SECOND READING. (Hansard, 19 June 1899)

§ *LORD JAMES OF HEREFORD
My Lords, I trust that it will be only necessary for me to make a very short statement to your Lordships in order to obtain the acceptance of this Bill. Its object is to keep children and young persons out Of jail, and I assume that to every one of your Lordships that object will appear to be commendable. Amongst the many incidents that have occurred during the present reign probably there are none that can be looked upon with greater satisfaction than the great diminution which has taken place in our criminal classes. Still, a great deal remains to be done. The diminishing power does not progress as quickly as could be wished, principally in consequence of the difficulty experienced at the present time in dealing with the habitual offender. He is a very difficult person to deal with; severity does not appear to affect him, and clemency seems to have but little effect upon him. The result is that if we are to hope for a continued proportionate in crease in the diminution of our criminal classes, we must deal in some way with the class of habitual offenders. The only way probably to deal effectually with that class is to destroy the recruiting power—to deal with the class from which 1458 the habitual offender is recruited, and the only way to do that is to seek the fountain head, and to prevent the child or the youth becoming criminal at all, and in this way cut off the supply to the habitual offender class. As you are aware, my Lords, a great deal has been done of late years to diminish the number of youthful offenders, but, as I have said, a great deal yet remains to he done. Much has been accomplished by the increased power of education, the prosperity of the working classes, the greater sympathy that has been shown—progressively shown—towards those who are poor and towards those who are criminal, which have tended to reduce the number of criminal youthful offenders. Also, too, there has been a progression of humane feeling on the part of those who have to administer the law, and there has been a tendency to deal with the youthful offender in the most merciful manner allowed by law. Legislature has done something. In the year 1879 my noble friend Viscount Cross introduced the Summary Jurisdiction Act, which no doubt relieved the child from the heavier penalties then being imposed. Later on my right hon. friend Sir William Harcourt took the matter in hand molten at the Home Office, and insisted that a return should be made of the committal of every child to prison. Again, my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack has, by two Acts, facilitated the process of admitting persons to bail, and in that way has done much to keep both the young and those more advanced in age oat of prison. But whilst all these causes have reduced the number of youthful offenders who are committed to our jails, still the number stands at a considerably higher rate than could be wished. If it will not weary your Lordships I will quote a few figures to show the rate at which the decrease has been taking place during the years from 1893 to 1897. In the year 1893 2,924 young persons under the age of 16 were committed to prison, and of these 150 were children under the age of 12 years. In 1897 the 2,924 was reduced to 1,630, not much more than half, whilst the number of children under 12 committed to prison, instead of being 150 in number, were only 58. But, my Lords, there is unfortunately a cause which is increasing, and may increase still more, the number of young persons committed to prison. We have been extending the powers of 1459 local government, which, of course, give local control, and the control by the local authorities over different localities has to be enforced by means of bye-laws. In order to enforce these bye-laws the magistrates are bound, first, to impose a fine, and, in default of the payment of the fine, to send the person who has been thus summarily dealt with to prison. Your Lordships will well understand that many of the offences which result from a breach of bye-laws do not represent crime as we understand the word. They are venial breaches of regulations rather than acts representing any moral offence. The result is somewhat remarkable, but, before calling your Lordships' attention to those results, I am particularly anxious to make it clear that, specially speaking on behalf of the Home Office for the moment, there is not the slightest desire in anything I say to criticise the action of magistrates in administering the law; it is really the machinery of the law that requires remedying. One's experience shows that what may appear a severe sentence in the first instance is generally capable of some explanation, and when the explanation is given the matter you are considering bears a different aspect; but I have Returns here of the different offences for which children are now sent to prison. Amongst them we find playing football in the high- way, throwing stones in the highway, obstructing the highway, and gambling in the highway. We have to deal here with children varying from 11 to 13 years of age. The child is fined, and, of necessity, not being able to pay is sent to prison with hard labour, and bears the same penalty for the period as the person who has committed positive crime against our moral law. That surely is a state of things which is scarcely to be desired. I have in my mind the case of a child of 12 who was charged with begging and fined 16s. 6d. Of course, that beggar child could not pay the fine, and was sent to prison for seven days with hard labour. What does this punishment mean to a child of 11 or 12? To keep a child in a cell by himself, especially during the night, must create a state of terror which is a cruel and frightful punishment, or if he is callous and cares not, he becomes habituated, and the prison ceases henceforth to have any terror for him. I think, however, the first phase—namely, 1460 that of great fear—predominates, and I may mention that some defendants who were confined in a jail near London approached the Home Office when they were released and complained that they had been unable to sleep at night in consequence of the great noise caused by the screaming of children who were locked up. The Home Secretary and those who have control of our prisons felt that an alteration was necessary, and the doors of the cells in which children are now placed are allowed to remain open, and the children may spend the night within sight of the warder instead of in the dark cell. The Home Office have thought that something should be done to prevent as much as possible youthful offenders being sent to prison. Of course, we must not take too high a position; if we do we may defeat the intention of legislation. The punishment of youthful offenders must be fixed with due regard to the age of the child, and the law should be enforced with due regard to the conditions of each case. But, where we are dealing with children so young as 10 years of age, surely in those cases there could be a mitigation of this, to them, terrible punishment of imprisonment. It is under these circumstances that the Government submit this Bill to your Lordships. The object of the Bill is, as I have said, to keep youthful offenders away from prison life, and the course that has been taken has been to invent, within reasonable bounds, Machinery to carry out this object. The first section extends the powers of the Summary Jurisdiction Act of 1879. By that Act only the offenders by the crimes mentioned in the schedule can be dealt with summarily, but by this section there will be, in respect of young persons, power given to magistrates to deal with all offences, except homicide, summarily, but, of course, by consent in the case of indictable offences. It would be an evil example to the child in future life if you were to say, "Commit whatever offence you will, there will be no punishment." But if the object of this Bill is to be carried into effect the punishment must, be inflicted outside the walls of a prison. The suggestion is that the punishment shall be simply whipping, as distinguished from flogging, and that the whipping shall take place upon a graduated scale, and be of a very mild character. The maximum, where the child is under 12, will be six strokes. The punishment 1461 will be administered in the presence of the parent or guardian, and certainly can not be regarded as one of a cruel character. It will be a domestic treatment, and one which will not be looked upon as being associated with prison life. Section 3 makes an alteration in the same direction. As your Lordships know, a child who has been convicted must not be sent to an Industrial School, but in this section it is proposed that the conviction, if it be for an offence so slight that whipping is a proper punishment, shall not be regarded as punishment so heavy as to debar the child from entering an Industrial School. I will pass over Section 4, which is rather controversial, and to which I will allude later on. Clause 5 carries out the object which my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor had in view when he endeavoured to place all prisoners in a position where they could be bailed instead of being imprisoned. In respect of the young child who cannot obtain any person to become bail for him, the magistrate shall have power of selecting some "outdoor" place of detention—some suitable person, say, a married constable, in whose home there will be suitable protection for the child—and, instead of sending him for the seven days during which he may be under remand, to prison, the child shall be sent to the custody of this person, who will be responsible for his appearance when the time of the remand shall have expired. Although detained in this way out of prison, there will be nearly as much certainty of the child appearing when the case comes on as if he were sent to prison, and the child will have been kept free from contact with prison life. Section 6, in one sense, does not belong to the Government, hut refers to a matter dealt with in a Bill introduced last week by my noble friend Lord Leigh. My noble friend has been the pioneer in this matter, and has worked hard to secure an alteration in the law whereby children shall not necessarily be sent to prison before they are sent to a Reformatory School. The object of my noble friend is to make it possible for a child, if the magistrate thinks proper, to go direct to a Reformatory School without being brought into contamination with prison life. That was rendered permissive in the Act of 1893, but a Departmental Committee in 1896 accepted the view which the noble Lord has all along advocated—namely, that it would be advis- 1462 able to make it obligatory upon magistrates to send children who are to go to Reformatory Schools direct to those schools. I am afraid that Clause 4, which throws an obligation upon parents and guardians who had not taken proper care of their children, will be somewhat controversial, and if any strong objection is shown to it I should be unwilling to see the Bill stopped by that clause. At the same time, I must say that I believe it is a most beneficial and useful clause, inasmuch as it endeavours to make parents more careful of their children and take greater care to prevent their committing crime. I have ventured to occupy your Lordships' time by referring to these sections as they have keen framed. I do not labour them, for I am certain that no one in this House or elsewhere can do other than approve of the objects we have in view, and I certainly hope that the manner in which we have endeavoured to carry out those objects will receive the unanimous sanction of your Lordships.
Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2^a."—(Lord James of Hereford.)

§ *LORD LEIGH
My Lords, having taken for many years a deep interest in the Reformatory School system, may I be permitted to express the very great pleasure I feel at the action of the Government in introducing this Bill, which I believe to be a very useful one indeed. I had the honour, a few days ago, to introduce a Bill into your Lordships' House dealing expressly with the sending of children direct to Reformatory Schools. This is a subject to which I have paid considerable attention for the past 46 years, and whenever I have had an opportunity of expressing an opinion upon it I have invariably said that, in my judgment, the Legislature had committed a very great mistake in not making it compulsory upon magistrates to send children to Reformatory Schools direct. I now most cordially thank the Government for having taken the subject into their consideration, and for introducing this Bill. I earnestly trust that the present session will not end without the Act of 1893 being amended, so that the children may go direct to Reformatories without coming into contact with the gaol. I have always contended that the sending of children to 1463 prisons, preparatory to entering Reformatories, has a most pernicious effect upon them; and I have been informed by superintendents of reformatories, whom I have consulted upon the subject, that the hardest cases they have to deal with are in variably those cases where the children have been confined in gaol. Inasmuch as the Government has in this Bill dealt with the subject I had at heart, I desire to withdraw my Bill in favour of the Bill introduced by Her Majesty's Government.

§ *LORD NORTON
My Lords, I do not suppose any of your Lordships have had more to do with reformatories than I have, for I have taken considerable part in the administration of them during the past 50 years, and I beg to tender my thanks to the noble and learned Lord who has introduced this Bill for the very material improvements in the existing law winch he has proposed. The four main improvements introduced by this Bill in the existing law dealing with youthful offenders are—firstly, tile extension of the power of summary treatment of offenders, which I think will be found of very great advantage; secondly, the greater use of moderate corporal punishment for boys, which I regard in every way preferable to shutting them up in a place of detention; thirdly, the increase in the liability of parents for cost of maintenance at reformatories and for neglect of their children, which neglect is the cause of half the child criminality of this country; and, lastly, in providing places for children to be sent to when on remand owing to there being no Reformatory School ready at the moment to receive them. For all these improvements in the existing law I, for one, am very much indebted to the noble and learned Lord, the Chancellor of the Duchy; but there is one clause, which has been especially referred to, to which I should like to call attention. The noble Lord opposite (Lord Leigh) proposes to withdraw his Bill, which is adopted by the clause in this Bill dealing with the admission Of children to Reformatory Schools, but upon this Clause I feel compelled to say a few words. I do not think there is anything more dangerous than the habit which Parliament is getting into of legislating by reference to other Acts, and not explaining exactly what the 1464 complete object of a Bill is. This system renders it absolutely impossible for anybody, without assistance of a lawyer, to, understand what such Bills mean. I must say it is utterly impossible for any of your Lordships to know what the 6th clause, of this Bill means as it stands. It proposes, to omit the words "in addition to" out of the Act of 1893. No one can tell whether that would be an advantage or not. I think the noble Lord himself, on reflection, will hardly like to be the author of such a provision, and place upon the Statute Book a clause which says that child-convicts shall, not in addition to, but in lieu of punishment, whatever their crime may be, be sent direct to a Reformatory School. This clause either means entire immunity of children from punishment, or that Reformatory Schools are to be looked upon as penal institutions, and that children sent to them shall be, treated as criminals for the whole of their childhood. Can there be anything more monstrous or cruel to a boy than to stigmatise him as a criminal during the whole of his childhood? If this is allowed, boys will he turned out at the end of their detention without any sense of shame, and with a degrading consciousness that they are criminals. This, of course, will also act as an impediment to their being employed in any industry which they have been trained to in these schools. I cannot conceive anything more dangerous or more cruel than such a provision as this. I can hardly suppose that the noble and learned Lord has himself really seen the drift of the sixth clause of this Bill. What he desires, and what we all desire, is that children should not be punished in prison. We are all agreed upon that point. To shut up a young child in a solitary cell in a prison is gross cruelty, and produces no benefit whatever, but the proposal of the noble and learned Lord goes further, and suggests that for all convicts under sixteen there should be no punishment at all. Under this Bill parents who neglect their children will he punished by having to pay costs and a fine, and to give a security for their future better conduct; but that the children should be sent to school as their only punishment is a proposal which I cannot think the noble Lord opposite (Lord Leigh) would wish himself. What he wants is not to secure that in lieu of any punishment the child shall be sent to school, but that 1465 he shall not be sent to prison. All desire to see punishment of a suitable kind adopted, which, in the case of boys, would in almost all instances he corporal punishment. They should afterwards go to a Reformatory, if no other schooling offers itself, and the Reformatory should be treated as a school, and not as a penal institution retaining criminal character throughout education. Indeed, they cannot in practice be treated as penal institutions. They are just the same as other schools, except that they are made so excessively agreeable that there is a danger of a premium being given to bad treatment of children to qualify for Reformatories. I was asked by one woman how she could qualify her child for a Reformatory, and I did not like to tell her by throwing lam into the street to pick pockets. As a matter of fact, our Reformatories are the very best publicly supported schools we have in the country; they are far better than the ordinary National schools, for they give technical as well as intellectual instruction. By treating them as direct modes of punishment more harm must be done than good, both to the chili and to the country, and I trust the clause to which I have called attention, as well as the Bill it adopts, will not be allowed to appear on the Statute Book. I hope the noble and learned Lord will tell your Lordships that he will alter the clause so as to achieve what I am sure is his desire as well as mine that children should have proper punishment not in prison. If he will not do so, I am certain the magistrates will adopt the usual course of refusing to act upon a provision which is absolutely absurd.

§ *LORD JAMES OF HEREFORD
May I say, with regard to what Lord Leigh has stated with reference to his desire to withdraw his Bill in view of the provision in this Bill dealing with the same subject, that I hope he will not withdraw his Bill. I hope my noble friend's measure, which is a one-clause Bill, will receive the assent of both Houses of Parliament, and I see no objection to his Bill as well as this Bill progressing. If the noble Lord's Bill passes, then the 6th clause of this Bill can be struck out. It is a well-known axiom that if you wish to secure your game two guns are better than one. The proposal contained in the 6th clause will he discussed at length in 1466 the Standing Committee to-morrow on the Bill of the noble Lord opposite. I will, however, consult the Home Office on the subject, and after hearing, as I have no doubt I shall, the matter discussed in the Standing Committee by my noble friends I will state the view taken by the Home Office.

§ *LORD LEIGH
My Lords, if it is the wish of the House and of the noble and learned Lord the Chancellor of the Duchy that my Bill should continue I will do my best to push it forward. My only desire is to see the clause which embodies the object I have at heart passed into law, and I trust that this desire will be realised.