Crime -- England -- London; London (England) -- Social conditions; Poor -- England -- London
Consequently in prison they learn little that can be of service to
them; they only graduate in idleness, and prison having comforts but
no terrors, they quickly join the ranks of the habitues. When it is too
late they are "listed" as not suitable for prison treatment. Year by
year in a country of presumably sane people this deplorable condition
of things continues, and I am bold enough to say that there will be no
reduction in the number of our prison population till proper treatment,
training, and, if need be, detention, is provided in places other than
prison for our afflicted youthful population when they become offenders
against the law.
But reformatory and industrial schools have not only power to refuse
youthful delinquents who are unsound in mind or body; they have also the
power to discharge as "unfit for training" any who have managed to
pass the doctor's examination, whose defects become apparent when under
detention.
From the last Official Report of Reformatory Schools in England and
Wales I take the following figures--
During the years 1906-7-8 14 imbeciles (males) were discharged on
licence from reformatory schools; and during the same three years no
less than 93 (males) were discharged by the Home Secretary's permission
as "unfit for physical training." The 14 imbeciles in the Official
Report are classified as dead, and the 93 physically unfit are included
among them "not in regular employment."
For the same period of years I find that 28 (girls) were discharged from
English reformatory schools as being physically unfit.
The Official Report of Industrial Schools includes England, Wales and
Scotland, and for the same three years I find that 13 (males) were
discharged from industrial schools as being imbeciles, and 116 (males)
as being "unfit for physical training."
Strange to say, in the Annual Report the physically unfit are included
among those "in casual employment," and the imbeciles are included among
the "dead."
From the same Official Report we have the statement that in one year,
1909, in England and Scotland 991 (males) and 20 (females) who had been
discharged from reformatory schools were re-convicted and committed to
prison.
How many of them were mentally or physically defective we have no means
of knowing, for no information is given upon this point; but there is
not the slightest doubt that a large number of them were weak-minded,
though not sufficiently so to allow them being classified as imbeciles.
The terrible consequence of this procedure may also be gathered from
the Report of the Prison Commissioners for England and Wales 1910, from
which it appears that during the year 157 persons were certified
insane among the prisoners in the local and convict prisons, Borstal
institutions and of State reformatories, during the year ending March
31, 1910.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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