HL Deb 08 June 1899 vol 72 cc612-7

[SECOND READING.]

Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.

*LORD LEIGH

My Lords, the Bill which I am now asking your Lordships to read a second time is a very simple one. Its object is to amend the Act which I had the honour of introducing into this House in 1893. Your Lordships are fully aware that until 1893 it was obligatory for magistrates to send all children committed to a reformatory in the first instance to the gaol. It was owing to the fact that I considered this practice objectionable in the highest degree that I introduced a Bill in 1893 giving the magistrates the power of using their discretion in the matter; but I regret that the Bill—it is now an Act of Parliament—did not go far enough. I desire that it should be made compulsory, and not permissive, for magistrates to send all children direct to the school. Although the Act of 1893 is permissive, it has effected a great deal of good, awl I believe it has had the result of inducing many magistrates to send boys direct to the reformatory, instead of, as formerly, allowing them to reach the reformatory through a prison. I hold in my hand a return which I have received from the Inspector of Reformatories, which says that in England, during the last year, out of the 1,170 boys and girls who were committed to prison, no fewer than 926 were sent to school direct, showing, I think, that the feeling of the magistrates generally is tending towards doing what I want to see done. In Scotland, out of 242 committals, no fewer than 227 were sent direct to school. If von put these two together you will find that there were no fewer than 1,153 children out of 1,412 sent direct to the reformatories. But what has become of the 259 children who were sent to prison? In my opinion it is most objectionable that there should be two forms of committal. Under the present system you may have boys in the same reformatory who were first sent to prison, but who were no worse than the other boys who were sent direct to the school; and the fact of sending the lads to prison is calculated to create a very bad feeling among them. My noble and learned friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, whom I am glad to see in his place to-day, told me recently of a case, which I fear is not an uncommon one, of a little boy of eleven years of age who had been sent to a reformatory for fourteen days for merely throwing stones. I should like to ask how many of your Lordships in your school days refrained from throwing stones. For myself, I confess that I have thrown many, but I did not suffer imprisonment for it. I feel very strongly on this point, and I think it is remarkable that this is the only country in Europe which compels children to qualify for the reformatory through a gaol. I hope I may live to see the day, and that it will not be far distant, when no boy under fifteen or sixteen years of age will be sent to prison, except tinder very peculiar circumstances. I have often spoken to the superintendent of the reformatory schools in my own county, and he has told me that the boys committed to gaol before going to the reformatory have always proved the hardest to reform. I sincerely believe, if it were made compulsory to send children direct to reformatories, that the percentage of reformations, which at this moment is about 90 per cent., would be considerably larger and that there would scarcely be a boy who, on his discharge from a reformatory, would not be able to earn his livelihood. As an old visiting magistrate of many years' standing, and chairman of a reformatory in my own county, I heartily thank the Government for having improved the circumstances under which boys are admitted into gaols at the present time, and for adopting classification. But they have not done enough. They must repeal the old Act, and not allow any boy to be sent to gaols except, as I have said, under very peculiar circumstances. It has been asked, "What harm does it do to send boys to gaol first?" I contend that it does a great deal of harm. The boys so sent retain the gaol mark, which tends to debar them from securing that employment which otherwise they might obtain. Under the circumstances, I hope your Lordships will give the Bill a Second Reading.

Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."

LORD JAMES OF HEREFORD

My Lords, I am desired, on behalf of the Home Office, to say that the Government cordially supports the proposal of my noble friend. It is due to the noble Lord to say that he has taken an active part and shown a practical interest in this question. In 1893 he introduced a Bill similar to the one he is now submitting, but at that time it was thought that it would be better to allow the power of sending direct to the reformatory to be at the discretion of the magistrates. Since that time a Departmental Committee has met and recommended the very measure which the noble Lord now submits to you. Further than that, in a Bill to be introduced on the part of the Government in a few days, it is proposed to insert a provision to prevent children being sent to gaol except under peculiar circumstances. The Bill of the Government will be closely identical with that of my noble friend, but I think the honour ought to remain with him of having introduced this beneficial reform, and, so far as they can do so, the Government will render him every assistance in carrying the Bill.

*LORD NORTON

My Lords, I thoroughly agree with the principle of this Bill—namely, that children convicted of crime should be punished otherwise than in common prisons. At the same time, children convicted more than once must not be allowed to go unpunished, and in some cases they may have to be dealt with in the same way as adult prisoners. The Act of 1893, which this Bill proposes to amend, provides that in lieu of punishment children convicted of crime a second time may be merely sent to reformatory schools. The sooner the idea of treating these schools as a means of punishment is got rid of the better. To treat schools as prisons is one of the greatest blunders we could possibly fall into. A penal school, if such a thing were possible, would be a monstrosity of the greatest cruelty and mischief, and I can conceive of nothing that would have a worse effect than treating a child differently to an adult by continuing his punishment over a number of years, and stamping him as a criminal for the whole of his childhood. A child who commits a crime should be adequately punished, but when, as an after treatment, he is sent to school he should not be branded as a criminal. Reformatories are considered penal institutions because they are under the Home Office, but they are as agreeable schools as any in the country. There is practically no difference between reformatory schools and industrial schools, and they are treated indiscriminately by magistrates. The reformatory school, even if it were intended as such, cannot be made penal treatment, and I hope that treating these schools as penal institutions will be avoided altogether when we deal next year with the detail of the Education Department. I shall endeavour, when this matter comes before the House, and I hope I shall be successful, to get these schools, both reformatory and industrial, transferred from the Home Office to the Education Department, to which they properly belong. I speak on this matter with some authority. I introduced the first Acts, both with regard to reformatory schools and industrial schools, and I have devoted considerable attention to their administration for half a century. When I first suggested to Parliament that it was a mistake to treat these schools as penal institutions, I was told that everyone was against me, but the various Royal Commissions of inquiry who have discussed the subject have gradually come round to my view on the subject. Lord Aberdare's Commission proposed bringing reformatories partially under the Education Office. The last Commission came entirely to my opinion, and the Chairman—Sir Godfrey Lushington—signed a special Report, opposed to these schools being treated in any sense as penal institutions, and recommending that they should be part of the education system. In all these schools technical is given in addition to intellectual instruction, and in this respect they are in advance of other national schools throughout the country. Therefore, it any change is to be made, it should be to make other publicly aided schools more like them, and to place them all equally under the Department to which they ought to belong. Children who have committed crimes cannot, however, be relieved of punishment by these schools being put on a proper footing and cleared altogether of their penal character. They must be adequately punished, and then sent either to a reformatory or to their homes. I recollect very well that some years ago Sir William Harcourt, who was then Home Secretary, came to see my own reformatory in the neighbourhood of Birmingham, and he asked: "Have none of these children decent homes?" Hearing that some had received a reply in the affirmative, he expressed his surprise that they were not, after punishment, sent home, when they would have to attend National schools; and I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that only those children should be sent to a reformatory who have not decent homes to which to go. I wish both the Act which this Bill is intended to amend, and the Bill itself, were differently worded in order that their object should be made quite clear. It is certainly an important thing to prevent children convicted of crime being punished in common prisons. That is the true object of this Bill, but as drafted it will not achieve that result. The only enacting clause in the Bill—and in my opinion there is nothing more dangerous than one clause Bills—reads as follows: The Reformatory Schools Act, 1893, shall be read and have effect as if the following proviso were added at the end of Section 1, that is to say: 'Provided that where the offender is ordered to be sent to a certified reformatory school he shall not in addition be sentenced to penal servitude or imprisonment.' As a matter of fact, the offender is never sent to a reformatory school, and in addition, but as a preliminary, sentenced to imprisonment; so that the Bill, as it stands, proposes to provide against a thing that is never done. The Bill does not carry out the important object it has in view; which, however, magistrates may be hoped to make it do.

On Question, agreed to.

Bill read a second time (according to order), and committed to a Committee of the whole House on Monday next.