One of the recommendations of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration, 1904, was that, whenever possible, in cases touching the young, where the assistance of a Magistrate was invoked, he should be a person specially selected, sitting for the purpose. In a Circular to Justices in 1909, explanatory of the provisions of the Children Act relating to the establishment of Children's Courts, the Secretary of State expressed the opinion that it was desirable, where possible, that the formation of Juvenile Courts should be assigned to a separate rota of Magistrates who possess, or who would soon acquire, a special knowledge of the methods of dealing with juvenile crime and of institutions for juvenile offenders.
On the passing of the Children Act, 1908, special Courts, called Juvenile Courts, were created for dealing with charges against children or young persons. Such Court may be either in a separate building, or in a room of an ordinary Court House. No person, other than members or officers of the Court or parties to the case, their counsel or solicitors, or persons otherwise directly concerned in the case, may be allowed to attend, and means must be taken for preventing young persons while in attendance at the Court, or being conveyed to or from Court, from associating with adults. The chief methods for dealing with children and young persons charged with offences enumerated in Section 107 of the Act, are:—
(a) by dismissing the charge; or
(b) by discharging the offender on his entering into a recognizance; or
(c) by so discharging the offender and placing him under the supervision of a probation officer; or
(d) by committing the offender to the care of a relative or other fit person; or
(e) by sending the offender to an industrial school; or
(f) by sending the offender to a reformatory school; or
(g) by ordering the offender to be whipped; or
(h) by ordering the offender to pay a fine, damages, or costs; or
(i) by ordering the parent or guardian of the offender to pay a fine, damages, or costs; or
(j) by ordering the parent or guardian of the offender to give security for his good behaviour; or
(k) by committing the offender to custody in a place of detention provided under the Act; or
(l) by dealing with the case in any other manner in which it may be legally dealt with.
Since 1910, the number of cases dealt with in Juvenile Courts has risen from 33,598 to 49,915 in 1918, the increase having taken place chiefly since the outbreak of war. Included in the latter total were 28,843 boys and 1,364 girls under the age of 14. Statistics show that a conviction is recorded in about 50 per cent. of the number dealt with annually, the majority of which are disposed of by fine, whipping, or committal to a Reformatory School. Of those cases in which the charge is proved, though no order made for conviction (about 35 per cent.) the bulk of the cases are disposed of by Probation, Recognizances, Dismissal, or committal to an Industrial School. Only in the number who were placed on Probation, and in the number whipped, is there any great variation since 1910 in statistics as to the manner in which cases were dealt with, as shown above. In the case of probation, in 1910 3,568 cases or 10·6 per cent. of the total dealt with, were so disposed of: in 1918, the number had risen to 5,868, or 11·8 per cent. of the total. A large rise is shown in the number who were whipped, viz:—1,562 in the former year, and 3,593 in the latter, or 11·9 and 13·1 per cent, respectively, of the total convicted. In 1913 (the latest figures available), 6,972 children and young persons, dealt with in Juvenile Courts, were committed to Places of Detention, 4,073 of whom were on remand, 1,910 to await removal to Industrial Schools, 11 to await trial, and 147 under sentence. Nearly sixty per cent. of the total cases were committed from the Metropolitan Police District and Liverpool.
Public concern is not, however, only with the delinquent child. It is also with the many thousands of children who are the subject of physical or mental defect, or of insufficient care and supervision during the age of adolescence. During that period, after having left the public elementary schools, boys and girls are thrown into the outer world to earn what wages they can without regard either to the special aptitude they may possess, or to any security that the occupation they choose is one in which they have any chance of remaining permanently employed. It has become manifest to those dealing with young offenders on discharge from Prison, or other Institutions, that one of the principal causes leading to the commission of criminal acts is to be found in what is generally known as "blind-alley" employment, i.e., employment obtained casually and thoughtlessly by young persons on leaving school in which they cannot be maintained on attaining maturity.
It was not till 1893, or more than twenty years after the principle of compulsory elementary education had been established, that Blind and Deaf children were made the special concern of the legislation. It was later still than this that the case of the Defective and Epileptic child engaged the attention of Parliament; but the Elementary Education (Defective and Epileptic Children) Act, 1899, did not go beyond prescribing that it should be the duty of the Local Education Authority to ascertain the existence of such children. It was left to the option of the Local Authorities whether or not the provisions of the Act for their special treatment should be adopted, and a large number of Education Authorities failed to respond.
The Mental Deficiency Act, 1913, however, makes it the duty of every Local Education Authority
(1) to ascertain the existence of mental defect of such kind or degree as to justify the diagnosis of feeble-mindedness, imbecility, or idiocy;
(2) to determine whether a child diagnosed as feeble-minded is or is not capable of benefiting from education in a Special School, and;
(3) to notify to the Local Authority under the Act, all defective children over the age of seven (a) who are incapable of education in Special Schools; (b) who, though educable, are detrimental to other children; (c) who require supervision or guardianship under the Mental Deficiency Act, or (d) who after leaving a Special School need institutional treatment or guardianship.
Under the Elementary Education (Defective and Epileptic) Children Act, 1914, every Local Education Authority is compelled to notify all mentally defective children; and to provide for the education of those who are capable of profiting by instruction, the number of whom (excluding idiots, imbeciles, and the lowest grade of the feeble-minded) is estimated at over 30,000.