The English Prison System

by Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise

Some light was thrown on the character and antecedents of this class of young criminal by an inquiry made with regard to the offences, previous convictions, homes, and educational status of all male prisoners in the Prisons of England and Wales, on a given day, within the ages of sixteen to twenty-one. The total number was 1,238. Nearly two-thirds were guilty of crimes of acquisitiveness, i.e., larceny, burglary, housebreaking, embezzlement, &c. One-fifth of crimes of passion, i.e., sexual offences, assaults, and wounding. There were twenty cases of malicious injury to property, and the remainder were convicted of minor offences against bye-laws, &c. With regard to their education, ninety had none, 512 little, 496 fair, and 111 good. Of the total number, 280 had good homes, but 198 had none at all; 138 had bad ones, and thirty lived in common lodging houses. Only 330 were without previous convictions and 353 had two or more.

At the same time, Dr. Baker, of Pentonville Prison, conducted a most interesting inquiry with regard to the young offenders between sixteen and twenty, who passed through Pentonville Prison in the course of a year. The total was 2,185. Physically, as a class, they were two-and-a-half inches below the average height, and fourteen lbs. less than the average weight. Twenty-six per cent. were afflicted with bodily infirmity. The majority of the offences were of a grave character, offences against the person and against property without violence. Twenty-two per cent. were imprisoned for larceny alone, the various crimes of "acquisitiveness" being characteristic of this age; while in the aggregate thirty-four per cent. had been previously convicted (no less than 144 on three or more occasions). In the case of offences against property, with and without violence, and vagrancy, the reconvictions were 50, 40, and 45 per cent. respectively.

Public attention has also been called to the large number of indictable offences, and of larceny in particular, committed by persons of this age. Criminal statistics are dominated by the rise or fall in offences of larceny, and this age-category contributed nearly 30 per cent.

The Committee of 1894 made an emphatic declaration in favour of some action being taken to deal specifically with this class. They reported:—"The age when the majority of habitual criminals are made lies between 16 and 21. It appears to us that the most determined effort should be made to lay hold of these incipient criminals, and to prevent them by strong restraint and rational treatment from recruiting the habitual class. We are of opinion that the experiment of establishing a Penal Reformatory under Government management should be tried, and that the Courts should have power to commit to these establishments offenders under the age of 23, for periods of not less than one year and up to three years, with a free exercise of a system of licence."

The proposal to found a State, or Penal, Reformatory, confirmed and emphasized the opinion that had been rapidly gaining ground, both in England and abroad, and especially in the United States, that up to a certain age, every criminal may be regarded as potentially a good citizen: that his relapse into crime may be due either to physical degeneracy, or to bad social environment: that it is the duty of the State at least to try and effect a cure, and not to class the offender off-hand and without experiment with the adult professional criminal.

It seems difficult to believe that, until recently, a lad of 16 was treated by the law, in all respects, if convicted of any offence, as an ordinary adult prisoner, and that for lads of this age, the principle had not been recognized that a long sentence of detention under reformatory conditions can be justified, not so much by the actual offence, as by "the criminal habit, tendency, or association" (Section 1 (b), Borstal Act, 1908), which, unless arrested at an early age, must lead inevitably to a career of crime.

But the fixing of criminal majority at 21 has only been arrived at after a long struggle. It is about a hundred years ago since certain benevolent persons, struck by the wrong of sending the young to prison, if it could be avoided, founded the Colony of Stretton in Warwickshire in 1815, which had for its express purpose the reclamation of criminal youth between the ages of 16 and 20. The process by which they conducted their benevolent efforts was curious, for they took advantage of an ancient law by which young persons might be hired out in husbandry, and they applied to the County Authorities to hire them out young prisoners of this age, with a view to their conversion into honest and useful citizens. So far as I have been able to gather from the history of Juvenile Crime, no other attempt was made, either then or for many years to come, to grapple with this problem of Juvenile delinquency. Though it is stated on the authority of a great philosopher that "the angel of Hope came down from heaven in the first decade of the nineteenth century," it does not seem that her influence began to be felt at that time in Penal and other legislation; it was some years after the first decade of the last century that Sir Samuel Romilly complained that it was more easy to get an attendance of Members at the House of Commons to listen to a Debate on a new archway for Highgate or a new Water Bill for Holloway, than to any proposals that he might have to make in the direction of Penal Reform.

It is true that some years later, in 1838, under the auspices of Lord John Russell, then Home Secretary, an Act was passed for the establishment of a Prison at Parkhurst for young offenders. The public conscience had begun to be stirred by the terrible sentences of transportation passed on mere children and youths for periods of as much as 15 to 20 years for what we should now regard as petty offences. The Parkhurst Act of 1838 contained a Clause which has become historical and is known as the "Pardon" clause. By this, the Secretary of State was able to pardon any young person sentenced to transportation on condition that he should place himself under the charge of a benevolent Association. The benevolent Association of those days was known as "The Philanthropic Institution", which was the parent of the famous Red Hill Reformatory School of to-day.

The number of lads, however, sent to Parkhurst was comparatively few, and the absence of any means of dealing with the great mass of Juvenile delinquency began to be recognized by thoughtful and humane persons, and, in 1847, a Parliamentary Committee was appointed to enquire into the question of Juvenile Crime. It was before this Committee that the Authorities of the Stretton Colony gave remarkable evidence which, at the time, came as a new light to a generation whose imagination had not yet been quickened to perceive the possibilities of reform in the case of youthful prisoners. They stated in evidence that "their experience had been with prisoners between the ages of 16 and 20 with whom they had been dealing since 1815, and that no less than 60 in every 100 might be permanently reformed and restored to Society, whereas the ordinary prospect that awaits these youths under the ordinary Prison System is a life of degradation, varied only by short terms of Imprisonment, and terminating in banishment or death." It may be that the eyes of the Committee were opened by this simple statement of fact. We know that they took a step which is of singular historical interest. They formally consulted the High Court Judges as to the possibility of introducing a reformatory element into Prison Discipline. The High Court speaking in the name of its most distinguished members, Lord Denman, Lord Cockburn and Lord Blackburn, declared reform and imprisonment to be a contradiction in terms, and utterly irreconcilable. They expressed a doubt as to the possibility of such a system of imprisonment as would reform the offender, and yet leave the dread of imprisonment unimpaired.

Though this was the legal and official view at the time, there were fortunately other voices heard during the progress of this enquiry, the voices of less distinguished men and women, but of those whose names will be recorded in history as the pioneers and the workers in the field that eventually led fifteen years later to the establishment of our Reformatory School system. I refer to such persons as Davenport Hill, Sir Joshua Jebb, Miss Carpenter, Monkton Milnes, Captain Machonochie, Mr. Sergeant Adams and Mr. Sidney Turner.