However, evidence has suggested that there were other motives involved in the Reformatory and Industrial schools. It has to be remembered that the school was an increasingly popular method of class control, the writings of reformers at the time were the products of deeply held and widely debated convictions about the nature of the social order at a time when the middle class was anxious about what it deemed to be the rebellious and aggressive attitudes and behaviour of those young people (Hendrick 2002 p30). This point can be related back to the question of how reliable are the statistics surrounding juvenile crime when they are created by those who fear its effect on society?
Despite the 1854 Act and the Reformatory schools old traditions and fears remained strong. The imprisonment of children, though at a dwindling rate, continued to the 1890s. Large sections of the public continued to regard delinquents as nuisances requiring a sharp lesson. Reformatory treatment itself was preceded by imprisonment, despite prisons being describes as ‘nurseries of crime’ (May 2002 p99), as a concession to those who maintained that without clear punishment the Reformatory would be an incentive to crime and parental neglect. (May 2002 p110) This is a clear example of adult fears influencing juvenile legislation.
Throughout the 1850s there were many methods of juvenile reformation. These were greatly influenced by Mary Carpenter’s claim that a class reproduces itself by promoting and training up its own offspring. Therefore, reform was important in order to prevent a future criminal class. The reformation used various techniques, examples of these were the extension of transport routes, into and through the districts identified as squalid, the construction of parks and playgrounds, the building of model villages on the outskirts of town. These techniques were combined with another method, in which the juvenile is removed from the moral scene of its class and retrained, turned again into a child (Rush 2002 p150). It appears that the government was attempting to model the ‘criminal class’ into the more progressive and moral middle class.
The Reformations in the 1850s can be connected to the adult fears of racial deterioration and also the uncertainty of the future workforce. Evidence has shown that from the eighteenth century onwards, there had been a growing interest in the nature, meaning and specificity of childhood and how it related to the big questions of human development. Under the impact of post-Darwinian science, the fear of racial deterioration was becoming increasingly relevant to understandings of, and solutions to, a number of dominant problems of this period (Hendrick 2002 p32). The instability of youth, and thus the uncertainty of their recruitment to the labour force was also a focus of the reformation (Clarke 2002 p125), in that by providing better living conditions, better education and stricter discipline children would develop into hard-working, moral human beings who would continue to provide a reliable and progressive workforce.
The Metropolitan Police force set up by Peel in 1829 was seen as a major step forward in the fight against juvenile crime in England. However, evidence has suggested that it may have simply escalated fears that youth crime was spiralling out of control. It appears that the Metropolitan police in their early days were rather over enthusiastic in enforcing the law and dealing with minor offences. The general instructions issued to the police stressed that their principal objective was the prevention of crime. As policemen making arrests had to conduct their own cases in court, and were liable for costs and counter-prosecution if they did not secure a conviction, they may have concentrated their efforts to prevent crime on juveniles, who were less likely than adults to present an able defence or to instigate counter charges. This could explain the 10% rise of juvenile convictions between 1840 and 1843 (Magarey 2002 p115-120) and the idea that juvenile crime was the root of all adult crime (May 2002 p105); it also supports the argument that youth justice acts were the result of adult fears based on unreliable statistics.
This trend of adult and class fears influence can also be seen in 20th Century and present day legislation. In 1908, ‘borstals’ were created to cater for sixteen to twenty-one-year-olds who ‘by reason of his criminal habits and tendencies or associations with persons of such character, it is expedient that he should be subject to detention for such a term and such instruction and discipline as appears most conductive to his reformation and the repression of crime’ (Newburn 2002 p549). However, there was also an increased focus on the rights of children rather than on society as a whole, this was shown by the emphasis on education as a reforming measure rather than as a means of control and punishment as seen in the 19th Century. The Children Act, 1948 was set up to address the issue of neglect and abuse regularly found in the history of a juvenile. Prior to the passing of the Act, the Curtis Committee on child care (1946) found: “a lack of personal interest in and affection for the children which we found shocking. The child in these Homes was not regarded as an individual with his rights and possessions, his own life to live and his own contribution to offer. He was merely one of a large crowd, eating, playing and sleeping with the rest…Still more important, he was without feeling that there was anyone to whom he could turn who was vitally interested in his welfare or who cared for him as a person” (Rose 1990 p167). This act focused more on the idea that the child was a citizen of a democracy, a citizen with rights, and these included the right to a family life” (Hendrick 2002 p38).
There is considerable evidence to suggest that social and economic factors influence the passing of youth legislation. A key example is post WWII Britain. In the 1960s the government focused itself on the reconstruction of a new social order. The causes of disorder were believed to lie in the consequences of the War and in the continuing inequalities of the post-War era. (Newburn 2002 p534). The surge in juvenile crimes in post-War Britain led to the focus on family in relation to delinquency, its primary stress was on parental responsibility for the upbringing and proper discipline of the child. These concerns led to the 1963 Children and Young Persons Act, which also expanded the category of ‘in need of care and protection’ to a somewhat tougher version – that of being ‘in need of care, protection and control’ – presumably to include the new breed of delinquent who resisted even the efforts of morally upright and well intentioned parents to exercise parental authority (Clarke 2002 p132)
Adolescent behaviour changed considerably between 1970 and 2000, and the government introduced new Bills to tackle the anti-social behaviour that came hand in hand with these new forms of expression. The Rave culture that emerged in the 90s is a key example of this; it inspired considerable moral indignation – at least in the Press – and was therefore subject to increasing legislative attention (Newburn 2002 p539). Graham Bright MP introduced a Private Member’s Bill to further restrict the holding of raves or large-scale parties, the Entertainments Act 1990 enabled courts to impose fines of up to £20,000 or six months imprisonment, for holding illegal parties. New Labour also went on to introduce a range of measures that would enable local agencies to tackle the ‘low-level disorder’ or ‘anti-social behaviour’. One of these new measures, the child safety order, relates to children aged under ten. In fact the order was aimed at controlling anti-social behaviour rather than protecting a child’s welfare, and involves placing a child under supervision usually for a period of three months. (Newburn 2002 p562). This is a key example of the influence of adult fears on legislation passed by the government; only in this instance it gave them direct influence.
Adolescence continues to be seen as a period characterised by problems and conflicts, primarily due to the dominant position juveniles’ play in adult fears and concerns within society, these fears are also influenced by social and economic factors, such as World War II and industrialisation. Evidence has shown that throughout the 19th and 20th Century there has been some focus on the individual rights of children; their entitlement to family life, support and education. However, predominantly legislation has concentrated on improving the society as a whole based on research formulated by professionals; research that only fuels adult fears and results in increasingly harsh legislation due to their biased and unreliable nature.
Sources Used:
Clarke, J (2002) The Three Rs – Repression, Rescue and Rehabilitation Ideologies of Control for Working Class Youth in Muncie, J., Huges, G. & McLaughlin, E.(eds) (2002) Youth Justice Critical Readings, London, Sage, pp123-137.
Hendrick, H. (2002) ‘Constructions and Reconstructions of British Childhood: an Interpretative Survey, 1800 to the Present’, in Muncie, J., Huges, G. & McLaughlin, E.(eds) (2002) Youth Justice Critical Readings, London, Sage, pp22-44
Margary, M (2002) The Invention of Juvenile Deliquency in Early Nineteenth-Century England in Muncie, J., Huges, G. & McLaughlin, E.(eds) (2002) Youth Justice Critical Readings, London, Sage, pp115-122.
May, M (2002) Innocence and Experience: The Evolution of the Concept of Juvenile Delinquency in the Mid-nineteenth Century, in Muncie, J., Huges, G. & McLaughlin, E.(eds) (2002) Youth Justice Critical Readings, London, Sage, pp98-114
Newburn, T. (2002) Young People, Crime, and Youth Justice. In The Oxford Handbook of Criminology (Third Edition), Oxford, pp531-578
Rose, N. (1990) Governing the Soul: The Shaping of the Private Self, London, Routledge.
Rush, P. (2002) The Government of a Generation: The Subject of Juvenile Deliquency in Muncie, J., Huges, G. & McLaughlin, E.(eds) (2002) Youth Justice Critical Readings, London, Sage, pp138-158.
Shore, H (2002) Reforming the Juvenile: Gender, Justice and the Child Criminal in Nineteenth-Century England, in Muncie, J., Huges, G. & McLaughlin, E.(eds) (2002) Youth Justice Critical Readings, London, Sage, pp159-172.