The understanding of juvenile offenders in Great Britain was one of natural criminals whose improvable behavior had been inherited. They were a considered born thieves. The legal punishment of juvenile offenders before 1850 was a consequence that depended on the crimes that had been committed. In the way that the government saw it, the increase of juvenile delinquency was not blamed on state of society. The government thought that if you were a thief you were born one. The juvenile hall back then was very different from today’s. They were crowed with both children and adults. A prison reserved for only adolescents were non-existent. Boys the age of nine or ten years old, were not old enough to have the same punishment as the older boys that were fourteen of fifteen years of age. At that age, mostly delinquents were usually shipped to “ The End of the World,” which was Australia. The British were fighting crime, also including the crimes of a juvenile delinquent. The British decided to just ship them off to The End of the World. In the 1830’s the perception of the criminal’s rotten actions were inherited from previous generations of criminals. They were thought to be born with a crime in their blood. They had their own way of thinking and their own slang, they had developed habits to were it was natural for them to pickpocket. It became their lifestyle. The entire underclass consisted of pickpockets and harden criminals. The British citizens and officials were convinced that the criminals were just born with it. Their companions and girls would encourage them and teach them how to become a better criminal and become a more professional thief. In prison, it was not really a punishment for them. They still received food and clothing, they learned how to become more sophisticated than their other inmates. The parents would also contribute in their child’s crime. It was usually the father that educated the child in the art of thieving. The child would provide a life of luxury of stolen goods. They would soon create a generation of thieves and soon would pass down the teachings of the art of thieving.
In 1850 there were changes made to the punishments of juvenile offenders by the institute of Reformatory and Industrial schools, which were very successful. These changes lead to the thinking of why the juveniles committed these crimes. It was found that it was the living condition of these adolescents. The government finally admitted that the state of the society was to blame. The reformatory schools would give the criminals a fresh start. Gardening and farm-work was what gave juvenile offenders, mostly from urban areas, a whole new direction. The Reformatory schools in Britain became a great success. There was one weakness in the Reformatory schools. Reformatory schools were only for young people who had been an inmate in prison first. Thus, creating Industrial schools. Where young people could just be seen to these schools without spending any time in jail first. Industrial schools provided education to neglected and delinquents. Industrial schools were more effective and successful. Since the establishment of Industrial schools, less children were sent to jail. And the sentences of the young criminals are much lighter than they were before. But, the practice of publicly whipping children was still being done.
The legal treatment of the juvenile delinquents in Great Britain in the second half of the nineteenth century, became fairly modern in the twentieth century, not much has changed today in juvenile punishment. The juvenile offenders were called the “surplus population,” they were the underclass in need of food and money and jobs. But the population growth was so rapid that there were no jobs left and the food was limited. Thus, the underclass had many pickpockets and criminal who needed to steal in order to survive.
