The English Prison SystemRuggles-Brise, Evelyn, Sir
History
The English Prison System
Ruggles-Brise, Evelyn, Sir
Prisons -- Great Britain
It is devoutly to be hoped that as the Borstal System for women
develops, the march of the annual army of female recidivists
through the prisons may be arrested. It can only be stopped by
the concentration of a great effort, legal, official, and moral,
on the young female offender. The easy irresponsible method of
awarding sentences of a few days or weeks for repeated offences of a
trivial nature is no remedy for the evil. The Borstal System catches
comparatively few of these cases. If the age were extended, say to
30, in the case of women, and the principle of Reformatory sentences
were approved by Parliament in every case where criminal tendency was
observable, and a State Reformatory for this purpose were established,
as it has lately been established in some States of America, then
there might be some hope of rescuing from crime a larger percentage
of women than is likely, or even possible, under the present system.
By the daily operation of the law, sending these cases repeatedly and
hopelessly to Prison, and from the present limitation of age (21) for
the admission of women offenders to special reformatory treatment
(_i.e._, under periods of detention long enough to give a chance of
eradicating the evil tendency), no really great impression is going to
be made on the girl or woman offender. The heavy roll of commitments
to Prison and re-commitments will only cease when the State boldly
recognizes the essential difference between the instincts and motives
leading to criminal acts in the two sexes, and adapts its method of
punishment and reformation accordingly.
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