§ MR. E. H. PICKERSGILL (Bethnal Green, S.W.)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what is the number of the prisons in which accommodation has been provided for juvenile offenders sentenced to one month and upwards, with a view to the administration of the Rule which he has just issued; whether those prisons will be reserved for this class of offenders exclusively; and, whether he will be good enough either to state the names of the prisons or to indicate the area of the districts to each of which one of these prisons is assigned?
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEY,) Lancashire, BlackpoolThe Rule in question has not yet come into force, but I can now inform the hon. Member that the prisons, numbering six in all, into which juvenile offenders under sentence of imprisonment for one month or more will be received are those at Northallerton serving Northumberland, Cumberland, Durham, and Yorkshire; Knutsford serving Cheshire, Lancashire, North Wales, Shropshire, and Staffordshire; Warwick serving the Midland Counties, Gloucestershire, and Lincolnshire; Brecon serving South Wales, Herefordshire, and Monmouthshire; Devizes serving Berkshire and the south-west; Bedford serving the Eastern and Home Counties, the Metropolis, Sussex, and Northamptonshire. These prisons will not be reserved exclusively for juvenile offenders, but in every case juvenile and adult offenders will be kept entirely separate; and at three of the prisons—Bedford, Warwick, and Knutsford—it will be possible to set apart an entire wing, and to secure, practically, a separate establishment.