HC Deb 12 November 1918 vol 110 cc2499-500
78. Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCK

asked the Home Secretary whether, in view of the number of juvenile offenders and of juvenile-adults who are being sent to prison on remand or detention or to await removal to other institutions, he will take steps to provide suitable accommodation of a reformative character entirely separate from prison for such cases?

Mr. BRACE

Under the Children Act no young offender can be committed to prison without a certificate that he is of so unruly a character or so depraved that he is not fit to be detained elsewhere under the Act. Such cases are few, and when a young offender (under sixteen) or a juvenile-adult (sixteen to twenty-one) is committed to prison on remand, etc., every care is taken to segregate him, as prescribed by the Regulations, from all adult prisoners convicted or unconvicted.

79. Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCK

asked the Home Secretary whether, when juvenile-adults of sixteen and seventeen years of age are sentenced to a term of imprisonment he will direct that, in order to avoid their association with ordinary prisons and prisoners, they are received into Borstal or other suitable institutions?

Mr. BRACE

Prisoners between sixteen and twenty-one are and have been for some years past kept separate from others, and if the sentence is for more than three months they are transferred to special prisons, where, so far as permitted by the shortness of the time allowed for training and the other circumstances, the treatment and discipline are similar to those prescribed for Borstal Institutions.