MEMORANDUM TO GOVERNORS, MALE BORSTAL INSTITUTIONS.
The following arrangements for carrying out the Borstal System have been arrived at after a series of experiments lasting over twelve years. Conferences have been held from time to time among the various Governors and others who have been charged with the carrying of the System into effect and it is believed that these arrangements will fulfil the object at which they aim, viz:—the due instruction and reclamation of Borstal inmates by the means suggested—physical, mental, and moral.
The System aims at an intellectual, physical, and moral improvement and development of each inmate. The first will be secured by a carefully arranged educational system appropriate to the needs of each. The second by a methodical system of labour, which shall be, as far as possible, of an interesting and instructive kind analogous to the day of a free workman in full employment. Drill and Gymnastics for the bodily development of inmates will be a leading feature of the System. Education and labour well organized will thus largely contribute to the "disciplinary and moral influences" referred to in Section 4 of the Act. There will be, in addition, the moral precept and example of the Staff, superior and subordinate. Each and all have a great trust confided to them, which is to raise the young offender, by personal influences and wise exhortation, to a due sense of duties and responsibilities as a law-abiding citizen. The System will rest primarily on good discipline, firmly but kindly administered. In the obedience which follows from this is the beginning of moral improvement This being secured, the System admits a wide latitude for trust and confidence in the later stages, whence will spring the sense of honour and self-respect. When this sentiment has been inculcated, the purpose of the Act may be said to be fulfilled, namely, the reformation of the offender, and, incidentally, the repression of crime, for if the criminal habit be arrested at the beginning, the supply of criminals in the later stages of their career is effectively stopped.
1. The Borstal course in future will be as follows:—
(a) the Ordinary Grade—3 months.
(b) the Intermediate Grade—6 months: divided into two Sections A & B.
(c) the Probationary Grade,
(d) the Special Grade, and
(e) the Star Special Grade.
The Penal Grade will be known, in future, as the Penal Class, so as to avoid confusion with other Grades.
2. Inmates in the Ordinary Grade will work in association during the day, but in order to prevent lads in this stage being kept for unduly long periods in separate confinement, arrangements will be made by which inmates shall not retire to their rooms until late in the evening. Education will take place in the evening as furnishing an opportunity for bringing the lads out of their rooms, or, failing this, some other means will be devised. Inmates in this Grade will go through the ordinary course of physical exercises and drill, but will be debarred from the privileges which can be earned later of games, &c. It is obvious that the period passed in the Ordinary Grade will furnish the opportunity for special observation and attribution to later employment, &c.