Crime -- England -- London; London (England) -- Social conditions; Poor -- England -- London
I am going, then, to reiterate a serious charge! It is this: no boy from
eight years of age up to sixteen, unless sound in mind and body, can
find entrance into any reformatory or industrial school! No matter how
often he falls into the hands of the police, or what charges may be
brought against him, not even if he is friendless and homeless. Again,
no youthful prisoner under twenty-one years of age, no matter how bad
his record, is allowed the benefit of Borstal training unless he, too,
be sound in mind and body. This is not only an enormity, but it is also
a great absurdity; for it ultimately fills our prisons with weaklings,
and assures the nation a continuous prison population.
It seems very extraordinary that prison and prison alone should be
considered the one and only place suitable for the afflicted children of
the poor when they break any law, but so it is.
The moral hump is tolerated, even patronised in reformative
institutions, but the physical hump, never!
Cunning, dishonesty and rascality generally may be tolerated, but
feebleness of mind or infirmity of body never! All through our penal
administration and prison discipline this principle prevails, and is
strictly acted upon.
Let me put it briefly; prison, and prison only, is the one and only
place for afflicted youth when it happens to break one or the other of
our laws.
We have numerous institutions, half penal and half educative, that exist
absolutely for the purpose of receiving homeless, wayward or criminally
inclined youthful delinquents.
These institutions, I say, although kept going from public funds,
refuse, absolutely refuse, to give training to any youthful delinquent
who suffers from physical infirmity or mental weakness.
Think of it again! all youthful delinquents suffering from any infirmity
of body or mind, are refused reformative treatment or training in all
publicly supported institutions established for delinquent youth.
He may be a thief, but if he is a hunchback they will have none of him.
He may be a danger to other children, if he has fits he will not be
received. He may rob the tills of small shopkeepers, but if he is lame,
half-blind, has heart disease, or if his brain is not sound and his body
strong, if he has lost a hand, got a wooden leg, if he suffers from any
disease or deprivation, prison, and prison only, is the place for him.
So to prison the afflicted one goes if over fourteen; if under fourteen
back to his home, to graduate in due time for prison.
This is no exaggeration, it is a true picture, and this procedure has
gone on till our prisons have become filled with broken and hopeless
humanity.
Could any one ever suggest a more disastrous course than this? Why,
decency, pity, or just a grain of common sense ought to teach us, and
would teach us if we thought for a moment, that it is not only wrong but
supremely foolish.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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