Journal of Criminal Law and CriminologyVolume 31Issue 1 May-June Article 6

Summer 1940

The Treatment of Juvenile Delinquency in EnglandDuring the Early Nineteenth CenturyYale Levin

Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/jclc

Part of the Criminal Law Commons, Criminology Commons, and the Criminology and CriminalJustice Commons

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Northwestern University School of Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted forinclusion in Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology by an authorized editor of Northwestern University School of Law Scholarly Commons.

Recommended CitationYale Levin, The Treatment of Juvenile Delinquency in England During the Early Nineteenth Century, 31 Am. Inst. Crim. L. &Criminology 38 (1940-1941)

THE TREATMENT OF JUVENILE DELINQUENCY IN ENGLANDDURING THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY1

Yale Levin2

During the fourth and fifth decadesof the nineteenth century, the group ofEnglish philanthropists who guidedpublic opinion in establishing bettermethods of dealing with the problemsof juvenile delinquency, derived theirtheories of the causes and treatment ofjuvenile delinquency from the observa-tions of those who had a practical in-terest in this problem. These observa-tions by magistrates, police and prisonofficials, managers of reformatory in-stitutions, chaplains and social workers,appear crude and unsystematic in com-parison with the studies made in thetwentieth century, yet their conclusionsreached the roots of this problem. De-spite the vast accumulation of psycho-logical and psychiatric literature in thepast three decades, ranging from de-vices that test intelligence and person-ality to devices that explore the sub-conscious, it is doubtful whether therehas been an increase in our under-standing of the causes of juvenile de-linquency. On the whole, the studiesmade since the turn of the present cen-tury have amply confirmed the obser-vations and the simple statistical studiesof the pioneer students of the nine-teenth century who emphasized socialand economic factors as the primary"causes" of delinquent behavior. The

2A Contribution to the Seminar in Sociology,University of Chicago.

emphasis on psychological and psychia-tric interpretations of the behavior ofjuvenile delinquents which followedthe introduction of the Binet-Simontests in this country, and also from thepublications of Goddard and Healy, hasbeen of some value despite the exag-gerated claims made by its adherents.It is unfortunate, however, that stu-dents of juvenile delinquency, with fewexceptions, became pre-occupied withthese newer interpretations to the neg-lect of the earlier emphasis of such fac-

tors as the family, the neighborhood,and the gang. A systematic examina-tion of the total literature of juvenile

delinquency will reveal the significantchanges that have occurred in the pastcentury. Scientific interest in juveniledelinquency began in an age in whichmental testing was unknown, andpsychiatry was undeveloped, passedthrough a stage in which psychologicaland psychiatric interpretations became

fashionable, and is now slowly revolv-ing towards the original starting point.In a recent comprehensive and master-ly survey of the background and ca-reers of one thousand juvenile offend-ers, one of the conclusions reached isthat

even passing reflection indicates that inthe long run a fundamental attack upon

2 1438 S. Homan Ave., Chicago, Ill.

[38]

TREATMENT OF JUVENILE DELINQUENCY

the problem of anti-sociality depends inlarge measure on the raising of thestatus of the underprivileged and on thebetter prevention and control of thehandicapped in our society; that in factwe are deal/rig with one aspect of thegeneral problem of social hygiene, ofpreventive social medicine as applied tothe body politic as a whole.3

In the hey-day of post-war develop-ments of the mental sciences, such con-clusions, stated in but rare instances,were generally ignored as either "un-scientific" or as "humanitarian." Today,even among students who have per-sistently emphasized the importance ofpsychological and psychiatric factors,the validity of such statements is read-ily accepted. For example, Dr. WilliamHealy writes that

if the roots of crime lie far back in thefoundations of the social order it may bethat only a radical change can bring backa large measure of cure... until a bet-ter social order exists, crime will con-tinue to flourish.4

Social workers who, as a group, have

been the most concerned with the real-

ities of the problem of juvenile delin-

quency, are now in the position of ob-

serving how in the general despair of

finding a solution, the importance of

social factors which were emphasized

by the philanthropists in the early nine-

teenth century is again being brought

into prominence. Curiously enough,

when serious attention was first direct-

ed to the problem of juvenile delin-

quency in England and on the con-

tinent in the early decades of the nine-

teenth century, students and social

workers correctly evaluated the prepon-derant role of social factors in the caus-

S Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck, One ThousandJuvenile Delinquents (Boston, 1939) p. 281.

4 William Healy, Augusta Bronner and MyraShimberg, "The Close of Another Chapter in

ation of delinquent behavior. For ex-ample, C. F. Cornwallis, the author ofa prize essay on the subject, wrote that

It is scarcely possible that any ques-tion whether of science or politics can beso entirely divested of connection withother questions of an important nature,as to allow of treating it as an isolatedfact, to be dealt with without referenceto any other matter; and in no case isthis more true than in regard to thatnow proposed. Juvenile crime is but theblossom of a plant deeply rooted in oursocial institutions; and to deal with itas a matter of separate growth wouldbe much the same as if a gardener, wish-ing to make his garden productive, wereto cut off some of the buds from the badfruit trees, and imagine that thereby hewould find the rest produce a good cropof superior description. Juvenile crimeonly tells that a large number of chil-dren are without that care for theirwell-being, morally and physically,which social arrangements are intendedto provide; and we shall have to lookdeep and inquire long, perhaps, ere weshall discover where the first fault lies.5

In a charge to the grand jury, the fol-lowing observation was made with ref-erence to the abolition of transportationof criminals to penal colonies, therebyplacing in the mother country the re-sponsibilty of dealing with its criminals,and confronting it anew with the prob-lem of reforming the criminal before hewas again discharged upon Society:

There is but one way which appearsto me, and to humane and intelligentmen who have taken up the subject, tomeet this difficulty, and that is the estab-lishment of Juvenile Reformatories,where young criminals will be set apart,not for punishment, but for reformation,and from which they will not be dis-charged until they have given a guar-antee to society that they have been

Criminology," Mental Hygiene, v. 19 (1935) p. 221.5 Miciah Hill and C. F. Cornwallis, Two Prize

Essays on Juvenile Delinquency (London, 153)p. 324.

YALE LEVIN

reformed, and that they will, for the fu-ture, be honest and industrious citizens.That principle appears to be one which,on the commonest view of the case, isthe only remedy for the evil which wehave now to anticipate-for two reasonsparticularly; the first is-THAT FROMTHE JUVENILE CRIMINAL POPULA-TION OF THIS COUNTRY THEWHOLE ADULT CRIMINAL POPU-LATION IS DERIVED. It is the seedfrom which springs up the crop of un-fortunate hardened beings who distractSociety. I have myself, from a verylarge experience of Criminal Courts,arrived at that conclusion, not fromabstract speculation, but from actualexperience-I may say daily experience,I have followed the track of the childfrom the first month of his confinementin gaol, for that which can hardly becalled a crime, if it be so at all, butwhich the law designates as such, forvagrancy, or in plain English, for beg-ging-I have followed the career of thatchild for that month's imprisonment forbegging, and from the training receiv-ed in gaol, I have seen him become apickpocket, a thief, and a burglar, andat last so hardened and depraved thathe was placed beyond the power ofhuman salvation. The second reasonis one to which I can also appeal tomy experience, namely, imprisonmentin gaol never has the effect of correct-ing or reforming offenders.,

Benjamin Rotch, a Justice of the

Peace for the County of Middlesex,

writing in 1846, stated that

It must be an obvious and admittedfact that old offenders for the mostpart rise from the ranks of juveniledepradators and to cut off the supply tothe former from the latter class will un-doubtedly be striking at the roots of theevil, and which might be done at home,where we can get at it, instead of deal-ing with the branches, many miles off,and at every possible disadvantage inVan Diemens Land and Norfolk Island.

6Irish Quarterly Review, vol. 7 (1858) Ap-pendix p. 8.

7 B. Rotch, Suggestions for the Prevention of

Surely then all our efforts should bedirected to stay the plague of JuvenileDepravity at home.7

The Rev. J. P. O'Leary, chaplain to

the Manchester Gaol, writes as follows

in his report for 1851:

Juvenile offenders form a large pro-portion of prison inmates and are thevery seed of the adult and old offend-er class. These children and youngpersons are, in the fullest sense, childrenof misfortune, their parents either deador careless, vicious and abandoned;their homes, if they have any, com-fortless and wretched; their dress rag-ged and insufficient; and driven toprocure their daily bread by whatevermeans they can devise, it is found, inmany cases, that the first offense issome petty theft, committed undercircumstances of extreme distress andindeed by some tempting opportunity...If a child has no parents or guardiansto nurture it, if he has such as are in-capable from poverty, ignorance or de-moralization, to make the necessaryprovision for its well-being in the waysof honesty and true religion, it becomesthe duty of the State to take such underits care.8

It is apparent from the above ob-

servations, selected at random, that the

pioneer students of juvenile delinquen-

cy were thoroughly familiar with the

ramifications of this problem. Through-

out the nineteenth century, in various

studies of juvenile delinquency rang-

ing from Parliamentary Reports to

ephemereal pamphlets, similar empha-

sis on the importance of social factors

will be noted. Such students of the

subject as M. D. Hill, Frederick Hill,

Sydney Turner, Mary Carpenter, T. B.

L. Baker, all leaders in the movement

Juvenile Delinquency (London, 1846) p. 7.8 Irish Quarterly Review, vol. 7 (1857) p. 1100-

1101.

TREATMENT OF JUVENILE DELINQUENCY

to establish reformatories, held it asaxiomatic that

There is no doubt that a large pro-portion of juvenile crime is the resultof the offenders' circumstances ratherthan their dispositions. Their relations,their homes, their early associations, thehaunts and connexions they have beenmade familiar with, produce the greaterpart of the depravity and vice whichthe reformatory has to cure or eradi-cate.9

It remained for students of thiscentury, following the lead of Lombrosoto introduce a new fashion, that of bio-physical and neuro-psychic interpreta-tions of juvenile delinquency. Theseinterpretations, beginning timidlyenough, in the first decade of thiscentury, ascended rapidly and i.vent-ually succeeded in causing a partial, ifnot total, eclipse of the previous em-phasis on social factors. Indeed, thepublications on juvenile delinquency inthe past two decades have become sopermeated with this new-fashionedemphasis, that presently many studentsbegan to doubt the existence of any otherinterpretation. It was during this per-iod that the myth was originated andspread by those, who, believing thatthe only scientific method is that whichis synonymous with the study of the

9 First Report of the Inspectors Appointed toVisit the Reformatory Schools of Gt. Britain(1858) p. 13. -

loConcerning the gradual evolution of law per-taining to the methods of treatment of delinquentchildren, Miriam Van Waters writes in the ar-ticle "Juvenile Delinquency and JuvenileCourts" in the Encyclopedia of the Social Sci-ences that "it is by no means demonstrated thatthe concept of child delinquency was ever pres-ent. To attribute to the early lawmakers the con-qept of juvenile delinquency is pure guesswork,based on the desire to produce an ancient gene-ology for a modern development. The first com-prehensive formulation in legal terms of the con-cept of juvenile delinquency, was made by acommittee of the Chicago Bar Association con-cerned with the preparation of the first juvenile

personality of the juvenile offender,asserted that the scientific study ofjuvenile delinquency began about 1910.Although from a historical viewpointno statement could be more ludicrous,like most catch-phrases or slogans, itwas thoughtlessly repeated in variouspublications, at last reaching a safehaven in an eminent encyclopedia. 10

This popular legend (as valid as themyth in America that the workingclasses in England prefer the dole tohonest wages) merely indicates thetotal -absence of even the most elemen-tary historical approach to the studyof juvenile delinquency. Apparentlyfew students are aware of the valuableresearch in various phases of crime andjuvenile delinquency, accumulated inEngland and on the Continent, duringthe nineteenth century. For example,in the recent wide-spread discussionconcerning the role .of the juvenilecourt, it did not appear to be recognizedby either the adherents or opponentsof the juvenile court, that, prior to itsinception, serious efforts were madethrough other agencies to reduce thevolume of juvenile delinquency. Socialworkers are justly proud that everyAmerican state has juvenile court laws,

court law (1898). It is evident that the intentionof the sponsors of this law was to create an en-tirely fresh legal philosophy in the matter ofcrime committed by children." Similarly, H. Louwrites, "We know that in some places there wasjuvenile probation, there were separate hearingsfor children, and there was institutional care forchildren. What was lacking was the conceptionthat a child that broke the law was to be dealtwith by the state not as a criminal but as a childneeding care, education and protection." Juve-nile Courts in the United States, (New York,1927) p. 18. Evidence that throws serious doubtupon the validity of these and similar statementsthat either attribute a 'late' origin to the 'conceptof juvenile delinquency' or imply that the juve-nile court legislation in the 1890's was like agreat burst of light in a dark world, will be pre-sented in this article.

YALE LEVIN

but is there any factual evidence toindicate that since their development

there has been a serious reduction in

the volume of juvenile delinquency?

Can it be said with any certainty that

juvenile courts are accomplishing their

purpose? The present day tendency to

regard the juvenile court as a panaceafor the problems of juvenile delinquen-

cy is a dangerous one; pioneer students

of criminology, who were keenly awareof the wider responsibility of the com-

munity for the solution of this problem

realized that no panacea could possibly

reach the deeply-rooted social institu-

tions that result in juvenile delin-

quency.

II

A preliminary examination of thebackground from which arose seriousconcern over the problems of juveniledelinquency indicates !at the intenseinterest of nineteenth century studentsof criminology in both the theoreticaland practical aspects of criminal be-havior could hardly have failed to carryover into the field of juvenile delin-quency. In the galaxy of penologicalauthorities, M. D. Hill, F. Hill, JohnClay, Sir Joshua Jebb, Alexander Mac-onochie, George Holford, (excludingContinental authorities) several, paidspecial attention to juvenile delin-quency. In addition to these men, an-other group of students and adminis-trators, such as Mary Carpenter, SidneyTurner, T. B. L. Baker, SerjeantAdams, centered their interest entirelyin the latter field. A long series ofimportant law reforms in the earlydecades of the nineteenth century had

preceded this interest in juvenile de-linquency and, in a sense, prepared theway for specific legislation relating to

juvenile offenders. To mention but- a

few, the agitation for the reform of

the criminal code, preached by Sir

Samuel Rommily in Parliament from1808 to 1818, and after his tragic death

in 1818, by Sir James Mackintosh, re-

sulted in the repeal of the death penalty

for a hundred different offenses. Our

modern police system dates from 1829when Sir Robert Peel abolished the old

London Watchmen and established the

Metropolitan Police Force. In another

sphere, the controversy concerning the

treatment of persons awaiting trial,who, during the eighteenth century

were subjected to the same intolerable

conditions as those who were actually

convicted, was finally settled by an Act

of Parliament in 1824 which enacted

that in the case of unconvicted persons

the consent to work "shall be freely

given and shall not be extorted or ob-

tained by deprivation or threat of dep-rivation of any prison or other allow-

ance." By 1835, also, a general revolt

had been established against the belief

that all prisoners should maintain them-selves through productive employment

in prison. In brief, the half century

from 1777, the date of Howard's State

of the Prisons, to 1832, when the Re-

formed Parliament inaugurated its mo-

mentous reform of the governmentaladministrative machinery, witnessed

unusual experiments in penological

science. The aims of such 18th century

reformers as Montesquieu, Voltaire

TREATMENT OF JUVENILE DELINQUENCY

Eden, Paley, found expression in thesereforms of the early 19th century.-

Coinciding with these experiments

and wide-scale developments by gov-ernment officials, the early nineteenthcentury witnessed unusual develop-ments in the domain of private philan-thropy, the most important of whichwas the system of district visiting. Thisfaith in district visiting, of which Dr.Chalmers was the leading exponent,dominated the philanthropic agencies ofthis period. Although not everyoneagreed with Dr. Chalmer's views thatby substituting Voluntary Provision,with its corner-stone of district visiting,the Poor Laws could be abolished, itwas believed by the wealthier classes,that with the development of privateagencies; the scope of Public Provisionwould be necessarily limited. Accord-ingly, early Victorian England turnedwith enthusiasm to the developmentof every variety of private beneficence.In 1860, there existed in London, thirty-

12 Some of these Parliamentary Reports werethe Royal Commission on Police, (1838); Reportan The Expediency of Consolidating and Amend-ing the Criminal Law of England, (1824); Reportfrom the Select Committee Appointed to Inquireinto the Best Mode of Giving Efficiency to Sec-ondary Punishments, (1831); Report on the Sys-tem of Transportation and its Efficiency as aPunishment, (1837); Report of the Committee onso much of the Criminal Law as Relates to Capi-ta! Punishment in Felonies, (1819); Eight Reportsof the Commissioners on the State of the CriminalLaw, (1834-45); Five Reports of the Commission-ers for Revising and Consolidating the CriminalLaw, (1845-49); Parliamentary investigations andother official reports concerning Juvenile Delin-quency were Two Reports of the Lord's Com-mittee on the Execution of the Criminal Law,especially respecting Juvenile Offenders andTransportation (1847); Report to the Secretaryof Stater for the Home Department Relating toPlans for a Prison for Juvenile Offenders, (1837);Middlesex, July Quarter Session, Report of theCommittee Appointed to Report their Sugges-tons for Checking the Growth of Juvenile Crimeand Promoting the Reformation of Juvenile Of-fenders, (1846); Report of the Committee Ap-pointed to Examine into the State of Juvenile

eight organizations and institutions forthe care of delinquents, twenty-two ofwhich were designated as Hospitals andPenitentiary Institutions for Females,and sixteen of which were designatedas Relief to Prisoners, Reformatory, andRefuge Institutions. Of the aggregateorganizations and institutions, sixteenwere founded during the period 1800to 1850, and eighteen during the dec-ade 1850 to 1860. The remaining fourwere founded during the eighteenthcentury.

12

The scattered efforts of the philan-thropists during the forties to cope withthe problems of juvenile delinquencywere united through a conference heldin Birmingham in December 1851 on

the subject of Preventive and Re-formatory Schools. The object of thisConference, the first held in GreatBritain, is thus stated in the Circular:

A Consideration of the Condition andTreatment of the Perishing and Danger-ous Classes of Children and Juvenile

Crime in Newcastle and Gateshead, (1852); Com-mittee on Juvenile Delinquency: Report to thePrison Board for the County of Abersen, (1847).See Sidney and Beatrice Webb, English Prisonsunder Local Government, (1922) pp. 76-94.

12 In his summary of London's charities in1860 Sampson Low collected information from640 privately endowed Agencies, Organizations.Hospitals, and Institutions. Their annual incomeamounted to two and one-half million pounds.Of the 640 institutions 279 were founded between1800 and 1850, and 144 between 1850 and 1860. TheCharities of London (edition of 1862). "Amongthe motives which brought about the remarkableincrease in charities during the first half of thenineteenth century, fear of the rising discontentand genuine desire to improve the condition ofthe poor were prominent. Of the two the secondprobably was the stronger, for private benevo-lence persisted long after the fear of revolutionwas removed, and continued to find its scopewhen many of the services formerly undertakenby charity had become the care of the State."Early Victorian England, edited by G. M. Young(London, 1934) v. 2, p. 319.

TREATMENT OF JUVENILE DELINQUENCY

Although this Conference was butthinly attended, the actual results didnot ultimately fall short of the expecta-tions of its leaders. A second confer-ence held in Birmingham in December,1853, in order to quicken public in-terest in the Reformatory Act beingconsidered in Parliament, was describedin the Times in a report of threecolumns. Upwards of 3,000 personswere present at an evening publicmeeting."

It is within the orbit of these andother developments in the wider fieldsof crimnology and penology and socialwelfare that it is necessary to evaluatethe origin and development of reforma-tories. In recent decades, no one hasadvocated the establishment of reform-atories as a method of solving the prob-lem of juvenile delinquency. Indeed,all our efforts since the turn of thecentury have been directed towardsplans that will keep the juvenile offend-er out of an institution. Our ideas con-cerning the wisdom of committing ju-venile offenders to institutions havechanged so radically in this century

14Times (Dec. 21-22, 1853). It has been saidby various writers that the publication of OliverTwist in 1838 influenced the course of reforma-tory legislation. It is true that this volumereached a wide public unacquainted with Blue-books and with the publications of philanthro-pists, but in itself it did not lead to the enact-ment of any legislation. The very activecommittee composed of philanthropists who or-ganized the Birmingham conferences of 1851 and1853 were directly responsible for the reforma-tory legislation enacted in 1854.

Is Indicative of the interest in ReformatorySchools is the following statement: "There ishardly, perhaps, a subject, the war excepted,which ocupies a larger share-bf attention at thepresent time than Reformatory Schools. To usea familiar expression, they are becoming quitethe rage." Quarterly Review, vol. 98 (1855) p. 32.

16 A representative statement of this faith ininstitutions is the following: "Difficult as- burpenal problem has now become, since the prog-ress of public feeling has almost put an end tocapital punishment, and the remonstrances of our

that it is difficult to realize the extentof the emphasis formerly placed uponinstitutional care. 15 The students andphilanthropists of the nineteenth cen-tury who were appalled by the legalprovisions whereby juvenile offendersover the age of ten years were com-mitted to jails and prisons, believedthat reformatory institutions, support-ed by the Government, would resultin the reformation of young offenders.Commitment to such an institution, itwas strongly held, would be a modeof treatment leading invariably to ex-cellent results, namely, to a substantialreduction in the amount of criminaloffences committed by juvenile offend-ers.'16 Nowadays it would be difficultto recapture the faith in reformatoryinstitutions held by these early reform-ers. Within a half century after theestablishment of Reformatories in Eng-land the faith in their efficiency hadlargely disappeared. Juvenile crimedid not diminish to the extent the ad-herents of Reformatories hoped for. Itshould be remembered, however, thatthe establishment of reformatory in-

colonies have made transportation to any con-siderable extent impossible, the only methodwhich gives any reasonable hope of getting usout of our embarrassment is one which proposesto cut off the supply of criminals at its source....Reformatory schools, then, if they can be madeeffective for their purpose, afford the best meansof diminishing the amount of crime in a coun-try." Ibid, p. 35. See also, "Correction of Juve-nile offenders," Edinburgh Review, vol. 101 (1855)pp. 383-416; "Mettray and Red-Hill" North BritishReview, vol. 24 (1856) pp. 417-447; "ReformatoryInstitutions At Home and Abroad" North Am~ri-can Review, vol 86 (1858) pp. 60-84; "Reforma-tory and Industrial Schools" Dublin UniversityMagazine, vol. 48 (1856) pp. 127-139. It was notedthat "The time of life to which the greatestamount of crime falls, is between 15 and 20 yearsof age. The juveniles aged fifteen and undertwenty form not quite one-tenth of the popula-tion and yet they are guilty of almost one-fourthof its crime." S. P. Day, Juvenile Crime, ItsCauses, Character and Cure (London, 1858) p.312.

TREATMENT OF JUVENILE DELINQUENCY

Although this Conference was butthinly attended, the actual results didnot ultimately fall short of the expecta-tions of its leaders. A second confer-ence held in Birmingham in December,1853, in order to quicken public in-terest in the Reformatory Act beingconsidered in Parliament, was describedin the Times in a report of threecolumns. Upwards of 3,000 personswere present at an evening publicmeeting.14

It is within the orbit of these andother developments in the wider fieldsof crimnology and penology and socialwelfare that it is necessary to evaluatethe origin and development of reforma-tories. In recent decades, no one hasadvocated the establishment of reform-atories as a method of solving the prob-lem of juvenile delinquency. Indeed,all our efforts since the turn of thecentury have been directed towardsplans that will keep the juvenile offend-er out of an institution. Our ideas con-cerning the wisdom of committing ju-venile offenders to institutions havechanged so radically in this century

14 Times (Dec. 21-22, 1853). It has been saidby various writers that the publication of OliverTwist in 1838 influenced the course of reforma-tory legislation. It is true that this volumereached a wide public unacquainted with Blue-books and with the publications of philanthro-pists, but in itself it did not lead to the enact-ment of any legislation. The very activecommittee composed of philanthropists who or-ganized the Birmingham conferences of 1851 and1853 were directly responsible for the reforma-tory legislation enacted in 1854.

25 Indicative of the interest in ReformatorySchools is the following statement: "There ishardly, perhaps, a subject, the war excepted,which ocupies a larger share-f attention at thepresent time than Reformatory Schools. To usea familiar expression, they are becoming quitethe rage." Quarterly Review, vol. 98 (1855) p. 32.

16 A representative statement of this faith ininstitutions is the following: "Difficult as- burpenal problem has now become, since the prog-ress of public feeling has almost put an end tocapital punishment, and the remonstrances of our

that it is difficult to realize the extentof the emphasis formerly placed uponinstitutional care. '5 The students andphilanthropists of the nineteenth cen-tury who were appalled by the legalprovisions whereby juvenile offendersover the age of ten years were com-mitted to jails and prisons, believedthat reformatory institutions, support-ed by the Government, would resultin the reformation of young offenders.Commitment to such an institution, itwas strongly held, would be a modeof treatment leading invariably to ex-cellent results, namely, to a substantialreduction in the amount of criminaloffences committed by juvenile offend-ers. 6 Nowadays it would be diffcultto recapture the faith in reformatoryinstitutions held by these early reform-ers. Within a half century after theestablishment of Reformatories in Eng-land the faith in their efficiency hadlargely disappeared. Juvenile crimedid not diminish to the extent the ad-herents of Reformatories hoped for. Itshould be remembered, however, thatthe establishment of reformatory in-

colonies have made transportation to any con-siderable extent impossible, the only methodwhich gives any reasonable hope of getting usout of our embarrassment is one which proposesto cut off the supply of criminals at its source....Reformatory schools, then, if they can be madeeffective for their purpose, afford the best meansof diminishing the amount of crime in a coun-try." lbid, p. 35. See also, "Correction of Juve-nile offenders," Edinburgh Review, vol. 101 (1855)pp. 383-416; '"ettray and Red-Hill" North BritishReview, vol. 24 (1856) pp. 417-447; "ReformatoryInstitutions At Home and Abroad" North Ami-can Review, vol. 86 (1858) pp. 60-84; "Reforma-tory and Industrial Schools" Dublin UniversityMagazine, vol. 48 (1856) pp. 127-139. It was notedthat "The time of life to which the greatestamount of crime falls, is between 15 and 20 yearsof age. The juveniles aged fifteen and undertwenty form not quite one-tenth of the popula-tion and yet they are guilty of almost one-fourthof its crime." S. P. Day, Juvenile Crime, ItsCauses, Character and Cure (London, 1858) p.312.

YALE LEVIN

stitutions represented a long step inadvance of the prevailing practice ofcommitting juvenile offenders to pris-ons. The humanitarian efforts on whichrested the establishment of Reforma-tories do not differ in any degree fromthose efforts on which rested the devel-opment of juvenile courts. In bothdevelopments the same considerationwas uppermost in the thoughts of thosedeeply interested in the problem, name-ly, the improvement of the prevailingstandards in the treatment of the ju-venile offender. If, in retrospect, theextravagant claims that were made forthese institutions as a method of solv-ing the problem of juvenile delinquen-cy bear a striking resemblance to theextravagant claims that were made bythose who pioneered in the JuvenileCourt movement, the adherents of bothunderestimated the difficulties in erad-icating the roots of juvenile delin-quency.

As early as 1836 the evil effects ofimprisonment of juvenile offenderswere graphically described in an of-ficial report as follows:

There is, however, another cause ofthe offences of youth, which most power-fully contributes to strengthen thevicious propensities which they derivefrom every other source. We refer tothe corruption produced by imprison-rfient. It is painful to reflect that theremedy provided by law for the correc-tion of the offender, should only tend torender him more criminal. Of manychildren, whom we have seen in prison,we" hesitate not to affirm, that absoluteimmunity would have been far lessmischievous than the effects of theirconfinement. It is notorious with whatdelight experienced thieves endeavor to

17 Report of the Inspectors appointed under theProvisions of the Acts 5 and 6 Will. 4th c. 38 to

corrupt those who are but just enteringupon a criminal career. The detail ofexploits, the most successful modes ofcommitting depredations, the disposalof plunder, the narrations of escapes,the phraseology of thieves; these sub-jects are in the highest degree alluringto the young offender, and are eagerlydiscussed, in order to enliven and dis-pel the weariness of imprisonment. Thefirst entrance of a boy into prison isalost invariably accompanied by thefeelings of alarm. No advantage, how-ever, is taken of this favorable state ofmind to inculcate good impressions. Theboy is thrown among veterans in guilt,by whom his fears are derided, his ris-ing penitence subdued and his viciouspropensities cherished and inflamed.Here he finds able and willing instruc-tors in the perpetration of crime, andthe foundation of every virtuous feelingbecomes gradually destroyed. He entersthe prison a child in years, and not in-frequently also in crime; but he leavesit with a knowledge in the ways ofwickedness which it is scarcely possiblethat he could acquire in any otherplace."17

A decade later, the eminent Recorder

Hill submitted the following testimony

to Lord Broughan's Committee, ap-pointed in 1847 to consider the admin-istration of criminal justice with special

attention to juvenile offenders, whichreveals both the reluctance of humanemagistrates to commit juvenile offend-

ers to prisons and their efforts to meet

the problem in an enlightened mannerwithin the then existing laws.

"What punishment do you generallygive those children?"

"I am rather fortunately situated inthat respect, because many of the chil-dren at Birmingham have either friends,or relatives, or masters, who are kindlydisposed, and a considerable number ofthem I am enabled to return to theirmasters or friends, and I do that under

visit the Different Prisons of Gt. Britain (1836)p. 86.

TREATMENT OF JUVENILE DELINQUENCY

this guarantee-the master enters intoan obligation to take care of the child;his name is inscribed in a register,and at certain frequent but undeter-mined periods he is visited by an officerof the police without notice, for thepurpose of ascertaining what has beenthe conduct of the boy, and how he hasbeen treated."

"Generally speaking, have the resultsbeen favorable?"'it has been favorable-not so much

as your Lordships may perhaps expect;but what I consider favorable, under allthe circumstances. The last time I sawthe account, there has been 113 personsso disposed of. Of those, 44 maintainedtheir positions without a single relapse;and of the conduct of 29 we were fromone cause or other ignorant; the re-maining 40 had relapsed."' 8

It was clear enough to the reformersof that period that juvenile offendersshould be kept out of prison. Thesubstitute for imprisonment, was, byunanimous agreement, the establish-ment of Reformatories under voluntaryauspices but supported by the Govern-ment.

is Quoted in J. Kingsmill, Chapters on Prisonsand Prisoners, (London, 1852) p. 436. The originof this rudimentary form of Probation may befound, if not in the 18th century, in the early 19thcentury. "It was perhaps not unnatural that thepublic whose only knowledge of the young crim-inal was derived from the newspaper reportsof his trial should remain indifferent to his down-ward course, but among his judges were thosewho, meeting him face to face, were moved tocompassion by his inevitable fate. They recog-nized the futility of expecting any benefit to thechild or to society, from immuring him, often sosmall that his little head was hardly visible abovethe top of the dock, within the gloomy walls of agaol. Thus were they led to seek wiser and morehumane means of dealing with him. For instance.the magistrates of Warwickshire were in thehabit, whenever feasible, of returning the youngoffender, if not hardened in crime, to his em-ployer, who was seldom unwilling to give himanother trial. The practice made a deep im-pression on Mr. Hill, when he attended sessionsof that county, and on becoming Recorder ofBirmingham, he adopted it himself." A Memoirof M. D. Hill by his Daughters (London, 1878)p. 155.

I

Although the origin of the 'reform-atory movement' can be traced to the18th century it reached its zenith onthe Continent and in the United Statesin the first half of the 19th century.'9

In Great Britain, the reformatory sys-tem was not created by the Parlia-mentary legislation of the 1850 decade,but 'was itself the occasion and sourceof those laws'. In common with other19th century reform movements, volun-tary and private efforts had precededgovernmental action and legal recogni-tion. When under voluntary auspices itwas proved that reformatory schoolscould be established and operated suc-cessfully, Parliament was induced topass legislation for their establishmentand support by the Government. Pre-viously, in 1838, the government hadestablished a separate prison for youth-ful offenders, conducted on such linesas should appear most conducive to

19 "It is impossible to trace the rise of reforma-tory schools to a single source. We may say thatRed-Hill is the offspring of Mettray, and thatMettray is the offspring of the Rauhe Haus, butthe Philanthropic Society, though it has bor-rowed the idea of its agricultural establishmentand family system from these continental insti-tutions, was in existence many years beforeeither of them had been projected. Stretton-on-Dunsmore too, may lay claim to precedence as areformatory school in the present acceptation ofthe word, having been founded by the magis-trates of Warwickshire in 1818, fifteen years be-fore the opening of the Rauhe Haus, and twenty-one years before that of Mettray. But in truththe friends of neglected children have been atwork for many years in many countries, some-times labouring in solitude and in ignorance ofwhat was doing elsewhere, sometimes com-municating with those who were of a kin-dred spirit, and deriving consolation andassistance from the labours of one another.""Reformatory Schools" Quarterly Review v. 98(Dec. 1855) p. 36. For a detailed account of theearly history of reformatory schools see Reportof the Departmental Committee on Reformatoryand Industrial Schools, 2 v. (1896-97) First Ap-pendix.

YALE LEVIN

their reformation and to the repressionof juvenile crime. To this institution,located at Parkhurst, in the Isle ofWight, offenders under the age ofeighteen were committed. Land wasattached to this institution for cultiva-tion by the inmates, and the disciplinewas intended to be of a specially edu-cational and reformatory character.The establihment of Parkhurst markedthe first legislative recognition in Eng-land of separate treatment for youngoffenders.20

Whatever merits this institution pos-sessed, it did not meet the problemwhich confronted the early reformers,namely, how to overcome the vast massof child neglect and juvenile crime inthe larger cities of England. It wasestimated that there were in England150,000 children either crminal alreadyor training to become so. These chil-dren comprised (1) "orphans, or chil-dren wholly abandoned by their par-ents, who, being driven by necessity tosmall acts of dishonesty in order toobtain food, meet, either in prison orin the usual haunts of these houselesswanderers, others more advanced incrime, and are led by them in further

20Mary Carptenter had formed an unfavorable,if not hostile, opinion of this institution and ex-pressed her criticisms in her volumes Reforma-tory Schools for the Children of the Perishingand Dangerous Classes and for Juvenile Offend-ers, (1851) and in her Juvenile Delinquents,Their Condition and Treatment, (1853). See alsoher testimony before the Select Committee onCriminal and Destitute Children, (1852). How-ever, upon her visit to Parkhurst in the summerof 1854, several alterations in its management hadoccurred, which induced her to take a muchmore favorable viewpoint. She wrote to LadyByron, "I think that this place is as good as anygovernment (not working with individual loveof the child and knowledge of his nature) andwell-disposed officers can make it. The arrange-ments are admirable and Captain Hall is a manwith soul, but in chains." See J. E. Carpenter,

offences. (2) Children of very desti-tute parents, who being frequentlywithout food, or wandering in thestreets, fall in with bad companions,and are led into the same courses. (3)Children of thieves and other depravedcharacters, who undergo a regulartraining in the arts of picking pockets,etc. and are punished by their parentsif they do not bring home a sufficientbooty each day." 21 The model prisonat Parkhurst provided for at most 650inmates. Furthermore, only those of-fenders who were punishable by a sen-tence of transportation were eligible forcommitment to Parkhurst. The limitedusefulness of this institution was clearto those magistrates, students, and phil-anthropists deeply concerned with thewider aspects involved in the problemsof juvenile delinquency. 22

Just as the establishment of Park-hurst was preceded by a Select Com-mittee that gathered evidence frommagistrates and others concerned withjuvenile offenders, so the establishmentof reformatories in England was pre-ceded by a committee of inquiry intothe condition of criminal and destitutejuvenile offenders. The report of this

The Life and Work of Mary Carpenter, (London,1881) p. 160-161.

21 M. Hill and C. F. Cornwallis, Two Prize Es-says on Juvenile Delinquency, (London, 1853)p. 350.

22 "It is therefore an object of primary im-portance to apply a remedy for the correction ofjuvenile thieves in populous districts . . . ifsuch be the circumstances under which the chil-dren of even the industrious poor occasionallybecome the inmates of a prison, much more fre-quent and fatal in their effects are the causeswhich tend to demoralize the offspring of thecriminal and depraved. The poverty and igno-rance, the misery and degradation, which markthe condition of many thousands of the lowestorders in this vast metropolis affects the char-acter not more of the parent than of the child."Report of the Inspectors to Visit the DifferentPrisons of Great Britain, (1836) p. 85.

TREATMENT OF JUVENILE DELINQUENCY

committee, a landmark in the history

of child-saving, is in effect a resume

of the efforts made by the reformersof the period 1830 to 1850 to grapple

with the solution of juvenile delin-quency. It is also a summary of thepractical observations of magistrates,police officials, prison officials, chap-

lains, and others concerned with this

problem. Without denying'that sincethe publication of this Report manyimportant theoretical studies of juve-nile delinquency have been made, it maybe equally affirmed that this Report,in its theoretical aspects, anticipates theconclusions of later generations of stu-dents. A comparison of some of theconclusions reached by these early re-formers in their publications prior to1850 with the conclusions of the ad-herwiLs -of .the so-called 'sociologicalapproach' made familiar in the pastdecade, reveals much that is instruc-tive,-and damaging to any claims oforiginality made by the followers of the'sociological approach'. For example, inhis report in 1835, John Clay made thefollowing observation:

When a boy is recommitted for afelony, he is frequently accompanied byone or more delinquents about his ownage, whom he has seduced into crime;but this is seldom the case, indeed Icannot record one instance with prison-ers of mature age. In illustration of thismay be mentioned the following circum-stance, viz: that of 141 persons under22 committed during the year uponcharges of felony there were 67 who

2s Journal of the Statistical Society, v. 2 (1839)p. 95. In his report for 1846 Clay wrote that "sofar back as 1831, when the population from whichthey were derived was only 286.400. of sixty-fourboys under twenty years of age indicted at thesesessions for felony. thirty-seven were associatedin gaujgs. In 1837. forty-four boys so connected;in 1838. forty-two: and each group of young crim-

appear to have perpetrated their offencesunconnected with any accomplice and74 who were associated in parties of twoor more, while among 162 prisoners ofall ages above 22, there were 136 whocommitted their offences singly and only26 who were connected with others.23

A century later Shaw and McKay

made a similar study of this character-

istic in their analysis of the Cook

County Juvenile Court statistics of

1928. They conclude that

the distribution of the 4,663 stealingoffenders according to the number ofparticipants indicates that the groupswhich have the highest frequency arethose involving two and three partic-ipants. The group involving two partic-ipants constituted 33 per cent, and thegroup involving three participants 30.9per cent of the total number of stealingoffenders. . . . The findings of thisstudy indicate quite conclusively thatmost juvenile offences are committed bygroups of boys, few by individualssingly.

24

The role of recreational facilities in

the prevention of juvenile delinquency

was also emphasized prior to 1860.

Thomas Paynter, a metropolitan Police

Magistrate for eleven years, testified

that:

I think in the first place that the greatincrease of town population has mate-rially increased juvenile crime; boyswho are brought up in a town areexposed to many unfavorable influenceswhich do not exist in the country, andare deprived of many favourable ones.A boy who is brought up in the coun-try has abundant space for exercise forthe development of his physical consti-tution, opportunities for which do not

inals comprised a leader duly qualified for hispost by a previous training in Gaol." Walter L.Clay, The Prison Chaplain. A Memoir of theRev. John Clay, (London, 1861) p. 273.

24National Commission on Law Observanceand Law Enforcement, Report on the Causes ofCrime. (Washington, D. C., 1931) v. 2, p. 196-199.

YALE LEVIN

exists in towns. There is a great wantof playgrounds.

2'

Efforts to meet this want were not lack-

ing. As might be expected of an age

in which municipal functions did not

include the provision of public play-

grounds, private philanthropy pointed

the way, as revealed in the following

advertisement in the London Times.

THE PLAYGROUND SOCIETY forProviding Playgrounds for Poor Chil-dren in Populous Places. The streets ofLondon, and other large towns through-out the kingdom, are said to furnishvictims for every variety of temptations;and the experience of daily life willevidence how great are the bodily evilswhich arise to the children of our poor,from the necessity which now exists fortheir playing in crowded thoroughfares,and play they must, somewhere.

The want of public playgrounds haslong been felt; this movement arosewith a London clergyman, whose denseparish induced him to seek in June,1857, for the formation of an Associa-lion to effect so desirable an object. TheCommittee feel assured, that for thesake of Society at large, as well as forthat of thousands of children whoseinterests, both bodily and spiritual areconcerned, the public will come forwardto aid them liberally in their effort toachieve a great public good. Even inthe most dense neighborhoods, it is pos-sible to make arrangements for thepresent, with the hope that changes ofsite and transfers of property mayafford better opportunities in the future.One school in St. Matin's-in-the-fieldsrecently afforded an example of amethod of meeting the want, by form-ing the playground in an upper story;and although the experiment did notsucceed there, the idea may be appliedusefully elsewhere.

Refuges and reformatories are theChristian care of our time. This Societydesigns prevention, and trusts to obviate,in many cases, the necessity for reform.

25 Select Committee on Criminal and Destitute.uviniles, (London, 1852) p. 78.

Contributions for local objects will begladly accepted, under strict limitationsto the neighbourhood in their expendi-ture, and promises of support from thenobility and gentry with reference tothe cities and towns contiguous to theirestates will be gratefully acknowledgedby the Committee, who will be preparedto assist and guide local efforts, and whoearnestly invite grants of land, whichcan be legally conveyed for the purpose.

Patrons, the Earl of Shaftesbury, theLord Bishop of London, the Marquis ofWestminster.

20

An ever increasing emphasis on the

role of recreational agencies, boys' clubs,

settlement activities, and leisure-time

activities has been a normal develop-

ment in the past century, but because

we live in an imperfect world, the prob-

lem of providing playgrounds and other

recreational facilities for children living

in the poorer sections of cities, remains

a constant one, despite the present

provisions by municipalities of these

facilities on a scale undreamed of by

reformers of past generations. The point

of view expressed in recent sociological

writings concerning the role of 'area

projects' and other crime-prevention

programs can scarcely be called novel

or enlightening. For example, Thrash-

er writes:

While it is necessary to deal with theindividual problem child, from thestandpoint of crime prevention, it isprobably more important to go out andredeem the so-called '"ad companions"who are so often held responsible forthe downfall of the individual. Theindividual product of the gang, the pool-room, or the streets, is but a symptomof the processes of demoralization whichare producing delinquents in wholesalelots. Sociologically, therefore, the indi-vidual delinquent is far less importantthan the community influences which

26 Jan. 9, 1858, p. 8.

TREATMENT OF JUVENILE DELINQUENCY

create him. If the poolroom, or similarhangout, for example, is the "cradle ofcrime" it is far more economical toregulate it rigidly, or to wipe it outentirely by providing more effectivesubstitutes, than it is to maintain anelaborate and expensive social machin-ery to correct the individual maladjust-ments which it produces or to protectsociety from the constant stream ofdelinquents which emerge from it.27

This 'sociological' point of view isprecisely that of the reformers of themid-nineteenth century who persistent-

ly called to the attention of the publicthe effects of bad housing and the lackof adequate educational opportunitiesand recreational facilities. More speci-fic evils connected with the problem ofjuvenile delinquency were found in"fences" where criminals disposed of

27 Preventing Crime. A Symposium edited bySheldon and Eleanor Glueck, (New York, 1936)p. 66. Almost a century ago, T. B. L, Baker wrotethat the "irst and principal point was the ne-cessity of paying attention, not merely to the in-dividual boys who chanced to be committed tothe reformatory school, and endeavorink to re-form them, but the paying attention also to thestatistics of juvenile crime in the district, withthe view of finding out all those who are extend-ing the evil by corrupting and teaching others.The apprehension of one or two leaders of a gangwill frequently restore the others to at least com-parative habils of honesty; but what is far moreimportant, the apprehension of one or two in-structors in crime will prevent the temptationand fall of perhaps eight or ten others whom theywould have corrupted." "Statistics and Sugges-tions Connected with the Reformation of Juve-nile Offenders" in Report of the British Associa-.tion for the Advancement of Science, Transac-",tions of the Sections (1856) p. 128.

28 See the anonymous pamphlet, Observationson the Buyers or Receivers of Stolen Goods, Par-titularly of Lead, Iron, etc., taken from Build-ings: with an Attempt to Remedy Such Practice,(1751); T. C. Kynnersley, "The Incentives toCrime Presented by Marine Store Dealers andHow to Repress Them," Reports of the NationalAssociation for the Promotion of the Social Sci-ences, (158) p. 361-64; Ibid, "On a Marine StoreDealers Bill" (1860) p. 461-65.

29 Report from the Select Committee Appointedto Inquire into the Existing Statutes againstGaming of Every Kind, and to what Extent TheseStatutes are Evaded, (1844); "The GamblingHells in London" Fraser's Magazine, v. 8. (1833);Return Showing the Number of Boys taken into

their plunder, 8 in gaming houses,"in "penny gaffs" or the penny theatres,and the "twopenny hops" or the dancingrooms and other immoral places ofamusement frequented by the childrenof the 'lower orders'.,0 Street-selling byjuveniles, both boys and girls, speci-fically called forth the denunciation ofall concerned with the problem of erad-icating juvenile delinquency. 31 Thenas now, it was also believed that cheapliterature or 'thrillers' had an adverseeffect on the characters of juvenilereaders. The list of 'causes' of juveniledelinquency compiled in the mid-nineteenth century differs only from apresent-day compilation in the omis-sion of psychiatric and psychologicalexplanations of delinquent behaviour.32

Custody by Metropolitan Police, charged withGambling, (1844); T. Starkie, Substance of theCommon and Statute Law Relating to Gaming,(1844).

30 M. Hill and C. Cornwallis, Two Prize Essayson Juvenile Delinquency, (1853) p. 60-63.

S1 Henry Mayhew, London Labour and theLondon Poor, 4 vols. (1864). Originally, thesestudies of the London street-folk appeared inthe Morning Chronicle. Mayhew's findings wereextensively quoted by many writers on juveniledelinquency.

32 The Index of the New York Times for theperiod 1934 carried the following reports concern-ing juvenile delinquency: "Wants greater ac-tivity in boy's work"; "Says baseball as a factorin solving juvenile crime problem"; "Lack ofproper recreational facilities named as causes ofincrease; "Lays rise of juvenile delinquency topoverty and ill-health"; "Urges personal train-ing"; "Says home training and environment areneeded"; "Wholesome activities is a solution";"60% of all cases show emotional conflicts causedby home .conditions"; "faulty metabolismblamed"; 'E*essive mother love called one ofthe chief caushs"; "Finds it not affected by re-ligious training"; "Says religious education re-duces crime." In 1849 Thomas Beggs wrote, "Itwould require much more acute powers of obser-vation than any which have hitherto been em-ployed in this direction to discriminate the in-fluences of each of the acknowledged causesoperating in the production of delinquency andcrime. Much valuable labour is wasted veryoften by ascribing to one that which really be-longs to a number of concurrent causes. Mostmen have their remedies for our social evils, and

YALE LEVIN

Most writers concerned with theproblems of juvenile delinquency be-lieved that "virtue and vice are asdependent upon physical conditions ashealth and disease. There is a fixedrelation between comfort and morality,and there is a terrible positive connec-tion between physical and spiritualdegradation." Occasionally a moreaccurate student protested against thewide-spread tendency of attributingcrime and juvenile delinquency to ad-verse social conditions such as badhousing, meager educational opportu-nities, the employment of females infactories, and intemperance. ThomasPlint found that

Neither does the criminal class orig-inate in the want of proper sanitaryregulations or the crowded or promis-cuous condition of the bye-lanes andcourts of the great towns. The actionof these conditions on the morals 6f theunhappy class who are subjected tothem is unquestionably most deteriorat-ing, but the conditions themselves areconcomitants, not causes of the moraldebasement of that class.3

3

As early as 1845, the Governor of theLiverpool Borough Gaol instituted aninquiry into the state of th families ofthe juvenile prisoners. Of the sixty-sixboys incarcerated, the families of fifty-three were visited and the followingtabulation made:

3-No parental care.7-Homes plentiful and sufficient, but

parents, one or both, more or lessgiven to drink.

4-Fatherless; had decent but barelysufficient homes.

each, perhaps, has looked at the moral conditionfrom one point of view." An Inquiry into theExtent and Causes of Juvenile Depravity (Lon-don, 1849) p. 54.

35 Quoted in M. Hill and C. Cornwallis, Two

4-Homes barely sufficient, owing todrunkenness of parents.

7-Each parent of bad character. Twogirls lived with their mothers, whokept a brothel.

8-Parents following occupations un-favorable to morality.

15-Parents decent; homes comfortable.

5-Homes plentiful; and sufficient.3 4

The Chaplain of the General Prison

at Perth gave the following testimony:

At this date (May 27, 1852) we havein custody 93 juveniles, of whom, ac-cording to their statements, 65 were notdriven to crime by actual destitution.As regards the character of their par-ents, 60 are said to be honest andindustrious, while 16 are of an oppositedescription. As to their circumstances,57 are reported to be good and 19 bad,17 of the boys are orphans. 35

From these and similar investiga-

tions, and from her observations in her

wdrk with delinquent children over a

period of many years, Mary Carpenter

concluded that the common idea that

the parents of juvenile delinquents

were extremely poor and therefore

found it difficult to maintain their chil-

dren honestly was an erroneous one.

She believed that although actual pov-

erty is in comparatively few instances

the direct cause, the great mass of

juvenile delinquency is to be attributed

"directly and mainly to the low moral

conditions of the parents, and their

culpable neglect of the early training

of their children, or their incapacity to

direct it."36

Prize Essays on Juvenile Delinquency (London,1853) p. 31.

34 Mary Carpenter, Juvenile Delinquents, TheirCondition and Treatment, (London, 1853) p. 153.

35 Ibid, p. 149.36 Ibid, p. 155.

TREATMENT OF JUVENILE DELINQUENCY

IVWhen in 1854 the leaders in the re-

formatory movement secured legalrecognition and financial support fromParliament, the plan of substituting"schools" instead of prisons in the treat-

ment of juvenile offenders was anovelty. In the ranks of opponents ofreformatory schools were many strongbelievers in the status quo, in birchingand in other repressive measures. Toconvince these skeptics that reforma-tory schools could diminish juvenilecrime, statistics were gathered to provethat from 50 to 75 per cent of the chil-dren who entered a reformatory schoolwere reclaimed. Of the institution atStretton - on - Dunsmore, establishedunder private auspices by the magis-trates of the Count3i of Warwick, it wasclaimed that

careful investigation into the results ofthe first nine years ending with 1827,proved that the reformations were 48per cent. Under the second master whotook charge of the institution in 1843,they rose to 58 per cent. Under thethird and present master, the reforma-tions have risen to 65 per cent.37

Even more impressive results werefound by English philanthropists in thestatistics of the reformatory schools andcolonies established on the Continentin the two previous decades. Of theRauhe Haus in Hamburg, establishedin 1833 it was claimed that

Since the foundation of the Institu-tion, 207 children, 157 boys and 50 girls,have been received into it. 117 have leftus; the condition of these is as follows:Now under the exclusive care of

their parents .................... 21Emigrated ........................ 6

.7 M. Hill and C. Cornwallis, Two Prize Essayson .Tuvenile Delinquency, (London, 1853) p. 247.

38 Mary Carpenter, Juvenile Delinquents, TheirCondition and Treatment, (London, 1853) p. 275.

Sailors ............................ 9Day labourers .................... 8Agricultural labourers, gardeners,

etc . ............................. 5At various trades .................. 48Student ........................... 1Female servants ................... 13D ead ............................. 6

117Of all of these only five can be

deemed failures, three males and onefemale having been imprisoned, onefemale having become a vagrant.3 8

These extravagant claims did not

escape criticism. Within a few years

after reformatories were established inEngland, Jelinger Symons, one of thepioneers in the movement, wrote:

I place little reliance on the statisticsof reformation. So far from taking 70,75, or 80 per cent as the real proportionof reclaimed criminal children, andunfairly measuring the efficiency of lessboasting schools thereby, I hope thereis reasonable ground for believing thatone-half the whole number of inmatesare, not only contrite and permanentlyreclaimed, but so far practically con-vinced that honesty is their best policy,that they really will strive to be honestand earn their own livelihood. If anyschool managers can conscientiously saythat they are effecting this, they maytake great joy and credit to themselvesfor as much success as any one reallyacquainted with the nature of juvenilecrime can or will expect from them.And even this cannot be often doneunder three or four years' carefultraining, with at least the principalappliances I have named. The presentmeans managers have of testing theaccounts they get of the good conductof those children who have left themare extremely defective even when theaccounts they receive are conscientious-ly made. Many of such accounts comefrom the children themselves and can-not be implicitly relied on.3 9

39 Quoted in S. P. Day, Juvenile Crime, ItsCauses, Character and Cure, (London, 1858) p.432. In 1876, Sidney Turner, Inspector of Re-formatories since their establisment in 1854,

YALE LEVIN

Although the adherents of reforma-tory schools freely cited statistics toprove that through commitment to re-formatories children could be reclaimedfrom criminal careers, greater emphasiswas placed by the philanthropists ofthat age on the duty of Society to childoffenders. In the blunt words of MaryCarpenter, "Society owed retributiionto them." In asking support of the com-munity for reformatory institutions, theleaders carried into practice the tenetsof their faith, which was Evangel-icalism, with its equal emphasis on thesolemn responsibility of those who havebeen converted to this creed, and onthe moral dangers and destiny of thosechildren in whose behalf they wereexerting themselves." If, in the thirtiesand forties, the leaders asked for Stateaid in the establishment of reformatory

wrote that "the remarkably successful results ofthe Schools in the reclamation and recoveryfrom 70 to 80 and in some cases to 90 per centof those admitted into them are essentially owingto the voluntary agency enlisted in their man-agement." Report of the Reformatory and In-dustrial School Committee (1896) vol. 1, p. 177.The supervision of discharged children was nota duty prescribed by statute, but by the rulesof the Home Office each School was under theobligation to follow the children for three yearsafter their discharge and to make annual reportsto the Home Office. During the years 1891 to 1893inclusive, 4,162 boys were discharged from Re-formatories. Of this number 73 per cent were re-ported as "doing well" in the returns for 1894.The Committee analyzed the difficulties encount-ered by the Superintendent of a Reformatoryinstitution in securing accurate information con-cerning the conduct of a boy after his discharge.Members of the Committee were not agreed asto the value to be attached to the official formbut, "whilst holding different views, we are sat-isfied that a large number of those who have leftthe Schools are leading a respectable and fairlyprosperous life." Ibid, p. 80.

40 "the actual number of convictions, or eventhe commitments of each individual, affords buta very inaccurate indication of the amount ofcrime which he has committed against Society;the enumeration of crimes legally proved againstchildren, points but faintly to the multitudes whoare beginning their life, and are likely to con-tinue it, in a state of utter ignorance of the lawsof God and man, and consequent disregard of

institutions, it was financial assistanceonly that was wanted. The Home Officewas regarded as "a very unlikely placefrom whence to obtain foster-fathersand mothers for the children of crimeand neglect."41 The doctrine of the"combination of State assistance andvolunteer benevolence" which was a

cardinal principle in the philosophy of

mid-nineteenth century philanthropy,did not, however, flourish long. As the

Reformatories became more and more

dependent upon public funds they in-

creasingly became more subject to

Government Inspection and eventually

accepted as a Government function.

Unwittingly the advocates of Volun-

taryism furnished the impetus which

widened the sphere of State responsi-

bility.

them. It has been shown that the mere fact ofa child's having been branded as a felon by alegal sentence, does not prove that he is guiltyof such an amount of moral criminality as wouldFender him necessarily injurious to society, ifsubjected to wise treatment; that while the chil-dren of one class may require for their reforma-tion only temporary corrective treatment, or evensimple removal from their evil associations, intoa condition of active and morally healthful oc-cupation, others would need long years of carefultraining before they could be restored to societywith any hope of their becoming useful membersof it. We have thus seen that the simple fact of aconviction of dishonesty by no means indicatesthe degree in which a child is morally diseased.

. . . But beyond these Juvenile Delinquentspointed out to us by the "Law of the Land" in-numerable multitudes of children have been dis-covered to us by the Christial philanthropist, andby the disclosure of their associates; some swarm-ing in our large cities and haunting all its by-ways; others wandering over the country; allgrowing up in the thickest Egyptian darkness, inutter ignorance of everything that might profittheir immortal souls. No statistics have beenneeded to force upon us the dreadful convictionthat this amount of moral evil must go on in-creasing, if comprehensive and effectual meas-ures are not taken to arrest its course." MaryCarpenter, Juvenile Delinquents, Their Condi-tion and Treatment (London, 1853) p. 326-327.

41W. L. Clay, Memoir of John Clay (London,1861) p. 379.