Report of the Departmental Committee on the Treatment of Young Offenders.

  • Great Britain. Committee on the Treatment of Young Offenders.
Date:
1927
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Departmental Committee on the Treatment of Young Offenders. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    14/144 (page 12)
    conviction is considered necessary it may be ordered, up to one month, in these places. The effect of these provisions is strikingly shown by a comparison of the statistics for 1907 and for 1925. In the former year, 572 persons under 16 were received into prison on conviction; in 1925 the number was only 8. Borstal.—The first experiment for the complete separa-_ tion of young prisoners from adults in order to give them specialized treatment: and training was made in 1902 in the premises of the Borstal Prison near Rochester. The experiment ‘was followed by the Prevention of Crime Act, 1908, which authorised the establishment of Borstal institutions for the training of offenders between 16 and 21 who “ by reason of — criminal habits or tendencies or association with persons of bad character ’’ appear to be in need of such discipline. The Borstal institution therefore represents the latest extension of the ‘‘ reformatory ’’ system, but it must be remembered that the conditious for admission to Borstal are strictly limited and that the number of persons between 16 and 21 committed to prison each year is considerably greater than the number sent. to Borstal. Some amendments in the law regarding Borstal detention were made by the Criminal Justice Administration Act, 1914. 3.—NUMBER AND CHARACTER OF OFFENCES. It is possible to give fuller information about young offenders under 16 than about those between 16 and 21 because most offences committed by those under 16 are tried by the juvenile courts, for which separate statistics are kept. The returns made to the Home Office for courts of summary jurisdic- tion are not classified according to the age of the offender. The figures for the juvenile courts have been published in the reports of the Children’s Branch and need not be repeated here, but in using these tables we have substituted the. latest available figures. As pointed out in these reports, there has been a con- siderable decrease in recent years in the number of persons under 16 who have appeared before the juvenile courts. In 1913 the number ‘was 34,662. The figure roge during the war period to 51,323 in 1917 and declined in subsequent years. In 1925 the famber was 27,801: About one-third of the offences are classified as simple larceny (10,050) and about a sixth as malicious damage (4,738). The next largest groups of offences are those against the Highways Acts (3,084), those against police regulations (2 818), gaming (1,062) and railway offences (1,057). | In 1925 of the 27,801 cases which came before fs juvenile courts, 27,751 were dealt with summarily. The cases dealt with summarily were disposed of as follows :—