Whilst the reform of the adult and hardened convict is of very high import, the welfare of society is even more profoundly influenced by the result of its efforts directed towards the prevention of crime in the first instance; and the value of prevention (which by common consent is at all times higher than that of the best possible cure) may be said to bear an inverse ratio to the age of the individuals who are saved from committing themselves to a career of crime. The surest method of permanently reducing the number of criminals lies in the comprehensive employment of agencies especially devoted to the prevention of juvenile delinquency. Anti-social habits formed in childhood are in after years only eradicated with the greatest difficulty, the criminal child too often being the father of the criminal man. During the latter half of the eighteenth, and early in the nineteenth century, the manufacture of juvenile criminals went on apace. Bow Street Runners on the look-out for blood-money were careful not to interfere with a promising youngster until he had actually committed a felony; parish constables would not trouble to pursue a culprit upon whose conviction only half expenses were allowed; and the reluctance of the general public to prosecute was especially pronounced when the offender was of tender years. Meanwhile scoundrels of the Fagin type, trading on the impunity enjoyed by child-thieves, grew rich on the plunder collected by their pupils, who, sooner or later, received the finishing touches to their criminal education in the public gaols at the public expense. The extent of the evils which resulted are incalculable; but competent experts were of opinion that nearly sixty per cent. of habitual offenders had been initiated into their dishonest career before they were fifteen years of age.[232]
Private philanthropy interested itself on behalf of the children long before the Government made any move in the matter. In the eighteenth century a Marine Society for sending lads to sea, and an agricultural school for teaching farming, had been formed at Portsmouth and Redhill respectively, with the object of befriending boys who otherwise were in danger of lapsing into crime; but for many years these were the only agencies of the sort. The Ragged School movement, so warmly espoused by Lord Shaftesbury, took practical shape soon after the Queen's accession, in schools in Westminster, at Old Pye Street, and at Field Lane. The first industrial feeding-school was opened at Aberdeen in 1841; and it proved so successful that the idea was taken up throughout Scotland. Before long Manchester and other English towns followed the example set by the granite city. Excellent as were many of the schools established by private benevolence, they all laboured under two very formidable disadvantages:—they could not compel unwilling parents to send their children to be reformed, or to contribute anything towards their maintenance, and they could not legally detain their pupils any longer than they cared to stay.
The first public institution for the detention of juvenile criminals was opened at Parkhurst in 1838. Though called a reformatory, it was in effect a gaol, and hardly differed at all from other prisons except with regard to the age of its inmates. The exertions of Lord Shaftesbury and of Mr Adderley (Lord Norton) who strove to convince the nation of the fatal consequences of its apathy, were soon to be rewarded. A Select Committee of the House of Lords which sat in 1847, was followed by the Juvenile Offenders Act of the same year; in 1851 and following years conferences, largely attended by people interested in the reformatory question, were held at Birmingham, with the object of discovering some better method of dealing with youthful criminals than that in vogue, and the whole subject was investigated at some length by Parliamentary Committees appointed in 1853 and 1854. The result of these deliberations took shape in the latter year when the "Reformatory School Act"[233] was passed, giving magistrates the option of committing offenders under sixteen years of age to reformatories, for a term not exceeding five years, in lieu of sentencing them to imprisonment, penal servitude, or transportation. The expense of the new reformatories was met, partly by Treasury contributions, partly by grants from the local authorities, and partly by compulsory subscriptions of not more than five shillings a week exacted from the parents or guardians of the offending children. The Act of 1854 was amended and improved by subsequent Acts passed in 1855 and 1856, but these early enactments[234] were open to the objection that they only applied to juveniles who had already been convicted of a serious offence, and left untouched a large class of children which, for one cause or another, always stands on the brink of criminality;—for no juvenile was eligible for admission into a reformatory unless he had previously been committed to prison for fourteen days.
This omission was repaired by the "Certified Industrial School Act" passed in 1857,[235] and amended in 1861,[236] which provided that certain young persons, who had not been in gaol, might be sent to industrial schools under a magistrate's warrant, to be detained therein until they should attain the age of sixteen. The class of children to whom this Act applied were described as follows:—"Any child apparently under the age of fourteen years, found begging or receiving alms ... any child ... found wandering, and not having any home or settled place of abode, or any visible means of subsistence ... or being an orphan, or whose only surviving parent is in prison ... or who frequents the company of reputed thieves ... or whose mother has twice been convicted of crime ... or whose parents represent that they are unable to control him, ... or any child apparently under the age of twelve years who, having committed an offence punishable by imprisonment or some less punishment, ought nevertheless, in the opinion of the Justices, regard being had to his age, and to the circumstances of the case, to be sent to an Industrial School, &c."
In 1854 only twenty-nine children were sent to reformatories. Since that date, the numbers so committed gradually increased until 1881, in which year the maximum (6738) was reached. The decrease which has recently taken place may be chiefly attributed to the fact that magistrates now generally prefer the industrial to the reformatory school whenever possible, a method of dealing with youthful offenders the wisdom of which has been vindicated by an accompanying diminution in the tale of juvenile crime.
The essential differences between Reformatories and Industrial Schools are, that no stigma attaches to any boy on account of his having been educated at the latter, and that whilst the discipline enforced at the former institutions is sufficiently severe for them to be considered as places of punishment, Industrial Schools are intended only to take the place of that parental control and training which the child cannot obtain at home. The principle of giving another chance to unfortunates who are rather sinned against than sinning lies at the root of the Industrial School movement; and there is no development of preventive police more in sympathy with the wisdom of the age than this. In recent years the same principle has, with excellent effect, been extended to embrace adult as well as juvenile offenders. The Summary Jurisdiction Act of 1879[237] (i.e. so much of it as permits the infliction of a fine instead of imprisonment) and the Probation of First Offenders Act of 1887,[238] are both, it may be noted, conceived in the same wise and merciful spirit. The latter measure especially, which was introduced by Sir Howard Vincent, has been instrumental in reclaiming to an honest life hundreds of prisoners "guilty of a first offence not the product of a criminal mind."[239] The latest Home Office returns go to prove that, in the large majority of instances in which this humane policy has been applied, confidence has not been misplaced; for of the whole number of first offenders conditionally released upon recognizances,[240] to come up for judgment when called upon, only about ten per cent. have shown themselves unworthy of the leniency extended to them by relapsing into crime.
The tendency of recent penal legislation has been to discriminate as closely as possible between the casual and the habitual offender, reducing to the lowest limit, consistent with safety, the penalties exacted against the former, whilst placing every legitimate obstruction in the path of the latter, by making his punishments cumulative as long as he continues to offend, and by maintaining a vigilant supervision over his conduct whilst he is at large. This is one of the most important duties that modern police have to perform, and it is one which demands great tact combined with persistence from individual peace officers, as well as complete co-operation between all the allied police organizations throughout the country. Under the parochial system both these necessary qualifications were conspicuously absent, and if transportation had suddenly come to an end before the police reforms described in previous chapters had been taken in hand, the unchecked excesses of habitual criminals might have endangered the very foundations of English society.
It will be remembered that when the ticket-of-leave system was first introduced, considerable alarm was occasioned on account of the increase of crime; which, not altogether without reason, was generally attributed to the license-holders, who, unreformed by penal discipline, and consequently unfitted for unqualified liberty, were suddenly released in large numbers, without any adequate precautions being taken to control them. We have seen how the reorganization of the entire prison system gradually eliminated the causes which tended to make the ex-prisoner even more dangerous to society on the day of his discharge than he had been before conviction, and we have seen how by the introduction of an improved plan of giving marks for industry (which, however, were subject to forfeiture for ill-conduct), only those convicts were released before the expiration of their full sentence who had earned partial remission by virtue of consistent good behaviour. We now come to a consideration of the measures subsequently adopted for the proper supervision of these ticket-of-leave men.
The conditions endorsed on every license have already been given, but as the police were expressly ordered to take no notice of liberated convicts, unless they were actually engaged in criminal pursuits, but little practical value attached to the wording of the ticket. In 1864 some important changes were introduced by the 4th Section of the Penal Servitude Act of that year, which requires that:—