power of indicting whipping for juvenile’criine.” The Chairman of the North Riding Quarter Sessions also says: “I am strongly in favour of whipping as a punishment for juveniles: and I think the Magistrates should be entrusted, and I believe safely entrusted, with large addi- tional powers, to enable them to sentence a boy to be whipped for any offence.” Sir James Reckitt, Bart., writes in favour of Whipping, and remarks “ It is often found necessary to appear cruel, in order to be kind.” The Middlesex Court of Quarter Sessions and the Chairmen of Quarter Sessions for Norfolk, Anglesea, Shrop- shire and Oxfordshire all approve of Whipping. So do most of the other writers. Sir Richard Tangye and Mr. A. E. Pease, M.P., recommend whipping for a second offence—the former as being “ the most merciful course and also the most likely to deter”: the latter as being “ far more efficacious and merciful than the indelible stigma that attaches to Imprisonment.” Others express the same opinion. Miss Maria S. Rye .says: “ The wilfully disobedient children should be whipped. I myself in 27 years (with 4,000 children) [under training for Emigration] have whipped a dozen. But in so doing, I con.sider I whipped the whole 4,000; because it was known, by such action, what would follow wilful and repeated disobedience.” She rightly adds : “ But any institution where whipping is the rule, should be condemned as badly managed.” But from her veiy extensive observation, Miss Rye instructively remarks that many juvenile offenders are more sinned against than sinning, being “the victims of parental neglect and cruelty” whO' chiefly need a few years, or even months, of “ religious and motherly training ”—^and then to be protected, by the State, till they are 21, from “ their worthless parents who rob them.” Dr. W. D. Morrison has stated that having made careful inquiry into the previous history of lads sent to Wandsworth Jail, he found that half of them were either orphans or homeless. Add this to the parental neglect of the other half, and a very strong case for pity is- made out. Miss Rye repeats (in a second letter)—“In nearly all cases of Juvenile Offenders, the.^rs^ fault is not with the children but with the parentsand she mentions a case (which may qualify the demand of some for whipjiing) of a little girl, the child of burglai’s, who on being received into an institution began to steal and was threatened with a whipping. The poor child burst into tears and said, “ Where I corned from, they whipped me if I didn’t steal; and now you are going to whip me because I do!” Mr. Murray Browne says of Whipping: “ I do not believe it will check repeated, or habitual, nor yet really determined misconduct. The experience of Eton in the past is not favourable to belief in the reformatory effects of the birch.” And Mi’. Vine writes: “In many cases, children are so accmstomed to be thrashed by their friends, that
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