Growing Out of Crime : The New Era [2 ed.] 9781906534189, 9781872870496

Citation preview

TPS (148mm x 210mm)

ISBN: 1-87287049-X A5 (148mm x 210mm) (210)

Growing Out Of

Crime THE NEW ERA Andrew Rutherford is Dean of the Faculty of Law and Professor of Law at Southampton University. After studying at the Universities of Durham and Cambridge, he worked in the then Prison Department as an assistant governor in three borstal institutions. After six years' teaching in the United States of America he returned to England and joined Southampton University in 1979. He is the author of several key works on criminal justice and penal affairs including Prisons and the Process of Justice: The Reductionist Challenge (1984), Criminal Justice and the Pursuit of Decency (1993) and Transforming Criminal Policy: Spheres of Influence in the United States, The Netherlands and England and Wales During the 1980s (1996). Since 1996 he has edited the Waterside Press Criminal Policy Series. He is a former chairman of the Howard League for Penal Reform and is married with three children.

ii

Growing Out of Crime: The New Era

Growing Out of Crime THE NEW ERA Andrew Rutherford Second edition published 1992 by

WATERSIDE PRESS DomumRoad Winchester 5023 9NN Telephone or Fax 01962 855567 E-mail [email protected] Online bookstore www.watersidepress.co.uk First reprint 1993 Second reprint 1995 Third reprint 1997 Fourth reprint (reissued with a new Preface) 2002 First edition published by Penguin in 1986 Copyright © Andrew Rutherford 1986, 1992 and 2002. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or stored in any retrieval system or transmitted by any means including over the Internet without the express permission in writing of the copyright holder. First edition published by Penguin in 1986 ISBN Paperback 1 872 870 49 X Catalogue-in-Publication data A catalogue record for this book can be obtained from the British Library. Printing and binding Antony Rowe Ltd., Eastbourne Cover design Waterside Press

2002 Reissue

Growing Out Of

Crime THE NEW ERA

Andrew Rutherford SECOND EDITION FOURTH REPRINT: 2002 REISSUE

With a new Preface

WATERSIDE PRESS

iii

iv

Growing Out of Crime: The New Era

Preface to the First Edition If a young person becomes involved in crime or other troublesome behaviour, it is tempting for parents or teachers to imagine that the responsibility and solution lie elsewhere. By creating a network of criminal justice, welfare and mental health arrangements, public policy holds out the seductive offer of an institutional fix: although the offer may be appealing, it is not an answer. If young people are to grow out of troublesome behaviour, the home, school and other developmental institutions must be encouraged and equipped to bold on during difficult and sometimes volatile phases. Formal intervention carries the threat of exile from a normal environment, and the consequently inevitable waste of a chance for normal growth and development. Existing policy trends must be reversed so as to direct attention to the everyday and intuitive practice which holds the most promise. This book is intended mainly for persons directly coping with young people who are involved in crime or other troubling behaviour. I hope that parents, teachers, youth workers, social workers, probation officers and magistrates may all be encouraged to hold on to such children and to shun inducements to let them go. Many people have made this book possible. I am especially indebted to Chris Green, Pauline Owen, and the staff and young people associated with the Woodlands Centre; Richard Kay of the Rainer Foundation (who once said that he and I, both once borstal assistant-governors, had been 'born again'); David Harding of the EEC, with whom I worked on two radio programmes, The Massachusetts Alternative and The Child Fixers, which contributed to Chapters Four and Six, and Gerry Northam of the EEC who reported The Child Fixers; the Hilden Charitable Fund; Ira Schwartz of the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota; Colleagues on NACRO'S juvenile crime advisory committee; Edward Murphy and colleagues in the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services; Lloyd Ohlin, recently of the Harvard Law School; Jerry Miller of the National Center for Institutions and Alternatives; and the staff and young people with whom I worked in three borstals. My appreciation is also due to: Diana Marshallsay and Joan Hoyle of the University of Southampton Library; Christine Hardwick for preparation of the index; Margaret Newton, who, with care and cheer, typed the manuscripts through several drafts; Julian Rutherford; Timothy and Annabel Rutherford, who helped me to hold on to the manuscript; and, finally, to Judith Rutherford, whose efficient editing and support is reflected throughout the book. Andrew Rutherford 1985

2002 Reissue

v

Preface to the Second Edition Much has happened since I wrote the first edition in 1984. In particular, there has been an unexpected de-escalation of the juvenile justice process. The prospects for sustained reform in the developmental direction are considerably brighter than they were eight years ago, and, to a great extent, this new edition has been inspired by this most promising turn of practice. Much remains to be achieved, however, at the level of both policy and practice, and it is hoped that this book will contribute to that end. Chapters Two to Seven contain the first edition of Growing Out of Crime. Only the concluding few pages of the chapter headed 'Getting Tough' have been excised from the first edition. New annotations have been incorporated and reference made to recent publications. The first and final chapters are new, and I greatly benefitted from extended interviews with four key participants in the recent transformation of juvenile justice: Rob AlIen, Graham Sutton, Sue Wade and Lorna Whyte. I am also grateful to Julia Fionda for efficiently carrying out a host of research tasks, and to Judy Obee and Marion Price for their superb secretarial support. Andrew Rutherford June 1992

vi

Growing Out of Crime: The New Era

Preface to the 2002 Reissue When the second edition of this book was published in 1992 it seemed safe to view the 1990s as promising further de-escalation of the youth justice process. The tendency towards addressing young people in trouble outside formal arrangements and the theme of minimum intervention had steadily gained ground throughout the 1980s. Although this approach was not underpinned by a legislative framework (in contrast to Scotland where, in the wake of the Kilbrandon Report of 1964, Parliament had endorsed a developmental thesis) its durability seemed guaranteed by the strong sense of ownership felt by practitioners across the process. Events in the early 1990s, however, demonstrated the inherent vulnerability of 'socio-liberal' episodes of criminal policy (Radzinowicz, 1999, 426-439). A weak Conservative Government sought survival by attacking the legislative record and wider policies of its immediate predecessors. In this regressive endeavour it was egged on by the Official Opposition which sensed that re-defining its approach to crime was a crucial aspect of the project of creating New Labour. One of the enduring political catch phrases of the decade, 'Tough on crime, Tough on the causes of crime' was first uttered very early in 1993 by the man who would be prime minister a little more than four years later. While the Home Office under Kenneth Clarke and Michael Howard settled for a scattergun style, New Labour's sweep was broad and comprehensive. A white paper headed 'No More Excuses' preceded New Labour's flagship Crime and Disorder Act 1998. This message was less directed at young people than at practitioners and the criminal policy cognoscenti. It was as much about changing the mood music as imposing a centralised 'top-down' structure. In rapid succession four further statutes built upon the 1998 Act over the next three years. At the start of 2002 some 155 youth offending teams (YOTs) had been established, each of which has to submit an annual youth justice plan to the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales (YJB). Team members, and others working across the youth justice process, share a statutory duty to have regard to the principal aim of preventing offending by children and young people. It is too early to draw firm conclusions about the extent to which this aim is being met. There can, however, be little dispute about the escalatory direction evident at every stage in the overall process. Between 1990-2000, for example, the number of people aged under 18 receiving custodial sentences increased by some 60 per cent. The consequential alarm bells prompted, almost as an echo from the early 1980s, the YJB chair to urge courts to explore community penalties instead of short custodial sentences. One of the tests for the first decade of this century will be the extent to which the array of

2002 Reissue vii

community penalties serves to replace rather than to supplement the burgeoning custodial provision. Another test will be the place afforded to restorative justice schemes and how these various schemes relate to formal procedures. In particular, youth offender panels, fully available across the country from April 2002, are responsible for the implementation of referral orders which have become the standard sentence imposed by the youth court in cases where there is a guilty plea. Close attention will need to be given to the extent that these new arrangements widen the net by acting as a spur rather than a brake on escalatory tendencies. At the very earliest stages of the process, emerging findings suggest that reprimands and final warnings (which replaced formal police cautions for young people) are regarded by many YOT workers and young people as arbitrary, unfair and disproportionate (Evans and Puech, 2001). Finally, there is the concept of youth justice itself and the extent to which this is compromised if not extinguished by 'adulturation' (Fionda, 2001, 91). In striking contrast to developments in Scotland, where consideration is being given to extending the jurisdiction of children's hearings to include 16 and 17-year-olds, the tendency south of the border is towards restoration of Victorian imagery of little adults. Despite these rather pessimistic notes, there are indications of a reappraisal at both the local and national levels. The developmental approach was never a recipe for radical non-intervention but should instead be seen as a plea for understanding the full consequences of intervening in the lives of young people. Intervention may well be required, sometimes desperately, but this needs to take place within a context and structures which allow for growth and access to pathways leading away from the deeper recesses of criminal justice. Some recent research, notably Maruna (2001), is especially illuminating in this respect. This re-issue of Growing Out of Crime is intended to contribute to the emerging sense of urgency that new ways forward be charted as well as some old paths cleared for use once again. Andrew Rutherford January 2002

References for 2002 Preface Evans, Roger and Kyela Puech (2001), 'Reprimands and Final Warnings: Populist Punitiveness or Restorative Justice', Criminal Law Review, October, 794-805 Fionda, Julia (2001), 'Youth and Justice' in Julia Fionda (ed.), Legal Concepts of Childhood, Oxford, Hart, 77-97 Maruna, Shadd (2001), Making Good: How Ex-Convicts Reform and Rebuild Their Lives, Washington DC, American Psychological Association Radzinowicz, Sir Leon (1999), Adventures in Criminology, London, Routledge.

viii Growing Otlt of Crime: The New Era

Growing Out of Crime

CONTENTS

page

Preface First edition Second edition 2002 Reissue Dedication

IV

V VI

IX

1 Sea-Change 2 A Chance to Mature 3 Wrong Turnings 4 A Quantum Leap 5 Holding On 6 Danger Ahead 7 Getting Tough 8 The New Era

123 133 139

Bibliography Index

148 158

WATERSIDE PRESS WINCHESTER

11 28 39

66 94

2002 Reissue

Dedication

This 2002 re-issue of Growing Out of Crime is dedicated to the memory of Lucy Faithfull whose instinctive grasp of the vulnerability of children and young people served to wisely guide practitioners and policy makers throughout the second half of the twentieth century.

ix

x

Growing Out of Crime: The New Era

CHAPTER ONE

Sea Change The fIrst edition of this book was mostly written in 1984 against a background of considerable gloom and despair about dealing with young offenders in England and Wales. Over the years since then a dramatic change has taken place in the mood of juvenile justice practitioners. Their new confidence and optimism has arisen largely from a recognition of their own potential for shaping, rather than merely responding to, events. Above all else, they have been able to demonstrate that a strategy of minimal intervention is both feasible and effective. This transformation is all the more striking for having occurred during the 'Thatcher Years', and it must be regarded as one of the most remarkable developments of post-war criminal justice. As set forth in the next two chapters, the pattern of events over the period from 1945 until the early 1980s was one of more and more youngsters becoming deeply enmeshed in the criminal justice process. Despite the intentions of the framers of the Children and Young Persons Act 1969, this escalatory tendency was especially powerful during the 1970s. The omens for the 1980s looked even bleaker with a new government whose commitment to 'law and order' included the revival of the 'short sharp shock' detention centre. No-one could have anticipated that by the mid-1980s several detention centres would close due to disuse by the courts and would be finally swept away during Mrs. Thatcher's third administration. The de-escalatory turn in juvenile justice practice that commenced in the early 1980s is especially evident in the official criminal statistics. The statistical profile that follows provides a useful context for exploring the various influences that prompted and gave shape to the juvenile justice movement. Three main features are outlined, and although they are closely interwoven, it is convenient to consider them separately. These are the decline in the number of 'known offenders', the shrinkage of the court caseloads and the reduced severity of sentencing practice.

1. Decline in the number of 'known offenders' The tenn 'known offenders' refers to persons who have been fonnally cautioned (having admitted their offence to the police) or who are found guilty by a court of law. As Table 1 shows, little change occurred between 1980-85, but between 1985-90 the trend, with the exception of girls aged 17-21, was one of overall decline.

11

TABLE 1 Known offenders (persons cautioned or found guilty of indictable offences), 1980-1990.

14-17 year olds

Year

Males

Fenlales

Total

1980

144000

31700

175700

1985

139600

36000

175600

1990

88600

22200

110000

17-21 year olds

Females

Total

109300

15400

124700

1985

121400

16900

138300

1990

107200

17450

124650

Year

Males

1980

Source: abstracted from Crinlinal Statistics, England and Wales 1989 (Cm 1322, 1990) p. 120 and from provisional data for 1990, kindly provided by the Home Office.

Between 1985-90 there were declines of 37% and 12%, respectively, in the number of juveniles and young adults who were known offenders. It is important to set these data against the perception shared by some segments of the media that this period witnessed an increase in youth crime.! In part, at least, the data suggest a new willingness on the part of the police and the prosecuting authorities to find ways of dealing with youngsters that fell short of a fonnal caution. 2 The data also lend support to the view that formal cautioning in the 1980s largely avoided the undesirable consequence of 'net widening' by being used as an alternative to infonnal warnings. 3

12

2. Proportionate shift of work to the police and the shrinking· court caseload As displayed in Tables 2A and 2B a steadily rising proportion of 'known offenders' between 1980-90 was dealt with by the police rather than the courts. In the case of boys aged 14-17 the increase was from 44% cautioned by the police in 1980 to 75% in 1990. Although the percentages involved are lower for young adults these did begin to rise over the second half of the decade. The other side of this coin, of course, is the reduced significance of the court in terms of dispositional decision-making. As far as juveniles are concerned, the shrinking caseload is especially dramatic with the total number of guilt fmdings declining by 73%. For 17-21 year olds the 21% fall, while very much less steep, also represented a substantial reduction in the business of the courts. In other words, in 1980 one out of every two known juvenile offenders was dealt with in the courts. In 1990 the courts dealt with only one in every five juvenile known offenders. Indeed for children under the age of 14 the total number of prosecutions fell from 18,900 in 1980 to 2,700 in 1990, less than one in every ten of known offenders of that age group. This shrinkage in the caseload of the juvenile court may have played a part in persuading the government in 1990 that the jurisdiction of the youth court, which was to replace the juvenile court under the Criminal Justice Act 1991, should be widened so as to include 17 year oIds.

TABLE 2A Persons aged 10-17, cautioned by the police and found guilty of indictable offences, 1980-90 Females

Males Year

1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990

Cautions

Guilty Findings

63600

80400 77400 73100

64800

67000 69500 75300 82400 69900 74000 72900 57800 66400

Cautioned

Cautions

44

21900 22800 26000 25100 23700 30100 23600 21700 17000 15000 19700

66000

46 49 51

63700 57200 43800

54 59 61

38600

66

33300 23900 22200

69 71

75

Guilty Findings

9800 9300 8700 7400 6400 5900 4200 3400 3200 2500 2500

Cautioned

69 71 75 77 83 84

85 86 84 86 89

13

TABLE 2B

Persons aged 17-21 cautioned by the police and found guilty of indictable offences, 1980-90 Males Year

Cautions

1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990

3200 3400 3500 MOO

5700 7500 10500. 14300 15000 16700 22500

Guilty Findings

106100 113900 119600 115300 114000 114000 98900 99900 97200 83000 84700

Females Cautioned

Cautions

3

700 800 1000 1100 1600 2100 3500 4200 4200 4700 6650

3

3 4

5 6 10 13 13. 17 21

Guilty Finding~

14700 14600 15100 14800 14400 14800 12700 12700 11500 10700 10800

'Cautioned

5 5 '. 6 7 10 12 22 25 27 31 38

Source: Abstracted from Criminal Statistics, England and Wales 1989 (Cm 1322, 1990) p. 120 and provisional data for 1990, kindly supplied by the Home Office.

3. Reduced penalties by the courts The de-escalatory turn is most evident within the courts with respect to a greater willingness on the part of sentencers to use discharges together with a profound reluctance to sentence young people to prison system institutions. These sentencing trends are in the opposite direction from what might have been expected because sentencers were dealing with a much reduced number of cases, in large part because of earlier decisions to deal with young people in ways that fell short of prosecution. For 14-17 year old boys and girls, the use of discharges for indictable offences rose, respectively from 18% to 31 % and from 31 % to 59% between 1980-90. With respect to 17-21 year old young men and women aged 17-21 the use of discharges increased, respectively, from 70/0 to 14% and from 17% to 37% over the decade. It has been the turn away from custody that has been so striking, and it sharply contrasts with practice in England and Wales over the previous decade as well as with contemporary experience in some other countries. 4 The

14

decline in prison system usage is most dramatic with regard to 14-17 year old boys. As displayed in Table 3, with reference to boys of that age who were sentenced for indictable offences, there was an 81 % decline in prison system sentences between 1980-1990. For young men aged 17-21, '"Nhile the decline was smaller over the same period, it still amounted to 38%. It is also evident from this Table that the turn away from custodial sentences imposed upon juveniles began in 1982, three years ahead of the start of a less sharp turn with respect to 17-21 year olds. These declines are not only in absolute numbers of young people but, even more significantly, in the use of custody as a percentage of the total number of persons sentenced. Given the much reduced caseloads of the courts, the expectation, as with the use of discharges, is that these trends would have been in the opposite direction. 5

TABLE 3 Males sentenced to immediate custody for indictable offences 1980-90 Aged 14-17 Year

1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990

Total

7400 7700 7100 6700 6500 5900 4300 3900 3200 1900 1400

Aged 17-21

% of total sentenced

Total

%of total sentenced

12 12 12 12 12 12 11 11 11 9 7

19200 21500 22100 22400 23000 24500 20600 20700 19200 13800 11900

18 19 18 19 20 21 21 21 20 17 14

Source: Abstracted from Criminal Statistics, England and Wales 1989 (Cm 1322, 1990) pp. 164-5. The provisional data for 1990 were kindly supplied by the Home Office. It also should be noted that in 1990, 300 boys aged 14-17 and 2,200 aged 17-20 received custodial sentences for summary offences, displaying no decline over the decade, but with respect to 17-20 year olds an increase from the 1980 total of 1,200. The data for females show a decline in custodial sentences for indictable offences over the decade. For those aged 14-17 the total fell from 100 to less than 50 and for the 17-21 age group from 600 to 300.

15

This preliminary exploration of the transformation of juvenile justice during the 1980s was much facilitated and enriched by discussions with four individuals who have been directly involved in these events. These people were Rob AlIen, head of NACRO's Youth Crime Section; Graham Sutton, who has responsibility for young offenders in the Home Office; Susan Wade, an assistant chief probation officer in Hampshire; and Lorna Whyte, a principal social worker with Hammersmith and Fulham Social Services Department.6

National Policy Initiatives The white paper, Young Offenders, published in October 1980, left rather ambiguous signposts for the decade to come. On the one hand, the government highlighted the need for the development of non-custodial facilities for juveniles who had offended. The four-fold increase in the use of custody was described as 'one of the most disturbing aspects of the statistics for offending by and sentencing of juveniles during the past fifteen years.' (Home Office, 1980, p. 12). As part of the effort to achieve an overall reduction in custody, the white paper announced that as from 1981, 14 year old boys would no longer be remanded to the prison system. The 1980 white paper provided much of the framework for the Criminal Justice Act 1982. I was among those commentators who feared that, because of the strengthened sentencing powers, the overall impact of the legislation would be one of greater severity (Rutherford, 1983). However, it now seems that the 1982 Act was largely de-escalatory in its effects. Of particular significance, in this respect, was the introduction of statutory criteria to be satisfied before the imposition a custodial sentence upon a person under the age of 21. Significantly, the criteria were not contained in the original Bill but were introduced, despite the Government's opposition, by means of an amendment at the Committee stage in the House of Lords. The amendment was tabled by a Conservative backbencher, Baroness (Lucy) Faithfull, formerly a director of social services and a courageous and influential voice for juvenile justice reform and the support of young people. Another key actor in these events, Paul Cavadino of NACRO who is also Clerk to the Parliamentary All-Party Penal Affairs Group, has described the background to this statutory innovation. The first significant step in the history of these provisions was the report Young Offenders - a Strategy for the Future, produced by the Parliamentary All-Party Penal Affairs Group in 1981, which proposed that: ,.. .legislation should provide that a youth custody sentence should be imposed only when the offender is a real danger to society or has shown himself unable or unwilling to respond to non-custodial penalties. A court on passing a youth custody sentence should give its reasons for this

16

conclusion, and this part of the process should form grounds for appeal.' (para. 250). It is true that the suggestion of statutory criteria for custody had first been made by NACRO; but it was the adoption by PAPPAG which was crucial in achieving change. When the 1982 Criminal Justice Bill was published, the criteria were not included in the Bill. During the Committee stage of the Bill in the House of Commons, Robert Kilroy-Silk MP (then Chairman of PAPPAG) proposed an amendment stipulating that custodial sentences could only be passed on an offender under 21 if the court considered that 'no other sentence is appropriate because he has shown himself unable or unwilling to respond to non-custodial methods of treatment or because a custodial sentence is necessary for the protection of the public.' This was debated at length but opposed by the Government and the amendment was withdrawn. One of the criticisms made of the amendment in the Standing Committee debate was that it would make it impossible to imprison a first offender who had committed a very serious offence in one-off circumstances where there was little likelihood of repetition. PAPPAG discussed the matter again before the Bill reached the House of Lords and, at the suggestion of the then Rt. Hon. Sam Silken QC, MP (who was a member of the Group at the time) the amendment was redrafted to include a third criterion - that the offence was 'so serious that a noncustodial sentence cannot be justified.' It was introduced in its revised fonn by Baroness Faithfull when the Bill reached the Lords and was debated during the Committee stage on 22 June 1982. Like Robert in the Commons, Lucy made it clear that she was moving the amendment with the support of the All-Party Group. It was opposed by Lord Elton, then a Home Office Minister, on behalf of the Government but received strong support from peers of all parties. Lucy divided the House against the Government and the amendment was carried by 102 votes to 81. The criteria were tberefore incorporated in what became section 1(4) of tbe 1982 Act. (In his speech on 12 December 1990, Lord Elton referred back to tbe debate on the Bill in 1982 and generously acknowledged that Baroness Faithfull had been proved right by subsequent events).? For the frrst two years or so after the legislation took effect, it appeared to have little impact upon sentencing practice (see e.g. Burney 1985 and Parker, Sumner and Jarvis 1989). However, over tJle second half of the 1980s there was general agreement that the criteria had gone some way towards shaping a new jurisprudence on the sentencing of young people and that this was directly reflected in the turn of sentencing practice. The tightening of the criteria in the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (in large part again due to the efforts of Paul Cavadino and PAPPAG) further consolidated the downward trend in custodial

17

sentencing. The importance of the Criminal Justice Act 1982, and especially the sentencing criteria, is highlighted by Rob AlIen who joined a London social services department as an I.T. worker in 1983, the same year as the Act took effect The way in which practitioners were thinking about their task in responding to juvenile justice was very different from 1983 onwards. People began to use the Act as a framework within which their practice could be effective in terms of supervising youngsters in the community and reducing the number going into custody at the local level. But for some social workers, the criteria were seen as hoops they had to jump through before they could recommend custody. Such social workers also resented the notion that interventionist disposals be reserved for more serious or persistent offenders. 'This was seen by some as a fairly substantial intrusion into their role as social workers and an interference with their professional discretion.' The second significant national policy development was the announcement in March 1983 by the Department of Health and Social Security (DHSS, now the Department of Health) of an initiative to provide fmancial support of £15m for Intermediate Treatment (LT.) projects in England (a similar scheme was launched by the Welsh Office). The money was made available to voluntary organisations and designed to encourage partnerships with local authorities to jointly set up alternatives to care orders and custodial sentences. In the event, the Initiative supported 110 projects in 62 local authorities in England (58% of England's local authorities). Most of those local authorities not applying considered that they already had adequate provision. (Bottoms et al p.72). Some 3,400 places for juvenile offenders were created and the projects appeared to be mostly successful in reaching their target group (NACRO, 1991, 15-27). In 1989, 73 out of 93 projects (for which information was available) still continued to provide alternatives to custody, (NACRO, 1991, 34). Although his own IT project was not one that was funded by the DHSS Initiative, Rob Allen considered that, 'the kinds of initiatives that were introduced locally and nationally on the back of the Initiative were very important in raising the profile of IT work as an alternative to custody, keeping youngsters out of penal establishments and devising the sort of measures that were needed to make those things happen.' Loma Whyte's project was also locally funded and she acknowledged that much might have happened even in the absence of the Initiative (usually referred to as 'LAC 83' after Local Authority Circular 3/1983 which set up the scheme). 'Changes were definitely afoot. What the LAC 83 money did, and quite rightly so, was to persuade some of the more recalcitrant areas that it was actually worthwhile to give it a go.' The turn in juvenile justice during the 1980s reflected both policy and practice developments. Disentangling the distinct contributions of policy makers and practitioners is immensely complex. As Warren Young has written, 18

in the context of trying to make sense of comparative prison population data, '... policy and attitudinal differences are elusive variables to assess: objectives in penal policy are often vague, covert and internally inconsistent; and the attitudes underlying the implementation of such policy... are rarely made explicit.' (Young, 1986, p.l34). It appears, however, on the basis of available evidence that this episode was mostly driven by practice rather than by policy. Significant as the policy initiatives described here were, in large part these complemented changes at the level of practice which were already undelWay. Graham Sutton, a Home Office civil servant with responsibility for policy on young offenders over this period, suggested that there seemed to be a natural period of time for new practice to take hold at the policy level. He discussed the relationship between policy and practice in the context of decisions that were taken in 1990 to bar 14 year old boys from the sentence of being detained in a young offenders institution. The legislative framework allows a range of practice to develop. There is quite a lot of scope for people out there to do what they want to do within the law. If you want to capitalize on that in the policy sense and project X shows a lot of very good signs the proof has to be there before you can actually enshrine it in leg~slation. What practice can do is demonstrate that it is safe, in a political sense, for the government to take a big step. For example, abolishing detention in young offenders institutions for fourteen year old boys (by means of the Criminal Justice Act 1991) is a big step. Ministers could only decide to take it given the experience that there had been with dealing with young people in the community. It was an easier decision to make because the numbers were quite small. If there had not been the experience out there already, the numbers would not have been so small, and they would not have taken it. 8

Practice Initiatives The remainder of this chapter explores the confluence of considerations which mark out and define the transformation of juvenile justice within which juvenile justice practitioners have been so notably to the fore.

Local AITangements In most instances the reform initiatives arose within a relatively small locality, the boundaries of which were often defined by the jurisdiction of a magistrates' court or petty sessional division. Indeed, the local magistrates' court was often the original target of change although, over time, this was usually widened so as to also encompass other agencies. 19

Reform at the coal face The impetus for reform largely came from basic grade social workers employed within statutory and voluntary agencies, and who were themselves directly engaged with young offenders. To a very considerable extent, it was these practitioners who dictated both the direction and pace of the reform movement. Although middle and senior management were often supportive, in most instances it was basic grade social workers who made the running, generated the enthusiasm and sustained the new approach. As Sue Wade observed, 'There was total ignorance and mystification among managers at that stage. We put a paper up to social work managers and they really did not have a clue what we were talking about.' Although her own manager understood what she said about supervision methods he was at a loss whenever reference was made to changing the decision-making processes. 'He just did not understand anything that we talked about.' Recalling the original group of eight or nine practitioners who were the driving force in terms of ideas in her shire county, Sue Wade observed, 'We were not all IT specialists, and indeed the majority of the social services IT specialists thought we were all far too radical. They were only interested in providing treats for young people and were not interested in court or other process issues at all.' Creating specialist staff teams was an important aspect of the new approach. This meant abandoning the generic social work dogma of the early 1970s in order to focus directly on areas of specific need, such as young offenders. As Sue Wade puts it, 'to try to convince 100 probation officers to do things the way we wanted to do them was not going to work.' A somewhat similar perspective on this period is provided by Loma Whyte who, in 1981, came into juvenile justice in London, having been involved in community youth work. She joined 'a very broad based intervention' IT project that was 'akin to generic youth work'. Over the next few years, she was an active participant in the turn that occured in practice. 'I watched it happen. At the time, when "the turn" actually started to happen, we were talking about much more targetted approaches to work with young people.' Three years later, working in a new IT project in another London borough specifically aimed at adjudicated young offenders, 'we began to explore what the systems approach meant in reality. This was within a department, which politically was not geared up to work in that kind of way at all. So there was quite a tension between what the practitioners wanted to do and the structure of the department and also, in some cases, with what field workers wanted to do.' The impetus for setting up this project largely came from practitioners themselves. Basically it was about restructuring the resources to fit a need. But once the team had actually been appointed they were saying, hold on a second, we are not sure if the need that has been identified is the need that this project should actually fulfill. The future of juvenile justice work lies in a much more targetted intervention. That created a tension with the models of IT intervention that already existed in the borough which were very much about individual social workers working with individual young offenders.

20

A further consideration was that the financial circumstances were favourable to change. As Rob Allen noted: 'Juvenile justice practitioners won the day within the social services fairly easily. One major reason was that the policies they were espousing were attractive to managers within social services departments, because they were cheap. A lot of IT was developed not primarily as an alternative to custody, but to increasingly costly placements in local authority establishments.' Similarly, Lorna Whyte observed that there was growth going on at that time. Local authorities were restructuring themselves, and there appeared to be money to set up projects, not just LAC 83, but also other sorts of money. So the world was open, and people were quite happy to look at different ways of working with difficult offenders. So it was really exciting. You felt you had a fair amount of power, and it also helped in some cases that you had middle and senior managers who had sympathy with new ideas, because without that you are not going to get them off the ground. However, she did not underestimate the difficulties which were encountered and the sheer effort that was required. The day-to-day hassles were a struggle, because at the end of the day you are still fighting for the resources, and still arguing the toss with individual social workers in every case as to how things should be done. Obviously, I can look back now and think it was all glorious, but it was very hard work at the time. What made it interesting was that you felt that you were actually trying to do something new. You worked incredibly long hours and you put an awful lot of personal time and interest into it because it felt pioneering. It was a real struggle, and in many cases we did not achieve, certainly in London, what appeared to be achieved in the shire counties, because of the very particular political context which operates in London. But it still felt that you were trying to move forward and that was quite exciting. In 1986 practitioners established their own national membership organisation, the Association for Juvenile Justice (ATJ). Within two or three years AJJ had 500 members and was holding regular training events and national conferences. At one of the best attended of these in 1987, the keynote speaker was Jerome Miller whose message from Massachusetts and beyond was one of inspiration and encouragement (see Chapter Four). From the beginning, ATJ was a campaigning organisation (with a regular and well produced journal, AJJUST) and complemented other aspects of the support structure that was evolving for practitioners during the 1980s. The Lancaster University group of Nonnan Tutt,9 David Thorpe and David Smith and others (and later

21

overlapping with Social Information Systems set up by Norman Tutt and Henri Giller), provided a systems approach through consultancies to particular local authorities. NACRO was also active, in particular setting up multi-agency action groups and encouraging policy development at both the local and national level. The support structure for practitioners also included the National Intermediate Treatment Federation (NI1FED) which had influence, especially upon social services personnel, through its annual conference and regional structure, such as the London IT Association. But it was AJJ's campaigning stance, demanding the abolition of custody for juveniles, that provided an especially potent force for many practitioners. As Rob AlIen, who worked with a London borough social services department for most of the 1980s remarked, This wider movement of juvenile practitioners, with AJJ as one of its manifestations, was certainly important to me, as it was to a number of people in the field knowing that we were part of something special ... AJJ was important in establishing this single ethos about keeping younsters out of custody and keeping that at the forefront of people's minds ... It also provided a network in which expertise in achieving that objective could be transferred among practitioners. This new network of professional associations was a source of confidence for practitioners in taking on the status quo which often included their own employing agency. Loma Whyte recalled: At the time we were all involved in things like the London IT Associaton, various pressure and lobbying groups which were dominantly practitioner and academic based - a very strong academic input in those days, with people like John Pitts of Middlesex Polytechnic. lo So there was a support mechanism for practitioners where ideas were aired. Practitioners would take this support, throw it into their individual work and use it to argue the toss. It was very exciting, because it really did feel that, as practitioners, you had a fair amount of power, as long as you structured your ideas. Sue Wade contrasted NTIFED and All: NITFED was very good on disadvantaged young people but was very anticourts. I certainly wanted to work with courts. What AJJ did, and what NITFED was not doing, was really pushing hard for the abolition of custody. It was the only organisation at that time which had gone public that custody was not needed for juveniles. The others talked about reducing the need, whereas AJJ was saying you do not need it, it is wrong and it should not happen. That was really a very good stand that most of us wanted somebody to take and the fact that it was practitioners that were

22

doing it was pretty significant. AlJ was practitioner-led with a very clear and absolutely uncompromising view about abolishing custody ... AIJ allowed everyone else to come out. Sue Wade also emphasised that key pra~titioners might sometimes work very closely with senior managers to take reforming measures forward. This is an important point because management was often able to facilitate and support initiatives taken by practitioners. She described an instance where her new chief probation officer arrived with his own plan of action. He soon brought one or two practitioners around him, not many, just a few who were interested in taking forward his ideas. He was able to build upon these practitioners' support and, within a year or so, bring about the required organisational changes. The practitioners who became involved were not new to the issues; they had been around in the wings and knew what they wanted.

The Focus upon Process Intermediate Treatment projects in the 1970s were characterised by a profound indifference to the context within which they operated. Virtually no attention was paid to the relationship of the project to the decision-making stages that comprise the juvenile justice process. Inevitably, these early projects tended to 'widen the net' by moving youngsters further up the tariff than was justified by their particular offences. In some instances, where the projects were cast in a preventive mould, young people with no history of offending were drawn into the official process. Practitioners were largely absorbed with problems that related to programmes and had little understanding of or interest in the broader process. It was not until the early 1980s that process issues became widely recognised and practitioners took account of the inter-connections of decisions made at the various stages. Only then was it fully appreciated that IT projects needed to be located at the 'deep-end' of the juvenile justice process and that close attention be given to 'gate-keeping' and other mechanisms that had a deescalatory purpose. This insistence that process issues be at the forefront often did not sit comfortably with existing arrangements and traditional ways of working. Rob AlIen recalled, Some people felt that as we were talking about changing sentencing, the logical way to do that was through legislation and not by the kinds of services that were being offered. To them it seemed a rather indirect way of achieving a policy objective. On occasions this meant IT workers had to say to social workers: 'I'm sorry, the youngster you want to refer is not sufficiently at risk of custody and we are not able to offer a programme.' This was difficult for employees of social services departments because 23

they had responsibilities to young people with a variety of difficulties. Some practitioners placed a particularly sharp focus upon process. For example, Sue Wade felt that too much importance was attached by the pioneering Woodlands project to the provision of tough non-custodial options (described in Chapter Five). While she applauded the success of Woodlands in drastically reducing the use of custodial sentences, she was critical of the attention given by project staff to highly intensive 60 or 90 day periods of supervision. 'We were fairly unhappy by that stage about the complete attention being paid to programmes. We had moved on from that and were saying that it was imporumt to make sure that the right people get to court as well as the right programme be provided for the courts.' At that time, in the mid-eighties, she and her colleagues felt that Woodlands was, 'in danger of pushing us in the direction of only providing good alternatives-to-custody programmes.' So where did this distinctive focus on process come from? There were the publications by members of the Lancaster group and other academics, including an awareness of the American literature. Especially significant was an appreciation of the lessons of day-to-day practice. As Sue Wade put it, Some of it certainly was personal experience. When you sit in court day after day you could see that the agencies were working in ways that did not help the overall aim of reducing custody as quickly as possible. We needed to be very clear about minimum intervention so that if other juveniles required assistance they got it in other ways.

Crossing Agency Boundaries At the very heart of the juvenile justice movement has been the willingness of practitioners to lift their gaze beyond their immediate place of work and to make connections with other agencies. In many instances these connections arose from informal initiatives taken by practitioners, themselves aware of the broad sweep of the reform agenda. At the more formal level, inter-agency collaboration was encouraged by the provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 1982, as well as being a required component of the 1983 DHSS initiative. In the early part of the 1980s, efforts to achieve inter-agency collaboration were unusual and sometimes characterised by suspicion. For example, in 1980 Sue Wade began to undertake community youth work on a one-day-a-week basis with the department of social services. 'I had to be smuggled into their office because the two headquarters did not speak to one another. On one occasion I had to wait on the ground floor while they went upstairs to check who was in before I was allowed on the next floor.' She was of a generation of practitioners who recognised the wide canvas of reform, which included the courts, solicitors, prosecutors, the police, as well as supervising statutory agencies such as probation and social services. Confidence, assertiveness and 24

considerable diplomatic skills were all pre-requisites for change. She noted that after two years they were getting things done they would not have dreamed of before they became a specialist team. There were people who tried to carry on writing social enquiry reports but we had the ability to tell them they could not do it and that we would do it the way we wanted to ... We were confident and assertive enough not to accept court decisions we did not want. It was the same with other agencies because we were by now quite powerful within the system. In some instances a confrontational stance was required, and, for example, her team decided to ensure that all custodial sentences, over the course of a year, were appealed. Loma Whyte drew particular attention to the underlying questions about values that often arise in attempting to influence other agencies, and noted that 'it requires quite sophisticated negotiating skills. How do I influence decisions without colluding with them? Actually getting them to change means working through some very difficult issues around values. I am not always sure that we have done as well as we would like to think we have done.' As she saw it, one of the reasons for the disparity of good practice around the country was that it is too dependent upon particular people. Maybe that is what our criminal justice system is about at the end of the day, but it is a very non-systemic way of trying to achieve a systemic process. In my own experience I have done some very good work with some police forces. In other places it has been absolutely impossible.

Conclusion In sharp contrast to the previous decade when social workers routinely recommended both care and custodial orders (see e.g. Thorpe et al1980, p.74 and Chapter 1bree) a new anti-custody ethos took hold of most juvenile justice practitioners during the 1980s. In its pure form, this represented an absolute dissent from resort to custody. The dramatic shift in attitude that occurred is described by Sue Wade. When I started work as a probation officer, I was appalled by how· many people were recommending custody. For example, a very good officer would think it perfectly acceptable to bargain with a 14 or 15 year old along the lines that if he got into any more trouble he would recommend custody. Surprise, surprise, a couple of months later when he did get into a bit more trouble, as most of them do, tlle officer recommended custody. This was happening all the time. They had the very strange idea that people would suddenly stop offending if you threatened them. They had no

25

idea about maturation or adolescence. The juvenile justice transfotmation that occurred during the 1980s was certainly a 'philosophical turn around' (Bottoms et al pp. 2-6), but it is perhaps best regarded as a sea-change in the working ideology of practitioners. The essence was neatly expressed by Rob AlIen: Juvenile justice workers developed an occupational culture. They had a zeal, an enthusiasm for working in a particular way, but also making sure that interventions were measured and monitored and that the system as a whole was responding effectively to young people. This was as important as working with individual cases. Loma Whyte's view was that at the time most practitioners were unaware of the origins of the ideas that influenced them. We picked them up in social work magazines, all sorts of places such as the London IT Association which was very strong at that time. We did this without really knowing the context of the ideas. It was a bit later before we began to understand work such as what Thorpe at Lancaster and other academics were doing and were able to put that on the framework of the 'justice versus welfare debate'. But at the time we were doing it we were not quite sure why we were doing it. We just knew that this was the way to actually go. It felt right. I was one of a whole generation of practitioners and I am quite privileged to have been part of that. The new working ideology filtered down to practitioners through organisations such as the Association for Juvenile Justice which, as Rob AlIen commented, 'provided a reasonably good structure for the transmission of ideas between interested people.' But Rob Allen felt that All, by concentrating upon keeping people out of custody, had neglected looking at ways in which youngsters might be effectively supervised in the community. 'There was a feeling among some AlJ members, perhaps the zealots, that the job was done the moment custody had been avoided. "We had saved somebody from custody". All has run a very successful campaign against custody. What is needed now is a positive development of ideas and initiatives to look at what can be done.' Also looking to the future with respect to AJJ, Loma Whyte believed that the new strategies were going to have to be different as the criminal justice process began to operate in new ways. But we must not lose, because what happened was very special, the input from practitioners. Something very interesting happened in that period which should be emulated across the whole social work world. Practitioners were actually able in many many cases to influence policy and that is the lesson we need to keep holding on to. Not just for juvenile justice but for a range of social work interventions. You can influence policy in this way without all hell breaking loose, and if you allow

26

practitioners that kind of power it does not mean they will run away with it. It did not happen and it will not happen.

NOTES 1. For both age groups, 1990 showed an increase in the number of known offenders over 1989, but this was mostly due to the increased use of formal cautions. 2. Formal cautioning by the police was strongly encouraged by the Home Office during this period. See Home Office Circular 14/85 and 59/90. 3. See e.g. Bottomley and Pease (1986), pp. 118-134. 4. In Canada, for example, there was a sharp upsurge in the number of young people sentenced to custody during the 1980's. See Caputo (1991). In Denmark there has been, since the early 1990s, a toughening of attitudes to young offenders, which some commentators fear may result in more reliance on the sanctions of the criminal law, including imprisonment. See especially, Vestergaard (1991). 5. For an incisive review of the turn away from custody, see AlIen (1991). See also, The Children's Society Advisory Committee on Penal Custody and its Alternatives for Juveniles (1989). 6. The interviews, which were carried out in the Spring of 1992, were tape recorded. The quotations that follow are from edited transcripts. 7. Letter from Paul Cavadino to Lord Windlesham (2 January 1991) quoted by kind permission of Paul Cavadino. Baroness Faithfull's interventions in the debates on the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 led to the setting up of juvenile specialists within the Crown Prosecution Service (see Code for Crown Prosecutors, 1986, pp. 9-11). She also played a leading role in shaping the Children Act 1989. 8. A further consideration in Ministers' minds may have been the case of a 14 year old boy, sentenced to detention centre, who alleged sex discrimination given that it was not open to the courts to sentence a girl of that age to a custodial sentence. The case was being considered by the European Commission of Human Rights but was withdrawn when the legislation was announced. 9. Norman Tutt became director of social services for Let:.ds in 1989. He is a rare example in Britain of someone who has moved back and forth between academe, practice and policy. 10. See, Pitts (1988 and 1990).

27

CHAPTER TWO

A Chance to Mature What the child can do for us later - or that it is cheaper to be good to children now - should not be our primary concern. Children should claim our attention because they engage our humanitarian feelings. A child must be loved and supported for what the child is now, not just for what the child can become ... children are fellow humans and claim an equal place with other age groups because they are human beings, not because they give some future return on investment. Orville G. Brim and Jerome Kagan, 1980, p. 22 Crime is not a 'thing'. Crime is a concept applicable in certain social situations where it is possible and in the interests of one or several parties to apply it. We can create crime by creating systems that ask for the word. We can extinguish crime by creating the opposite kinds of systems. NUs Christie, 1982, p. 74 It seems incredible that regimes which seem to involve large numbers of staff for case conferences on boys' welfare cannot, on the other hand, offer sufficient night supervision for boys to go to the lavatory in a civilised way . . efforts to prevent the development of prison language among the boys seem rather pointless at the sight of a number of children, each clasping a potty, drifting to the latrines in the mornings. Spencer Millham, Roger Bullock and Kenneth Hosie, 1978, p. 117

*

*

*

Despite common-sense objections that exile and incarceration only make matters worse, shades of the prison house are closing in on increasing numbers of young people. In 1973 some 17,000 persons aged between fourteen and twenty were sentenced to prison system institutions. Ten years later this number had almost doubled, having increased to 30,000. It has been among persons of under seventeen years that the increase has been sharpest, and the proportion of such cases dealt with by the courts has risen threefold in the twenty-five years up to 1985. The trend has little to do with violent crime and largely reflects more severe sentencing of young people convicted of property offences.!

28

During the 1980s the population of young people will decline by 20 per cent. Although school closures are wide-spread, the logic of demographics does not extend to the prison system. Two thousand additional cells for young people are included in the prison system's construction programme announced at the start of the decade. This investment in the apparatus of imprisonment is directly counter to the view that with support and encouragement most young people mature out of crime. These conditions are found not in prison cells and corridors, but in the settings where most young people grow up. The most effective resources for coping with and resolving the problems of young people and crime are located in the home and school. The great majority of events involving young people which might have been called criminal are not brought to the attention of police because they are absorbed by home, school or other developmental institutions, such as places of work, recreation and worship. The troubles get worse when the matter is removed from the home and school to the institutional arrangements of criminal justice, welfare or mental health. This book is a preliminary exploration of what happens when priority is given to developmental institutions in managing young people and crime. The traditional approaches to young people and crime are, in convenient shorthand, punishment, welfare and treatment. Each approach continues to enjoy fashionable seasons, often with excesses in one direction prompting a resurgence by one of the other approaches. All that is new is the language which, for a while, might obscure exactly which approach is in vogue at the time. The assumptions are that young people involved in crime and other troublesome events represent, respectively, depravity, social deprivation and personal pathology. Despite their differences each of the traditional approaches, ultimately, leads to exile from home and school and placement in an incarcerative institution. By contrast, the developmental approach regards crime and other misbehaviour by young people as a transient and integral part of the process of growing up. Instead of exclusion, the approach seeks absorption and fortifies the developmental role of home and school. If there is to be a selffulfilling prophecy, it is that sooner rather than later matters will be worked out. As with other childish things, misbehaviour eventually will be put away. The developmental approach has remained largely unarticulated, because it is rarely considered in policy terms. The intuitive quality of the approach finds its most powerful expression within the home when the child in trouble is one's own; the protective and supportive instincts of the family have not yet been used for policy purposes. However, if policy is to be addressed to seeing young people through troubled phases, steps must be taken to begin to build upon intuitive responses. The four basic propositions underscoring the developmental approach are:

*

*

The principal sources of support and control for young people are in the home and the school. When formal intervention is invoked this should, to the greatest possible extent, be focused primarily on enhancing the strengths of home and school. 29

* Only in the most exceptional cases should formal intervention separate a young person from developmental institutions, and any period of separation should be kept to the minimum required for other purposes. * Formal interventions, especially when using incarceration, are disruptive in two crucial senses. First, the normal growth and development of the young person is threatened. Second, the capacity for developmental institutions to be effective is weakened. The developmental approach does not mean ignoring or taking no action on youth crime. Far from being passive, the approach insists that intervention be primarily the responsibility of those institutions with a commitment to the young person. In this sense the developmental approach has a rather different emphasis from Edwin Schur's notion of 'radical non-intervention'. Schur argued, in the early 1970s, that what young people involved in crime suffer from, more than either problems of the psyche or socio-economic distress, is contingencies. Processing contingencies significantly shape delinquency rates and, in large measure, also determine which specific individuals reach the various stages in the juvenile justice process... the basic injunction for public policy becomes leave kids alone wherever possible. This effort partly involves mechanisms to divert children away from the courts but it goes further to include opposing various kinds of intervention by diverse social control and socialising agencies. (Schur, 1973, pp. 154-5) The more positive emphasis implied by the developmental approach seeks to strengthen intervention by homes and schools to enable these institutions to deal directly with the problem, to hold on to young people and, thereby, to avoid or limit formal intervention. The distinctive features of the developmental approach can be sketched out further by a comparison with the three traditional approaches. The punishment approach is considered first, as it remains the predominant one, even though it is often camouflaged by fashionable jargon. The principal elements of the punishment approach are:

* Most crime is a matter of opportunity and rational choice.

*

In so far as a person is responsible for his/her actions, he/she should be held accountable. * The sole justification for punishment should be commission of a specifically defined offence. * Punishment is a valid response to criminal behaviour as an expression of society's disapproval and as an individual and general deterrent. * There should be proportionality between the seriousness of the crime and the penalty. Overlapping elements are found in any consideration of the welfare and

30

treatment approaches. These approaches are often merged, and the two tetmS can in some cases be used interchangeably.2 The principal elements of the welfare approach are:

* * *

Delinquen~

dependent and neglected young people are all products of an adverse environment which, at its worst, is characterised by multiple deprivation. All young people in trouble can be effectively dealt with through a single uniform process designed to identify and meet their needs. Prevention of neglect and alleviation of disadvantage will lead to the prevention of crime. Finally, the principal elements of the treatment approach are:

* Crime is a pathological condition and is symptomatic of some deeper * *

*

maladjustment. The underlying disorder of which crime is symptomatic is susceptible to diagnosis and treatment. Given the wide variation in young people's needs, flexible and wide discretion are essential to detennine the appropriate treatment. Effective treatment technologies are available, and the informed consent by the recipient can be obtained.

Whereas the punishment approach stresses formality of procedures, both the welfare and the treatment approaches encourage informality as the principal way of identifying and meeting individual needs. As Nils Christie has reminded us, punishment has to do with the delivery of pain and for this reason, especially when applied to young persons, it is disguised by more palatable language. (Christie, 1982) Note, for example, the ambivalence of a House of Commons Select Committee: While it would be regrettable if there were any general identification of residential care with punishment, it is a fact of life that one category of children in care for whom residential care may be essential are those children whose behaviour is leading them further and further down the path of anti-social behaviour. (Select Committee on Social Services, 1984, p. 1xxxii) A government research report has commented upon the prevalence of linguistic acrobatics: 'In all the jargon about security and treatment, it seemed very easy for the referring agencies to forget they were asking for people to be locked up' (Cawson and Martell 1979, p. 209). Punishment continues to be the dominant approach. This has been the case since the reaction during the late eighteenth century to arbitrary and capricious vengeance. Cesare Beccaria's essay 'Dei deilitti e delle pene' of 1766 gave

31

momentum to criminal law reform in Europe and beyond; Beccaria's reappearance two centuries later was largely a reaction to the excesses committed in the name of treatment and welfare. Incarcerating young people for periods which far outweighed the seriousness of their offences or subjecting them to intrusive forms of therapy prompted liberals to talk of the young person's 'right to punishment' (Fox, 1974). Under the banners of 'justice model' or 'just deserts' the notion of proportionality between the harm done and the dosage of pain was restored as an ideal. Powerfully influential was a twentyvolume set of juvenile justice standards produced by the American Bar Association. The president of the National Council of Juvenile Court Judges commented in 1977: All of a sudden it has been decided that the 'just desserts' [sin] rationale is the only answer to juvenile crime. This has never worked for the adult system and there is no reason to believe it will work with children. Critics of the juvenile justice system forget that the juvenile coUrt was created to get children out of the 19th century 'just desserts' [sic] criminal justice system. (Driscoll 1977)3 The roots of the welfare approach go back to efforts in the middle of the nineteenth century to rescue young people from prison or from their social circumstances. Yet the welfare approach inevitably leads back into incarcerative institutions. In the early 1980s, ahnost one third of the 90,000 children 'in care' in England and Wales were held in residential institutions. As one official research study concluded: 'It is rather frightening that the capacity for rejection in the child care system should seem to be so endless' (Cawson and Martell, 1979, p. 215). In 1984 the Select Committee on Social Services acknowledged the serious long-term emotional and developmental effects of growing up in residential institutions but went on to remark that 'there is nothing inherently wrong with some older children remaining for months or even years in residential care' (Select Committee on Social Services, 1984, p. Ixxx).4 The treaunent approach sprang from efforts by early criminologists to locate causes of crime within the biological make-up or psyche of the individual. The emerging professions of psychiatry and social work were quick to recognise the opportunities. The treatment approach looks to incarcerative institutions to provide the required 'therapeutic community' or the 'structured setting' for backbone implant. Incarceration also is required for those young people who are not 'amenable' to treatment programmes in the community, and especially when this non-amenability is displayed by letting the programme down. Treatment's search for amenable clients inevitably widens the criminal justice net. Not surprisingly many treattnent professionals gravitate towards socalled diversion and prevention programmes. The three traditional approaches to young people in trouble should be

32

considered in relation not only to the institutional arrangements of criminal justice, but also to those of welfare and mental health. The boundaries of these three types of institutional arrangement are far from rigid, suggesting to Paul Lerman of Rutgers University that there is 'a youth-in-trouble system', encompassing all three arenas. As Lennan notes, the underlying dynamic is often one of economics, exemplified by 'an increasing incentive to redefine youth in trouble according to diagnostic categories which will legitimate placement in facilities deemed appropriate for reimbursement' (Lerman, 1982, p. 150). The expansion of private mental health incarceration of young people in the United States is one striking example of the source of payment defining the nature of the young person's misbehaviour. These considerations allow policy and practice to be viewed within a 'youth-in-trouble matrix'. As shown below, the matrix takes account of the three traditional approaches as well as the developmental approach, and the institutional arrangement primarily associated with each approach. Shown are the four types of approach, each of which, as indicated by lp', is primarily associated with a particular institutional arrangement. With the exception of developmental institutions, institutional arrangements can also be expected to follow secondary approaches, as indicated by'S'.

YOUTH IN TROUBLE MATRIX

Approach

Punishment Welfare Treatment Developmental

Institutional Arrangement Criminal Welfare Mental Developmental Justice Health p S S S

s

p

S S

s s

p

s

p

The matrix serves as a reminder that there is more than a single type of institutional arrangement. Although this book deals mostly with the threat to normal growth and development posed by criminal justice arrangements, nothing is gained by substituting one fonn of disruptive intervention for another. Welfare and mental health interventions also carry the potential of undermining developmental institutions. Policy which is conceived exclusively in criminal justice terms perpetuates the segmentation which has served to thwart the developmental approach. For young people, the negative consequences of exposure to criminal justice have been amply demonstrated. Marvin Wolfgang, who directed a longterm study of youngsters growing up in Philadelphia, concluded: 'the juvenile justice system, at its best, has no effect on the subsequent behaviour of 33

adolescent boys and, at its worst, has a deleterious effect on future behaviour' (Wolfgang et al., 1972, p. 252). In England, similar conclusions were reached on the basis of the Cambridge longitudinal study. David Farrington found that a frrst conviction is likely to lead to further offending (Farrington, 1977, p. 283). This point was extended by Donald West: '... processing delinquents through the juvenile justice system, especially if it involves any substantial period of detention within penal establishments, is more likely to exacerbate than to reduce anti-social behaviour' (West, 1982, p.143). That incarcerative institutions are so lamentably unsuccessful with young people should not be surprising when account is taken of how they obstruct and retard essential areas of growth from child to adult. At this age preoccupying concerns might be to resolve 'uncertainty over sexual adequacy, interpersonal power, autonomy ofbetief and action, and acceptability to peers' (Kagan, 1979, p. 110). Where should this resolution take place? What should be the setting of Erik Erikson's 'quest for identity'? The potentially crippling impact of incarceration is even more apparent when viewed against the needs of young people moving towards adulthood: to learn effectively to manage their own affairs and make choices; to relate to persons differing in social class, age and sex, the latter being essential for psycho-sexual development; and to experience the sense of responsibility that comes from having other people dependent on one's actions. It would be difficult to design a method more certain than incarcerative institutions to thwart normal development. As the Royal College of Psychiatrists stated in 1984: 'Prolonged residential care is likely to lead to abnormal psychological development' (Select Committee on Social Services, 1984, vol.. Ill, p. 599). The American sociologist John Irwin has written of 'state-raised' youths: 'The world view of these youths is distorted, stunted or incoherent. To a great extent, the youth prison is their only world, and they think almost entirely in the categories of this world' (Irwin, 1970, p. 29). Jack Henry Abbot, in correspondence with Norman Mailer, wrote: 'At age 37 I am barely a precocious child. My passions are those of a boy' (Abbott, 1982, p. 15). In England and Wales a little over half of alllrnown indictable offenders in 1983 were aged under twenty-one, and one third were under seventeen. 5 For burglary, about seven out of ten were under twenty-one. These official data have many limitations. They refer only to offences which have resulted in a formal caution or finding of guilt; no account is taken of the events which have been handled in some other way, or which remain undetected. For example, only one burglary in five is cleared up. As young people are more likely than adults to offend in company, they are responsible for fewer offences than the number of known offenders suggests. Young people maybe more easily detected and arrested than adults. Finally, formal cautioning is used to a much greater extent with juveniles than adults and, to the extent that formal cautions are not a substitute for guilt findings, the number of known offenders will be inflated. From the published official crime statistics, Table 1 below sets out data on offenders of age and sex. 6

34

TABLE 1

Known (indictable) offenders per 1,000 in each age group by sex and age, 1983 Age group

Males

Females

10-13

29

14-16

75

17

17-20

69

10

21+

13

2

9

(Abstracted from Criminal Statistics 1983, p. 103, Table 5.20)

Peaks and Lows Both official statistics and self-report studies suggest that the peak ages for many offences are those from fifteen to seventeen, coinciding, it might be noted, with the peak of physical growth.? But as David Farrington has concluded, there is an absence of basic infonnation about the development of delinquent activity (Farrington, 1981, p. 29). Similarly, David Greenberg, noting the relative absence of empirical research seeking or testing explanations for the contrasting peak ages of arrest, remarks that 'there can be no certainty as to the relative importance of the motivations, control considerations, and opportunities that give rise to the various involvement pattern for different offences' (Greenberg, 1983, p. 34). Data presented for a single year can be misleading, as these do not pennit age effects (pattern of variation in crime rates with age) to be distinguished from an influence on a given cohort of young people that persists as the cohort ages. Nor does it take account of the influence of a particular period that does not persist at a later time (Greenberg, 1983, pp.31-2) Longitudinal studies, especially when both official and self-report data are obtained, have filled some of the gaps in what is known about offending patterns by age. A major study conducted by the Cambridge Institute of Criminology found that shoplifting, stealing from vehicles and other theft tend to be most frequent at relatively early ages. For example, shoplifting peaks between the ages of fourteen and sixteen, whereas assault, damaging property

35

and drug use tend to peak between seventeen and twenty. This general pattern is confrrmed by self-report data. For most offences the peak age of incidence is within a year or two of the seventeenth birthday, with assault and drug use declining with age less quickly than other offences. The Cambridge study differentiated between 'temporary recidivists' Guvenile recidivists with no convictions between nineteen and twenty-four) and 'persisting recidivists'. The two groups differed across a wide range of life-style attributes, with most temporary recidivists found to be similar to persons without criminal records. West summarised the main fmdings: Every comparison we could make showed that the persisting recidivists were a disfavoured and deviant group, whereas the temporary recidivists were much closer to and often indistinguishable from the non-delinquents . . at age twenty-four, persisting recidivists continued to be significantly socially deviant, whereas men whose conviction careers had definitely ended had become as conformist in lifestyle as men who never had a criminal record. (West, 1982, pp. 79-81) The shift to normality by the temporary recidivists was slow, and explanatory factors remain unexplored. In this respect the only distinguishing feature was the tendency to cease going about in large groups. Similarly, an American study directed by Jackson Toby suggested that integration with close female friends and family members predicts adult adjustment, and that continued involvement with male friends and peer group gangs presages additional criminal behaviour in adulthood (cited in eline, 1980, p. 662). Marvin Wolfgang coined the term 'spontaneous remission' to describe young people's desistance from crime. Similarly, Donald West concluded: 'The behaviour of delinquents genuinely and spontaneously changes in the direction of increasing social conformity with increasing age' (West, 1982, p.252). The developmental rationale appears to have had an important effect on public policy in The Netherlands. An official at the Ministry of Justice has written: The realisation, that in general this behaviour constitutes but a phase in a youngster's life as well as the fact that the juvenile justice system handles only a minor selection of all misbehaving juveniles, has made authorities far more tolerant of both problem behaviour and delinquency. It has also made the police, prosecutors and juvenile judges far more reluctant to interfere in the lives of children. (Junger Tas, p 3) The policy implications of the developmental approach have also been explored by the American legal scholar Frank Zimring, who refers to 'the social value of giving young offenders a chance to mature'. The policy is 'to enhance the opportunity to survive adolescence without a major sacrifice in life chances'. Zimring explicitly notes that the policy does not necessarily rule out punishment, but is one that 'facilitates growth, avoids permanent stigma, the isolation of young offenders from community settings, or any other form of exile from the larger society in which they are expected to grow'. Zimring

36

makes the important point that 'values may indicate policies designed to achieve these ends even if a substantial minority of the young do not outgrow patterns of law violation ... reform is a process in which time, the offender's efforts, and the resources in the community at large play their parts; the use of coercive state power may sometimes unduly disrupt the process' (Zimring, 1978, pp. 79-80). The principle that young people have the chance to mature reflects the central theme of this book. The developmental approach is explored in subsequent chapters. Chapter Three examines missed opportunities to fashion new approaches to young people in trouble in Britain over the last 150 years. From time to time policymakers appeared to be near to breaking away from the redundant triangle of punishment - welfare - treatment; their failure to make a clean break resulted in a reluctance to break new ground and an unwillingness to depart from the professional paraphernalia and incarcerative apparatus which dictated policy. On occasion a bold step is taken which becomes a symbolic inspiration across many countries. The dissolution of incarcerative institutions in Massachusetts, described in Chapter Four, was such a step. Jerry Miller learned and acted rapidly. When appointed state commissioner of youth services in 1969, Miller's intention was to refonn the training schools. Less than two years later, finding he had had little success in this endeavour, Miller acted swiftly to close the institutions. The Massachusetts experience is a rare example of a 'deep end' reform strategy: by rust closing institutions Miller forced the development of alternatives in the community. More than two decades later the decarceration process in Massachusetts survives. This is not to say that there are not new problems, and these include controlling the large private agencies which now provide programmes for young people on behalf of the state, and reluctance by professionals to strengthen developmental institutions. The developmental approach is unlikely to be articulated in policy statements, but it can be identified in practice across a variety of settings; often this practice is far ahead of the language necessary to convey its significance. Chapter Five explores the implications of the developmental approach within the context of the home and school, and looks at ways in which these institutions might be supported and helped, so as to hold on to young people in trouble. The dangers and shortcomings of a new fonn of treatment offering less protection than punishment and casting its net even more widely is examined in Chapter Six with reference to the alarming growth in the psychiatric hospitalization of young people in the United States. In the Chapter Seven it is argued that, once the developmental approach is adopted, problems of policy implementation remain. In particular, attention has to be given to the dynamic and often infonnal momentum of organizational processes. In the final chapter, several recommendations are made for policy and practice.

37

NOTES 1. As described in Chapter One, the trend in England and Wales dramatically changed direction during the 1980's. In 1990 the total number of persons under the age of 21 who were sentenced to prison system institutions had fallen to 16,200. For juveniles (persons aged 14-17) the number had declined to 1,700, and the proportion of such persons sentenced for indictable offences had fallen to 6.6% 2. See for example, the Black Report (1979, pp 32-4) from which many of the elements set out here are taken. 3. The 1990 White Paper, Crime Justice and Protecting the Public (and much of the subsequent Criminal Justice Act 1991) gave primary place to the notion of 'just deserts' or proportionality but this found rather muted expression with reference to young offenders, ibid pp 40-46; and see also Ashworth et al (1992b, esp. pp. 1118). Curiously the authors of the white paper had the same difficulty as Judge Driscoll in the spelling of 'deserts'; prompting one senior official to refer to the 'pudding principle of punishment'. 4. The thrust of Children Act 1989 is to encourage public policy away from the use of institutions and in the direction of supporting families. On the background to the legislation see DHSS (1985a), (1985b) and (1987). 5. The percentage of persons under the age of 21 of all known offenders in 1990 was 47%, and for juveniles (persons aged 10-17) was 22%. Provisional data for 1990 kindly supplied by the Home Office. 6. Table 1 as updated, is set out below. Known (indictable) offenders per 1000 in each age group by sex and age, 1989

Age Group

Males

Females

10-13

19

4

14-16

56

13

17-20

63

10

21+

12

2

Source: Abstracted from Home Office (1990b, p. 120). 7. The peak peak (86 per 18. For girls 1989 (Home

38

age of known offending rose between 1984-89. For boys, in 1984 the 1000) was at age 15, whereas in 1989 the peak (70 per 1000) was at age the peak age rose from 14 (19 per 1000) in 1984 to 15 (15 per 1000) in Office 1990b, p. 121).

CHAPTER 3

Wrong Turnings I am sure that the House will support me in any steps that may be taken to prevent this unnecessary imprisonment. It is an evil which falls only on the sons of the working classes. The sons of other classes may commit many of the same kind of offences and in boisterous and exhuberant moments, whether at Oxford or anywhere else, may do things for which the working classes are committed to prison, although injury may not be inflicted on anyone. Winston S. Churchill, 20 July 1910 The ideal image of childhood is changing and implies greater precociousness than earlier child savers might have thought possible ... A decrease in the privileged status of the young, moreover, may bring increased demands for accountability, particularly where criminal acts are involved. Magnified demands for retribution are not an impossibility. LaMar Empey, 1976, pp. 50-51

* * * Over the last 150 years public policy on young people and crime has remained trapped largely within the triangle of punishment, welfare and treatment. The prominence of anyone of these approaches to young people in trouble has varied from time to time, often as a reaction to what has gone before. The perennial issue has been concerned with the type of incarcerative institution rather than with the fundamental principles involved. On occasion an impasse is reached, and an opportunity arises to take a quite different approach. Such opportunities have been rare, and generally have been missed.

Shielding Young People from Punishment, and the Rise of Welfare Under common law, children under the age of seven were deemed incapable of criminal intent and, between the ages of seven and fourteen, there was a rebuttable presumption that they were not responsible under the law. At the beginning of Queen Victoria's reign children could be punished with imprisomnent, transportation and even the death penalty; after all, children were 39

but little adults. As late as 1833, Nicholas White, a nine-year-old, was sentenced to death for the theft of items valued at twopence; the death sentence was commuted to a whipping and transportation for seven years. Two years earlier a thirteen-year-old was executed for the murder of another boy. Similarly, children regularly had transportation sentences commuted to imprisonment. Early efforts to shield children from the full rigours of criminal law were based on notions of diminished responsibility. Later, with the emerging idea of childhood as a period of development, a variety of social reforms sought to protect children from danger and exploitation. In 1847 powers were extended to magistrates' courts to imprison children under the age of fourteen for up to three months. This reform was intended to spare children from prosecution in the higher courts. However, as one contemporary observer noted, the legislation resulted in more rather than fewer children going to prison, providing an early example of the unintended and unanticipated consequences endemic to criminal justice reform. During the first half of the nineteenth century reformers sought not to repudiate punishment of young children but to restrict its scope. For example, A select committee of the House of Lords regretted any contamination of young people in prison but could suggest only transportation and whipping as alternatives. Policy, if not always practice, within the prison.was to separate young people from older prisoners. In 1838, Parkhurst prison was established as a specialist prison to hold boys prior to transportation. The opening of Parkhurst was applauded from the standpoint of protecting young prisoners, but by the middle of the century a new approach to dealing with young people and crime was emerging. Mary Carpenter articulated the welfare approach to a House of Commons committee: 'I have great objection to calling them [ie children] even semicriminal because the word has a moral meaning. I consider the condition they are in as that of extreme neglect' (cited in Manton, 1976, p. 14). Born in 1807, the daughter of a Unitarian minister, Mary Carpenter was a pioneer of free schools for children from economically deprived families. Her [rrst book was entitled Ragged Schools by a Worker. Until her death in 1877 she was both practitioner and crusader. A tireless traveller, she lectured extensively in Europe and the United States. In her second book, Reformatory Schools, published in 1851, Carpenter suggested that three types of institution were required, namely: for the deprived, free schools; for young vagrants and beggars, industrial schools (day and residential); for convicted youngsters, reformatories under voluntary management. Carpenter's impact on public policy was immense, especially during the period 1850-70 when she campaigned for industrial schools and reformatories. Among her supporters were Mathew Davenport Hill, the recorder of Binningham, and Charles Adderley, a traditional Tory Member of Parliament. She attacked the boys' prison at Parkhurst in uncompromising terms. 'It is utterley vain to look for any real reformation where the heart is not touched, and where the inner springs of action are not called into healthful exercise; this cannot possibly be done for children under the mechanical and military discipline of Parkhurst' (Carpenter, 1851, p. 322). Parkhurst was 40

unfavourably compared with the private reformatories situated in Surrey and Warwickshire. The first of these, the Philanthropic Society, was founded in London towards the end of the eighteenth century. The absence of surrounding walls gave it claim to be an 'asylum' rather than a prison, and it was intended for 'the destitute children of convicts' and 'for the reform of such young criminals whose youth gave promise of amendment' (cited in Carlebach, 1970, pp. 6-10). In 1849 it was re-established at Redhill with an agricultural basis, and Sidney Turner, the Society's chaplain, became headmaster. The welfare campaign was for legislation to ensure funding and provide institutional managers with powers to detain young people. Mary Carpenter regretted that Parliament had not acted on recent inquiries. Young people continue to herd in their dens of iniquity, to swann in our streets, to levy a costly maintenance on the honest and industrious, to rise up to be the parents of a degraded progeny of pauper children, or to people our gaols until they are audaciously wicked enough for transportation - in either case to be a drain on our resources, a festering plague spot to society. (Carpenter, 1851,p. 352) The welfare reformers of the mid nineteenth century demanded that children be removed from the prison system and placed in privately managed but stateassisted institutions. These institutions would also rescue other young people from corrupting environments. Persistent lobbying led to statutory provision for reformatories in 1854 and industrial schools in 1857. The result was rapidly to increase the total number of young persons in institutions. The expansion of institutions proceeded at a phenomenal rate. By 1858, only four years after the enabling legislation, there were forty-five reformatories holding 2,000 young people. Twelve years later there were sixty-five reformatories and fifty industrial schools holding 7,000 young people. By the end of the century the number of young people held in these institutions increased more than threefold. It was not until the last few years of her life that Mary Carpenter displayed any doubts about the utility of the refonnatory movement. She was aware that many of these incarcerative institutions were not steeped in her non-punitive ideas. In her final years she turned her attention to day industrial schools, opening one herself in 1872. Two years later she was arguing that it was totally wrong to remove children from their families unless absolutely necessary: We should not sever the family ties of all these young persons, or place the hand of the policeman on so many thousands of the rising generation. Nor should we remove from local School Boards, elected and supported by the people, the responsibility of these children' (cited in Manton, 1976, p. 231). Carpenter had finally acknowledged the importance of the home and school. Although in 1876 Carpenter was able to gain statutory authority for School Boards to maintain day industrial schools, these institutions were fragile and short-lived. Mary Carpenter's legacy was not day schools but the incarcerative industrial schools and reformatories which became approved schools in 1933 and community homes with education on the premises in 1969. The welfare 41

approach sprang from an educational framework, preceding the Education Act 1870: It is wonderful how soon a master who is well trained in the art of teaching will introduce discipline in the most disorderly assemblage of children, and quicken into intelligence those who before seemed dead to all but animal pleasures. To know how and when to loosen the rein to the wild and hitherto uncurbed creature, and yet make him feel, almost without knowing it, that there is a bound which he must not pass. (Carpenter, 1851, p. 108) Mary Carpenter was a pioneer in her regard for the school as a developmental institution. Her support for compulsory school attendance went far beyond the provision of a rudimentary education. The work at the beginning and end of her life, with free and day industrial schools respectively, was the antithesis of the incarcerative institutions for which she is remembered. 1 The failure by welfare reformers to exploit the educational basis of their work was made evident by the early control gained by the Home Office over the new industrial schools. The Act of 1857 had established that industrial schools would be certified by the Committee of the Privy Council on Education, rather than the Home Office. However, three years later control passed to the Home Office. The rationale for this move was: There is no moral or social difference between the classes of children who fill the reformatories on the one hand, or the industrial schools on the other. It may be right to place in different establishments those who have broken the law by positive crime and those who have been found guilty of nothing worse than vagrancy; but it must be a matter of accident under which of these two heads the committal of a child takes place; and after committal there can be no substantial difference in the treatment and discipline which they severally require. (Cited in Lushington, 1896, p. 318) The transfer to the Home Office anticipated the notion of 'net widening'. It was argued that an educational emphasis would encourage incarceration in order to provide an education otherwise not available. Ten years before passage of the Education Act, which provided a national framework for elementary education, this concern may have had some justification: There is a constant tendency to treat simple poverty or the neglect of parents, as a sufficient reason for placing a child in a certified industrial school, who thus becomes chargeable to the taxes, in relief either of its parents or of the poor rate. Abuses of this kind easily pass current under tlle name of education. The responsibility of parents is hardly attempted to be enforced by the managers and it may be said, generally, that an

42

education department, appointed to assist voluntary effort, is, of all others, the least adapted to check such irregularities. (Cited in Lushington, 1896, p.318) It might have been expected that, with the passage of the Education Act 1870, the authority over industrial schools would have been returned to the Education Department. This was not to be, although an attempt was made the following year by Charles Adderley, who had sponsored the original refonnatory legislation but, by now, was distressed by the incarcerative nature of the new institutions. Sydney Turner, Home Office Inspector of Schools since leaving Redhill in 1857, lobbied strongly against such a move. After being visited by Adderley, Turner wrote to the Home Secretary that: '... it has always seemed to me as a matter of social policy to make a clear distinction between the honest and dishonest classes of society, and it would be a great injustice to the well-behaved and well brought up child to confound it in any respect with the lawless and disorderly...' Turner was at pains to stress the similarities between industrial schools and reformatories, commenting that industrial schools are '... but reformatories of a milder type', containing 'ragged and neglected classes' (cited in Lushington, 1896, p. 319). By the early 1880s Adderley's disillusion with reformatories and industrial schools was complete, and he urged that they be replaced by 'schools for neglected and destitute children' (cited in Carlebach, 1970, p. 75). Despite the intentions of the welfare reformers only two decades earlier, the institutional regimes had become penal and restrictive, all the more so given rising social standards in the general community. Home Office inspectors frequently were appalled by what they encountered. The institutional managers, preoccupied by sheer financial survival were encouraged by the per capita payment by central government to admit very young children and to hold them for the full five-year period. Concerns regarding central government's lack of fiscal and management control prompted the establishment of a Royal Commission in 1883, but the multitude of emerging difficulties were beyond its competence. However, within a decade there were to be two important initiatives by the Home Office.

Crossroads at the turn of the century Herbert Asquith, the Home Secretary in William Gladstone's third administration, set up two deparunental committees on the penal system. The fIrst of these, chaired by Herbert Gladstone, the Parliamentary Under Secretary, reported on the prison system ill April 1895. The following year another committee, chaired by Sir Godfrey Lushington, reported on reformatory and industrial schools. The Gladstone report is remembered for elevating treattnent, as a purpose for the prison system, alongside punishment. In particular, the report stressed that reformative efforts be made witll younger prisoners, and the foundation was created for the borstal system. In essence, Gladstone gave

43

legitimacy to the view that custody might be a positive experience. The idea of treatment within prison had arrived. A central figure with respect to both committees was Sir Godfrey Lushington, who, in early 1895, had retired as Permanent Secretary of the Home Office. Lushington was born in 1832, the son of Stephen Lushington, an early prison reformer who was for thirty years a progressive member of parliament. In 1869 Lushington was appointed as counsel to the Home Office and in 1885 became its pennanent head. In his evidence to the Gladstone committee Lushington explicitly rejected the emerging treatment approach. In doing so, Lushington eloquently described the reality of prison: I regard as unfavourable to reformation the status of a prisoner throughout his whole career; the crushing of self-respect; the starving of all moral instinct he may possess; the absence of all opportunity to do or receive a kindness; the continual association with none but criminals, and that only as a separate item amongst other items also separate; the forced labour and the denial of all liberty. I believe the true mode of reforming a man or restoring him to society is exactly in the opposite direction of all these. But, of course, this is a mere idea. It is quite impracticable in a prison. In fact, the unfavourable features I have mentioned are inseparable from a prison life. All that I care to insist on is that this treatment is not reformatory. I consider that a medieval thief who had his right hand chopped off was much more likely to turn over a new leaf than a convict who has had 10 years penal servitude. Godfrey Lushington detailed his objection to treatment within the prison with particular reference to young people: I am entirely against the imprisonment of children under 16: but I may say not for the reason usually given. I do not believe in actual contamination inside the prison. The younger prisoners are exercised apart from the elder ones, and there can be no real conversation between them. The actual mischief which comes from juveniles being in prison is, no doubt, what has been pointed out, namely, their possible after recognition by the older prisoners when they come out; but though this may lead to the ruin of certain individual prisoners, I am rather incredulous about its being carried out in a large scale. However, my objection to the imprisonment of young persons is that imprisonment is at once not severe enough, and too severe. It is not severe enough because boys at this age make light of a short period of imprisonment. Unlike their elders, they are accustomed to be ordered about; they do not mind discomfort and hardship. They have no anxiety for their family being impoverished, and no power of looking forward or realising the after effects of imprisonment. On the other hand, the punishment is, in its subsequent consequences, far too severe. The boys, when they grow up, carry through life the stigma of having been in prison, perhaps only for a freak of mischief; and they get to think of 44

themselves in association with crime and criminals, which is bad for them, in some cases depressing to them, in other cases stimulating them to criminal exploits. It followed that Lushington explicitly rejected the proposal being canvassed for a 'penal reformatory'. His forthright comments anticipated a developmental approach: The idea of a government reformatory, I think, is that boys might be subjected to a long course of penal treatment without the stigma of having been in prison. Now, in the frrst place, I believe that the stigma would attach to this penal reformatory just as much as it does now to an ordinary reformatory or even to a gaol. There is some stigma attaching now to reformatory boys; they are not allowed to enter the Navy at all and there is often difficulty found in disposing of them in any respectable calling or in any respectable service. Then, which is a stronger objection in my mind, prolonged penal treatment, I consider, is wholly unsuited for boys, thoroughly bad for them. What father would think of keeping his son in disgrace for two or three years? It seems to be a completely unnatural and inappropriate treatment. On the contrary, what is wanted is kindness and encouragement. Ordinary refonnatories profess not to be penal at all, but of course they are penal, they cannot help being so, and I think they are a great deal too much so. The isolation, the monotony, the complete dependence of life, and the want of all the free play of society in general these must be terribly penal to a young boy, and, in my mind, they constitute very serious drawbacks to the reformatory system. The chairman of the committee pressed Lushington further on the idea of a penal reformatory: We have had evidence to show, at least statements have been made to show, that the habitual criminal is created practically between the ages of 16 and 21 as a rule. If any establishment could be organised in the nature of a prison, but which was specially adapted for the teaching of industrial work; and at any rate for giving a great deal of agricultural work and land reclamation work to them, do not you think that such a prison might possibly succeed with a certain number of these young offenders who simply have turned out habitual offenders by the present prison system as it is? Lushington: That is not my view. I do not like prisons mUCh, but in some respects I prefer them to reformatories, that is to say, I would far rather send a lad of 17 or 18 to a comparatively brief term of imprisonment than I would shut him up in a reformatory between 18 and 21, which I believe is now what many of the reformatory managers are asking for. In my opinion, when a boy has been free up till 16, he is too old to bend himself

45

to the severe discipline of refonnatory life, for the frrst time imposed upon him; and it is in my judgment entirely wrong that lads from 18 to 21, who are really young men, should be treated like children, have everything ordered for them, and in case of disobedience should be liable to be flogged. Such treatment is not likely to turn them out good useful men, or make them inclined to do their duty to the community. I should say that proposals to this effect coming from refonnatory managers, ought to be very carefully scrutinised. As it is, reformatory managers notoriously keep the boys too long . . . It is, of course, to the interest of managers to keep their refonnatories full, and also to have the profit from the remunerative labour of the older boys . . . One member of the committee, Sir Algemon West, attempted to persuade Lushington that Redhill might be regarded as a scbool: West: Do you know yourself personally anything as to the conduct of the Redhill refonnatory? Lushington: I know a little about it; I read the evidence which bas been given. West: It is rather on the same principle as our large public schools. There are separate houses, and it is conducted very much the same as a large public school, and I certainly say the percentage of boys there who turn out well and lead honest lives is much greater than they would be at any of the public schools, because I think they said that they amount to 93 per cent of the boys that go there. I was tremendously impressed with Redhill. Lushington: I do not accept those statistics without qualification. West: No, I suppose not. Lushington: First of all it assumes that all the boys, because they were convicted boys, would turn out ill. That is, I think, a large assumption; and in the next place it assumes that the whole of that long detention has been necessary to secure their reformation. But I quite concur with you that, as far as I know, the system of conducting the Redhill reformatory is the right one, that is to say, that boys of different ages are separated and not more than a certain number of boys are collected under the same roof, so that there is some possibility of giving them personal attention. But when you compare them with our public schools, I recollect that schoolboys have four months holidays in the year, when they are with their fathers and mothers, and brothers and sisters. I think there is a very great difference there. West: I did not quite mean it was the same, but I meant the system was the 46

same of separate boarding houses, separate messing, and having their amusements separate in each house. In each house they have their football matches and so on? Lushington: Yes. (Gladstone, 1895, pp. 401-3) The thrust of Lushington's evidence was not accepted by the Gladstone committee. No recommendation was made by the committee to bar juveniles from prison. Instead the committee recommended that juveniles (the age, it considered, should be raised to include sixteen-year-olds) be kept quite separate and be subject to special refonnatory efforts. The committee did not share Lushington's disdain for a penal reformatory and recommended that the government should experiment with the idea. The committee believed that the new treatment approach should be located within the prison system, declaring: 'The penal reformatory should be a half-way house between the prison and the reformatory. ' There is some irony that the Gladstone committee's enthusiasm for a treatment initiative within the prison system was partly based upon a report of 1893 describing the Elmira refonnatory in New York state. The committee members appear to have been blissfully unaware that when they began their deliberations the Elmira refonnatory had just been subjected to an intensive inquiry concerning allegations of widespread brutality. It was the stated purposes, rather than the realities, of the Elmira regime which attracted international attention including that of the Gladstone committee. Elmira's purposes were consistent with the Declaration of Principles agreed upon at the National Congress on Penitentiaries and Reformatory Discipline in 1870. Zebulon Brockway, appointed as the first superintendent of Elmira in 1876, had a hand in drafting the Declaration which reflected an enthusiastic endorsement of the treatment approach to youth crime. Brockway's stated objective was to make Elmira 'as little like an ordinary prison and so much like a college or hospital'. But everyday life at Elmira was very different. Brockway was an early pioneer in penological linguistics. He referred to solitary confinement as 'rest cure cells' and to corporal punishment as 'positive extraneous assistance'. In 1894 the New York State Board of Charities found that: 'The charges and allegations against the general superintendent Z. R~ Brockway, of "cruel, brutal, excessive and unusual punishment of the inmates" are proven and most amply sustained by the evidence.' The evidence showed that Brockway '... whipped prisoners, punched inmates in the face, hit them over the head with the whip's handle, placed prisoners on bread and water, handcuffed them to their cell doors for up to 14 hours a day, and even suspended them from a rope and pulley in the bathroom' (Pisciotta, 1983, p. 624). Although political machinations led to Brockway's exoneration, in 1900, following a change of state governor,he was finally pressured into resigning. In 1896 the new head of the English prison system, Evelyn Ruggles-Brise, visited both Elmira and the Concord refonnatory in Massachusetts. RugglesBrise endorsed the general principle rather than the actual practice he observed in 47

the United States. He viewed the penal refonnatory as having its heritage less in the United States than in refonnatories such as Redhill. Cautiously, in 1900 the Prison Commission began to experiment at Bedford prison and, two years later, at the prison in the village of Borstal, near Rochester. In May 1895, a month after the Gladstone committee reported, Asquith set up a departmental committee under Sir Godfrey Lushington to examine reformatory and industrial schools. The committee visited over 200 institutions (including day industrial schools and working boys' homes) and took extensive evidence. The report and some of the dissenting memoranda, most of them signed by Lushington, provided an extraordinary challenge to orthodoxy. There was agreement that there was little difference between industrial schools and reformatories other than the age of the inmates: 'In a reformatory the inmates are older, and older means more criminal . . .' Furthermore the committee rejected the view (pressed on them by the Home Office Inspector, J. G. Legge, formerly of the Prison Commission, and secretary to the Gladstone committee) that young people in the institutions could be distinguished from ordinary children on physical and mental characteristics and disagreed that their educational needs differed. Indeed the report urged that '... education should embrace the entire nature and entire life of the child and, moreover, should regard the child not merely as an individual, but also as a member of a family and of society'. The report implied that, had the educational rationale been better understood thirty or forty years before, the extensive growth of incarcerative institutions might have been avoided. From its visits to institutions the committee contrasted constructive and repressive regimes, comparing '... the system of confidence, which seeks to allow liberty so far as it may be safe to do so, with a view to influencing the child and encouraging a sense of responsibility' and 'a system of securing obedience by watching and repression'. However, the core of the report questioned the wisdom of placing young people in institutions at all. The committee challenged the 'asylum theory' subscribed to by 'many magistrates' which assumed that 'sending the child away is best for the child'. Indeed, the asylum theory was soundly rejected: 'Nothing short of necessity can justify detention in one of these schools.' Any positive features of institutions had to be balanced against the evils, by no means so obvious, which are inherent in institutional life, notwithstanding the best intentions of those in charge of the institutions, the risk that the child may come out unchanged, or unable to earn its livelihood, or be 'returned to friends' or the possibility that the child may be made worse by the companions worse than itself, whom it fmds in the school; and the stigma, such as it is, of having been in an industrial school. Encouraged by reports of successful boarding out by Dr Barnardo, the committee recommended that more use be made of boarding out and specifically

48

recommended: 'Boarding out to be authorised as an alternative to commitment to an industrial school and in the case of a child under 10, to be adopted in preference and if not adopted the court to report the case to the Secretary of State.' The driving force behind the committee's radical challenge to orthodoxy was Godfrey Lushington. Lushington would have liked the committee to have gone further, but he was unable to carry all his colleagues with him. Lushington joined with others in three notes-of-dissent memoranda which further reflected a developmental approach. The case was put for boarding out as an alternative to institutions. The argument against institutions was also given greater emphasis. These difficulties 'are stated because they seldom get discussed'. Lushington and his dissenting colleagues stated: The object recognised is that by the end of the time the boy may be qualified to take his place in society, in other words, may have become like boys in general not merely honest and indisposed to commit crime, but so far as the case may admit, free both in his own mind and in the estimate of others from association with crime, and with a portion of the common qualities that go to make up a worthy and effective member of a family and subject of the state, such as self-respect, self-control, self-reliance, diligence, and again, regard for others, affectionateness, public spirit. It is admitted that anything like penal or humiliating treatment to continue after the space of three or four or more years would be inconsistent with such an object, besides being harsh and unjust. The work is manifestly a work of education in the broadest sense of that term. They viewed with distress the escalating increase in the number of institutions which then held 24,000 young people; their position was stated precisely: 'What is required is not expansion, but reduction.' Lushington also joined with others to argue that responsibility for the institutions should be transferred from the Home Office to the Department of Education with the aim 'to assimilate them more and more to ordinary schools, and to treat the inmates as children at other schools are treated, and not as a class apart'. Firmly opposed to Lushington were four members of the committee including Sir John Dorrington M P, who had served on the Gladstone committee and was a former chairman of Gloucester Quarter Sessions, and a clergyman who disassociated himself from the report in its entirety. The Dorrington faction argued against boarding out and took a favourable view of incarcerative institutions. The implications of the Gladstone and Lushington reports pointed in quite different directions. Gladstone stressed that treatment was achievable in the prison setting, especially with respect to young adults. Gladstone wished to retain the Home Office role, preferring a dual system with 'adult reformatories' run by the Prison Commission alongside reformatories inspected by the Home Office but locally managed. In contrast, Lushington pointed towards alternatives to incarceration and sought remedies to youth crime within the home and the school as much as from criminal justice. Gladstone sought to 49

legitimise the incarcerative institution, while Lushington sketched a bold alternative course, but one which was trodden only tentatively during the century to follow.

Twentieth-Century Drift and Muddle The nineteenth century opened with punishment as the single approach to young people and crime. By the 1850s the welfare idea was making a strong challenge and, as the century closed, the treatment approach had also arrived. The importance of the Gladstone and Lushington committees was to articulate the nature of the policy choices. Lushington warned against endowing institutions with either a welfare or a treatment ideology. The dismal history of industrial schools and refonnatories was testimony to the mistaken direction taken by welfare refonners. By rejecting the 'penal reformatory', Lushington warned that the treatment ideology ultimately provided yet another rationale for incarcerative institutions. A different approach was required if punishment was to be displaced. During the nineteenth century welfare refonners sought the removal of young people from the prison system by establishing new types of institution. To a considerable extent the new institutions replaced the prison system, but they had also incarcerated many young people whose involvement in crime was slight or non-existent. Events during the twentieth century confrrmed that welfare and treatment rationales all too easily lead to further incarceration.

1906-18 In 1906 a refoIming Liberal administration took office and quickly legislated on young people and crime. In 1907 the Probation of Offenders Act was enacted, followed the next year by the Children Act and the Prevention of Crime Act. The legislative activity mainly reflected the aims of welfare refonners. The Children Act barred under-fourteens from prison and provided that 14-15 year olds could only go to prison if the court issued an 'unruly' certificate. These measures were offset by a new short-term sentence of detention of periods of up to one month. These sentences were to be served in remand homes run by the police. The Act is best known for establishing juvenile courts, although in several cities juvenile courts had already been unofficially established. Under the legislation the juvenile court was to sit at different times from the regular court and, with some exceptions, had powers to hear all charges other than of murder. Despite urging by welfare reformers and the Gladstone committee, the Children Act did not increase the upper age limit of entrance to reformatories from sixteen to eighteen. However, provisions for 'borstal' institutions were included in the Prevention of Crime Act 1908. The sentence to borstal was to be for froIn one to three years (with powers of release after six months) for persons aged between sixteen and twenty, with powers for the age limit to be 50

increased to twenty-three by order. The new institution was intended for a person where '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 under such instruction and discipline as appears most conducive to his reformation and the repression of crime'. Herbert Gladstone was Home Secretary, and it is not surprising that he sought to implement one of the main proposals made by his committee thirteen years earlier. Lushington's warning against the penal reformatory was disregarded, and the treatment approach to the young adult was to be attempted within the prison system. However, a further thirteen years elapsed before any real effort was made to create a distinctive borstal regime. The Probation of Offenders Act endorsed the principle holding offenders under supervision within the community. The Act consolidated and extended arrangements which had developed informally and had been encouraged by legislation over the previous quarter of a century. The 1907 legislation encouraged the employment of probation officers, but this provision did not become obligatory for courts until 1925. The focus of early probation practice was on young people, and by 1920 four out of every five of the 10,000 people under probation supervision were under twenty-one. The increased use by the courts of probation supervision contributed to the dramatic drop in the number of young people held in reformatories and industrial schools during the frrst two decades of the century. At the turn of the century there were 24,000 young people held in these institutions, but by 1913 the numbers were down to 19,000 and by 1922 had fallen even more sharply to 8,000. About forty institutions were closed in the five or six years immediately after the First World War. Indeed, Sir Edward Troup, one of Lushington' successors, regretted that young people were being placed on probation who, in his opinion, would have been better sent to institutions (Troup, 1925, p. 140). Within the Children's Branch of the Home Office, which had been established in 1913, there was speculation that the decline in institutional numbers resulted from, in addition to the impact of probation orders, a reluctance by local authorities to meet the costs of institutions, the wider educational provision (the school leaving age was raised to fourteen in 1918) and a widespread scepticism about institutions in general.

1922-39 During the frrst two decades of the century little was done to steer borstals clear of the punishment approach. By the early 1920s public disquiet about brutality within borstals followed critical articles in segments of the media. The conditions were right for a different approach. The appointment of Alexander Paterson as a member of the Prison Commission ensured that the new direction would be one of welfare/treattnent and that the borstal system would be rescued. Paterson's famous dictum, that men could not be trained for freedom in 51

conditions of captivity, was an argument for liberalised prison and borstal regimes, not for alternatives to incarceration. As a former social worker in Bennondsey and a critic of the prison system, Paterson was an unlikely choice as prison commissioner. Brought in by Sir Maurice Waller, the new head of the prison system, Paterson's mandate was to give borstals the sort of distinctive regime which had been envisaged almost thirty years earlier by the Gladstone committee. As Roger Hood has noted, with Paterson's appointment an infusion of new ideas and personnel 'gradually increased the prestige of borstal, and further emphasised its detachment from penal roots' (Hood, 1965, p. 32).2 The attacks subsided as Paterson presented borstals in the image of the public school. Borstal officers came out of uniform and housemasters and matrons were recruited. In 1925 Paterson informed the readers of The Times, 'Borstals combine many of the features of a public school . . . with a long day's industrial training and strict discipline.' Paterson rejected brute force and mindless uniformity as training methods, believing the springs of action lie deeper than the laws of habit or the voice of the mentor are likely to reach ... the most difficult way of training a lad is to regard him as a living organism, having its secret of life and motive-power within. . . if an officer can, without losing his balance, control and common sense, treat his lads as he would treat working lads in a rough club outside, the great majority will rise to the suggestions and live up to the level on which they have been set. (Cited in Ruck, 1951, pp. 97-9) In January 1925 a Home Office committee was set up to examine the 'treatment' and 'protection' of young offenders up to the age of twenty-one. The chairman was Sir Thomas Malony, who had been Lord Chief Justice of Ireland until 1924, and the committee members included Sir Maurice Waller. Most of the sixty-five recommendations of the Malony committee, which reported in March 1927, pointed in a welfareltreatment direction. These included raising the age of criminal responsibility from seven to eight and the upper age limit of the juvenile court from sixteen to seventeen and, in the light of experience, perhaps to eighteen. The Malony report failed to capitalise on the general scepticism about institutions of the early 1920s. It had little to say about industrial schools and refonnatories other than recommending they be merged to become approved schools. The committee believed that the 1,700 young people sent to prison each year could be dealt with by either borstal or probation. Paterson urged the committee to recommend that borstal be used at an early stage in a young person's offending career. The report implied that there was a need for more than the three existing borstal institutions. Remand centres were recommended as another means of keeping young people out of prison. The committee decided that there was 'no sufficient reason for making any fundamental change in the legal principle underlying the juvenile court'. It urged, however, that 'the welfare of the child or young person should be the primary object of the

52

juvenile court'. The principle that young people were not only to be dealt with separately from adults but in a way that promoted their best interests was given expression in the Children and Y~ung Persons Act 1933.3 The ambivalence to the punishment approach by members of the Malony committee was apparent. The majority would not accept the view of three members that judicial corporal punishment for 14-16 year old boys should be ended. On the other hand, the committee rejected the proposal by the Magistrates' Association, which had been founded in 1921, that a new shortterm institutional sentence be available to the courts. The committee viewed such a sentence as being undesirable especially when it interfered with school attendance: 'The establishment of short-tenn schools without defmitive evidence as to the need for them and as to their success would in our opinion be open to grave risk.' The Malony committee preferred that investment be made in hostels and the idea of the detention centre, unapologetically punitive in approach, had to wait until 1948 for legislative endorsement. The Children and Young Persons Act of 1933 incorporated much of what the Malony committee had to say concerning persons up to the age of seventeen. The legislation did not, however, bar sixteen-year-olds from borstal as the committee had recommended. For Paterson a satisfactory outcome of the Malony report was that it paved the way for an expansion of the borstal system. By 1933 there were eight borstals, and two more were added in 1938. In 1936 the maximum age for a borstal sentence was raised from twenty to twenty-two (The maximum age was reduced to twenty by the Criminal Justice Act 1948). Borstals were the only part of the prison system to expand during the interwar years. The Gladstone committee's notion of a penal reformatory located within but somehow distinct from the rest of the prison system had finally come to fruition. In 1928 a borstal governor said the young men 'looked forward to a time when the traditions of Borstal would be at least equal to those of Eton and Harrow' (cited in Hood, 1965, pp. 53-4). A decade or so later the well-known magistrate John Watson was still insisting: 'First and foremost Borstal is not a prison. To describe a Borstal institution as a prison for older boys and girls is scarcely more accurate than to describe an approved school as a prison for children.' For good measure, Watson added: 'For the boy or girl with whom all else has failed Borstal is not the end; it is a new beginning' (Watson, 1942, pp. 158-61). During the 1930s, along with borstal sentences there was an increased use of other types of institution for young people. Approved-school numbers rose, as did the number of youngsters sentenced to detention in remand homes. 4 (Usage fell between 1910 and 1933 (from 360 to none) but by 1939 was at 200 and continued to climb steadily during the war, and in 1949 was 700. (See Radzinowicz, 1952, pp. 2-3.». By the mid-1930s there were signs of a

53

revitalised emphasis on punishment as the rationale for institutional usage. In particular the Magistrates' Association were at pains to keep alive their sentencing idea of 'young offenders detention', .which argued that detention was needed to occupy the ground on the tariff between probation and borstal. Further support came in March 1938 from the deparnnental committee on corporal punishment: If, as we recommend, corporal punishment is abolished, further consideration should be given to the question of strengthening the authority of the Juvenile Courts by conferring on them some additional powers to enable them to deal more effectively with those cases which do not call for any form of training or other remedial measures but require merely some form of punishment which will operate effectively as a deterrent. (Cadogan, 1938, p. 49) Ironically, supporters of the punishment approach were frustrated by the Conservative government of the day. Among the sources of their frustration was the appointment, by Neville Chamberlain in May 1937, of Sir Samuel Hoare as Home Secretary. Hoare was a great-great-grandson of the Samuel Hoare who was brother-in-law to both Elizabeth Fry and Sir Fowell Buxton, with whom, in 1816, he founded the Society for the Reformation of Prison Discipline. Hoare later wrote: 'The thought of carrying on this tradition made a very strong appeal to me' (Templewood, 1954, p. 224). Quickly he had decided upon far-reaching legislation: 'My advisors, seeing my interest in penal questions, entered heart and soul into the prospect of a comprehensive criminal justice bill that was long overdue.' In November he circulated his general proposals to the cabinet, and twelve months later the bill received its second reading. The main clauses included:

*

An end to the imprisonment of persons under sixteen, and restrictions on the imprisonment of persons aged between sixteen and twenty. It was proposed that powers of imprisonment for this age group be removed from the lower courts. These provisions were to take effect once new sentencing alternatives were in place. Remand centres were to be established. * Attendance centres (sixty hours over six months) for persons aged between twelve and twenty-one. * 'Howard Houses' for young persons aged between sixteen and twenty-one. The maximum length of stay was to be six months with a six-months' supervision. It was envisaged that residents would be closely supervised but would obtain work outside the house. * The abolition of judicial corporal punishment. This was the most controversial part of the bill, and it is by no means certain that Hoare would have got this section through the House of Commons. It is significant that the bill did not include short-term custodial sentences, thereby rejecting one of the main demands of the Magistrates' Association. 54

Hoare preferred to follow the MaloDy committee and to set up hostels in the community rather than punishment-oriented institutions. Hoare was in the mainstream of the liberal optimism which Paterson had brought to the topic of dealing with young people and crime. The essence of Hoare's bill was to remove young people from prisons to less harsh parts of the prison system. Hoare was also anxious to strengthen the role of the probation service, which by the mid-1930s was responsible for about one half of all children and young persons found guilty of indictable offences. The bill was abandoned in November 1939 because of wartime pressures on Parliament. By 1947, when Parliament returned to the matter, there was a new enthusiasm for the punishment approach. In that same year Alexander Paterson died, closing an era characterised by efforts to make incarceration a positive experience. Paterson was in the tradition of Gladstone rather than Lushington. He believed that the treatment approach could be congruent with custody. The logic of Lushington pointed in a different direction, towards thinking in terms of the context, the stigma, and the social and personal consequences of the incarcerative institution. By contrast, Paterson was a programme person, believing that with the right staff great things could be achieved. Paterson wished to loosen the penal connection but not to sever it. Despite his early work among the poor of London, Paterson showed little interest in developmental institutions. He failed to build upon one of the most promising features of the borstal system, namely the involvement of the several hundred voluntary after-care associates. These persons were used to support young people after their release from borstal. Had Paterson followed the logic of Lushington he might have advocated use of this resource as an alternative instead of as an appendage to borstal.

1945-60 The clamour for a punishment approach to young people and crime gathered steam during the Second World War. For example, in 1942 John Watson, widely regarded as a progressive juvenile court chairman, called for a new type of incarceration which provided a 'short sharp punishment to bring the offender to his senses and as a deterrent in future'. Watson elaborated his concept: What is needed is a small local establishment in which the discipline is of the sternest, the food of the plainest, where everything is done at the double', and where there is the maximum of hard work and the minimum of amusement: the kind of establishment a young offender would not wish to visit twice, and of which he would paint a vivid picture on his return home. (Watson, 1942, p. 143) In September 1944 the Home Secretary, Herbert Morrison, set up an Advisory Council on the Treatment of Offenders under the chairmanship of Mr 55

Justice Birkett with the Permanent Secretary of the Home Office as deputy chairman. The Council's first task was to review the provisions of the 1938 bill with a view to renewed legislation. The Magistrates' Association renewed their demands for a new short-term custodial sentence and the Advisory Council was persuaded to endorse this idea, which, in turn, was accepted by the Labour government and found a place in the new bill. The Home Secretary, Chuter Ede, told the House of Commons: 'There is a type of offender to whom it is necessary to give a short, but sharp reminder that he is getting into ways that will inevitably lead him into disaster... Their regime will consist of brisk discipline and hard work.' The contrast between 1938 and 1948 is unexpected. In 1938 a Conservative Home Secretary rejected the notion of the detention centre, pressed on him by the Cadogan committee and the Magistrates' Association. Ten years later a Labour Home Secretary accepted the detention centre idea, pressed on him by the Advisory Council and the Magistrates' Association. As in 1938, the essence of the legislation was to remove young people from prison but not from the prison system. Magistrates' courts were barred from sending anyone under seventeen to prison, and higher courts anyone under fifteen, and both were required to give reasons for imprisoning anyone under twenty-one. As recommended by the Malony committee twenty years earlier, remand centres were to be provided within the prison system. The 1948 Act gave less emphasis than Hoare's bill to non-institutional sanctions. The attendance centre sentence was reduced to a maximum of twelve hours because the detention centre was intended to deal with those requiring longer punishment. The proposed Howard Houses were dropped. Instead, the Home Office was empowered to give grants to voluntary bodies to set up probation hostels. 5 The punishment mood of the 1940s cast its shadow over the next decade. In particular, the process began to reintegrate borstals into the prison system. A special punishment borstal was established in 1950, and two years later a Home Office committee recommended harsher regimes throughout the borstal system. In 1961 a new sentencing framework essentially removed the distinctive sentencing features of borstal, reinforcing what had taken place at the level of penal practice. In 1960 a criminologist, Gordon Rose, complained about the absence of innovation within borstals, prompting a colleague to comment: 'While reformatory treatment for young offenders retains its penal connections there is probably little hope that it will make the strides which Dr. Rose suggests' (Hood, 1965, p. 160). However, Paterson's efforts to loosen the penal connections of borstals had been flflDly reversed. In 1960 the Ingleby committee rejected any merger of approved schools with other residential provision or the removal of responsibility for these institutions from the Home Office. The following year the minimum age for borstal sentencing was reduced from sixteen to fifteen. In large part this was due to lobbying by approved-school staff who wished to be more easily rid of their most troublesome youngsters. The 1950s closed with the Ingleby committee, which was set up in 1956

56

and in its report of 1960, endorsed the structure of the juvenile court. Indeed, the committee suggested that the juvenile court be strengthened with powers to sentence directly to borstal. While the Ingleby report accepted the status quo, it did propose raising the age of criminal responsibility from eight to twelve, thereby replacing criminal with welfare procedures. As Ingleby put it: 'A child under the age would no longer be liable to be prosecuted and convicted, but he could still commit offences; the law would prescribe a new way in which he should come before the court' (Ingleby, 1960, p. 36). In 1963, as a legislative compromise, the age of criminal responsibility was raised to ten. Although provided for by the Criminal Justice Act 1948, the frrst detention centre was not opened until 1952.6 The Magistrates' Association led the campaign for the extension of detention centres across the country. With the prison-building programme announced in the 1959 white paper Penal Practice in a Changing Society, there was renewed urgency for the construction of both detention and remand centres.

1964-70 The period since the Second World War has been dominated by the punishment approach, except for six years or so during the 1960s which were characterised by a brief renaissance of welfare/treatment optimism. There was disappointment with the Ingleby report and an expectation that a future Labour government would be more bold. Chaired by Lord Longford, a Labour Party review of criminal justice, reporting just a few months before the election of 1964, called for the replacement of the juvenile court with new procedures providing treatment 'without any stigma'. When Labour came to power in October 1964, work began on a white paper encompassing both juveniles and young adults. Published in 1965, The Child, The Family and the Young Offender provoked an immediate and hostile reaction. In particular the proposal to increase the age of criminal responsibility to sixteen and to replace juvenile c9urts with a system of family councils and family courts led to virulent opposition by the Magistrates' Association and, to a lesser extent, by some probation officers. There are several curious features to the 1965 white paper. In focusing on abolition of the juvenile court and setting up a special court for 16-20 year olds, the white paper left existing sanctions intact. Senior approved schools were to be incorporated into the prison system by merger with borstals. The welfare reformers of a century earlier would have been astounded by the fate of their reformatory ideal. Another curious aspect of the white paper was its studied disregard of significant proposals which had been published north of the border. The Kilbrandon committee, which had reported in April 1964, described the task of dealing with young people in trouble as being one of 'education for social living'. Kilbrandon rejected punishment measures as not being compatible with the nature of the educational process itself. Kilbrandon was in

57

the developmental tradition of Godfrey Lushington seventy years earlier: The principle underlying the present range of treatment measures is . . . primarily an educational one, in the sense that it is intended, wherever possible, not to supersede the natural beneficial influences of the home and the family, but wherever practicable to strengthen, support and supplement them in situations in which for whatever reason they have been weakened or have failed in their effect. (Kilbrandon, 1964, p. 20) At least one commentator has suggested that the Kilbrandon committee shrewdly presented their strategy in education rather than treatment/welfare terms (Bruce, 1982, p. 7). But over the next year or so Scottish social workers succeeded in recasting 'education for social living' in the ideology of professional social work. The Scottish legislation of 1968 entrusted social workers rather than education deparunents with the task of implementing the children's panels and other new procedures. Kilbrandon commented later that he did not regret the shift away from the educational emphasis: I do not regret that the Committee's idea of attaching the children's panels, and the supporting field organisation, to the education authorities was rejected in favour of the Social Work system as we know it. I do not mean that intellectually or fundamentally we were wrong, but rather that the organisational difficulties would have led to much opposition and frustration. (K.ilbrandon, 1976, p. Ix) The rejection of punishment in the Kilbrandon report was forthright: We do not believe that a retention of the present system, resting as it does on an attempt to retain the two existing concepts in harness, is susceptible of modification in any way which would seem likely to make any real impact on the problem' (p. 40). Punishment was regarded as being 'ultimately incompatible with the nature of the educational process itself (Kilbrandon, 1964, p. 20).7 The central weakness of the English white paper of 1965 compared with the Scottish proposals was the absence of a carefully argued rationale. The authors were in some difficulty, as there was little they could draw upon from the Ingleby report to match Kilbrandon in boldness. It must have been trying for Sir Charles Cunningham, Permanent Secretary of the Home Office, to be upstaged by his former colleagues at the Scottish Office. Such was the strength of the opposition that the white paper was quietly withdrawn, and by 1966 a new Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins, was encouraging his officials to begin thinking afresh. In August 1966 Derek Morell joined the Children's Department, and it was agreed that legislation on young offenders would be attended to. A way forward would be found that did not mimic Scotland or incite the full wrath of the Magistrates' Association. Morrell and

58

loan Cooper, recently appointed as Chief Inspector of the Children's Department, had Children in Trouble ready in early 1968. The second white paper, which did not deal with young adults, proposed that the juvenile court be retained. The recommendation was sufficient to keep the Magistrates' Association at bay, which, under moderate leadership, expressed more muted criticism than three years earlier. The white paper and the subsequent Children and Young Persons Act 1969 sought to blur the categories of juveniles before the court. s It was the government's intention sequentially to increase the age of criminal responsibility to fourteen. Care rather than criminal proceedings was to be preferred. Courts were no longer able to make an approved-school order but instead might consider making a care or supervision order to the local authority. It was at this point that the welfare approach found its clearest expression, with considerable discretionary powers entrusted to social workers regarding placements within the care order, regardless of the reason for the order having been made. This might include placement in a 'community home with education on the premises', formerly approved schools. A sequential strategy was also employed in the legislation with reference to the removal of all juveniles from the prison system. It was intended that detention centres and borstals for juveniles would be phased out as alternative resources became available, including those implied by 'Intermediate Treatment'.9 This was less a policy of decarceration than a reiteration of the traditional welfare abhorrence of the prison system. In fact the 1969 Act and the preceding discussions and debates failed to address directly the issue of institutions. The distinction was not between institutions and alternatives but between treatment/welfare (which might include institutions) and punishment (which included sanctions such as attendance centres). While supporters of the Act sought to end the use of the prison system, regarded as punitive, there was no objection to institutions tied to the care system. Indeed, the white paper stated: 'These proposals will not diminish the need for residential facilities. In particular, the retention of the seventeenth birthday as the upper age limit for the juvenile courts means that all the existing approved schools, including the senior schools, will probably be required for the accommodation of children and young persons in care.' Furthermore, plans had been under way since 1967 to establish two or three youth treatment centres to be administered by central government. These facilities were to be 'therapeutic communities', and the admission of children in care was to be made not by courts but by social workers. The welfare and treatment reformers of the late 1960s were retreading the path of Mary Carpenter and Mathew Davenport. Hill of 120 years before. It was not all institutions, but the prison system's institutions, which were bad for young people. The way forward lay in improved management, staff recruitment and training, and more sophisticated institutional treatment methods. The notion of the therapeutic community, which a decade earlier received little support in England, now took hold in the planning of the new-look

59

institutions, serVing also as a rationale for locking up young people and masking realities of institutional life. For example, the general view emerging from a conference of professionals held in 1968 was that much longer periods in institutions were required than the average stay of about eighteen months (Sparks and Hood, 1968, p. 10). The director of the frrst youth treatment centre declared: 'Treatment is the total living situation, all the waking hours of the young person and particularly those immediately before he goes to sleep, when he is warm, comfortable and surrounded by those adults with whom he has warm and secure relationships' (Edwards, 1976, p. 9). Considerable optimism was expressed by proponents of the treatment idea. Given well-trained staff the technology was available to bring about the required changes in young people. It was not until the early seventies that this euphoria was dampened by a close reading of the evaluative research and by concerns as to legal protection of young people from the excesses of treatment and welfare. The movement of the 1960s was one of ideas more than practice. Treatment and welfare were heralded as the ways forward, but the apparatus was never in place for these themes to be implemented fully. Despite declarations that a new dawn was imminent, the punishment approach was far from dormant. In 1964 the first of several secure units was opened which, after 1969, were the responsibility of departments of social services. IO By the end of the decade the national detention centre network was in place, coinciding with the new statute which promised that detention centre sentences for juveniles be phased out. But it was the ideas and attitudes of the sixties, culminating in the 1969 Act, rather than any real shift in practice on which the campaign for counter-reform was to be mounted.

Punishment rules The contours of the campaign to strengthen further the sentencing powers of the courts can most clearly be discerned with respect to juvenile offenders. Commencing in the early 1970s, howls of protest erupted from the Magistrates' Association. At the Association's annual meeting in October 1972, a resolution calling for a review of the Act was agreed upon. The proposer, Mrs Rose of Hertfordshire, declared: 'The youngsters were learning to laugh at, and to flaunt authority and to treat the law with contempt, and this was not helping them to take their place in society.' Also passed without dissent was a resolution that priority be given for more detention centres in the prison-building programme. The chairman of the Juvenile Courts Committee, Mr R. C. Stranger, argued that detention centres 'were intended to halt antisocial behaviour through early recognition and adequate treatment before the offender became institutionalised. They ought to be complementary to intermediate treatment, not an alternative.' Seconding the resolution, Lady Bunnan deplored the absence of detention centre vacancies which she claimed had occurred on at least 2,000 occasions the

60

previous year. Again imagery of the taunting youngster was invoked: 'When a young thug came into court with a grin on his face it was very salutary that he should leave that court immediately in a police van for an institution where he would have a spell of discipline.' Another resolution, carried on a majority of voices, called for more borstals and for magistrates to be able to sentence directly without committal to the Crown Court. In January 1973 the Magistrates' Association convened a national conference on the Act, attended by 350 chairmen and deputy chairmen of juvenile benches and representatives from social services, probation and other organisations. Sir Keith Joseph, then Secretary of State for Social Services, told the conference: 'You have many, many very legitimate worries and complaints. Please don't spoil your admirable record of public service by, in any part of the country, making it more difficult for the social services departments to consult with you, to explain to you, and to co-ordinate with you, when they seek to do so.' Joseph pointed out that detention centres and borstals remained available for juveniles and that there were plans for a substantial increase in secure places at the local level. Joseph refused to repeal the Act but, behind the scenes, the campaign to strengthen the powers of the courts was being carried forward. In December 1973 the Expenditure Committee of the House of Commons decided to examine the workings of the Act. The Committee's inquiry was delayed as Parliament was dissolved for the February election of 1974 which brought Labour back to power. The Conservative manifesto promised to review and amend the 1969 Act. A glimpse of attitudes within the Labour Government is provided by Barbara Castle, who noted in her diary that some senior members of the cabinet were by no means unsympathetic to the Conservative position. Describing the joint meeting between the cabinet and the National Executive Committee on the manifesto she writes: Things sobered up as we turned to the section on the rights of the individual and my never very donnant affection for Roy [Jenkins] lit up again as I heard him say, 'I am against entering into a law and order auction'. . . Jim [Callaghan] came out in typical colours: 'I agree, but I am rather in favour of dealing with teenage hooliganism' adding that he greatly admired the section on this in the Tory Manifesto and wished he had anything as good as this in ours. Dennis [Healey]: 'Hear, Hear.' (Castle, 1980, pp. 181-2) In July the Expenditure Committee resumed work only to be delayed again by a second dissolution of Parliament. In the same month the legal affairs correspondent of The Titnes claimed there was 'virtually a juvenile crime wave' and recited horror stories arising from the inadequate powers of the juvenile courts. His book ended: 'Our society must reconcile itself to the idea that it is going to lock up more children in the future than in the recent past. We believe this is the only possible way to help deal with the growing problem of juvenile crime and to help the juvenile criminals themselves' (Berlins and Wansell, 1974, p. 124). The pressure was maintained during the period the committee 61

took evidence. Early in 1975 a deputation from the Magistrates' Association met with the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Social Services. At this meeting the Magistrates' Association emphasised the importance it attached to maintaining both junior and senior detention centres: 'oUr leaders came away feeling that they had had a full and fair - and indeed sympathetic - hearing. Beyond doubt, measures are on the way to make substantial improvements in the working of the Act, both to safeguard society and to deal more effectively with the tough minority of persistent juvenile offenders.' In evidence to the committee, the Magistrates' Association referred to 'a minority of tough sophisticated young criminals ... [who] ... prey on the community, at will, even after the courts have placed them in care. They deride the powerlessness of the courts to do anything effective.' Sir William Addison talked of 'the hard core of young offenders - that is to say, the offenders in the youngest age group - that is now resulting in the very serious increase in the incidence of crime in the 15 to 17 year old groups.' Mr R. C. Stranger added: 'The hard core of sophisticated young criminals hitherto considered and spoken of as small in number but which one fears [is] increasing' (Expenditure Committee, Vol. 2, 1975, pp. 128-31). The Magistrates' Association's case for institutions was based largely on the 'hard-core' notion: 'The essential problem is [therefore] to provide the courts with greater powers and facilities where they are clearly needed for persistent young offenders.' Other groups, in evidence to the Committee, side-stepped the question of institutions. Only NACRO (National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders) specifically urged the phasing out of detention centres and borstals. The committee's report, published in July 1975, represented a striking achievement for the Magistrates' Association. The recommendations largely reflected the ambiguity and lack of clearly defined objectives which characterised much of the evidence. In their final paragraph the committee stated: 'We strongly recommend, within the framework of the AC4 a major shift of emphasis away from custodial and punitive techniques and towards intennediate schemes, supervision, and a much greater use of nonresidential care, especially fostering' (Expenditure Committee, Vol. 1, 1975, p. xlix). But the committee blunted the force of this language by recommending that secure accommodation at the local level be increased, that courts be enabled to impose secure care orders, and that the minimum length of sentences to detention centres be reduced to two days. The Expenditure Committee rejected NACRO's argument that detention centres and borstals be replaced by the 200 beds planned for youth treatment centres, commenting: 'A considerable change in the attitude of magistrates, and of society as a whole, to the containment of delinquent youngsters would be necessary before such a total number of secure places could suffice' (Expenditure Committee, Vol. 1, 1975, p. xIx). At the annual meeting of the Magistrates' Association in October 1975, reference was made to the achievements 'made in the face of government activity'. The meeting went on to carry unanimously a further broadside on the Act as an attempt to gain government support for the Expenditure Committee's recommendations. One speaker offered the view that 'total breakdown could not 62

be far away'. However, in May 1976, the Government rejected both secure care orders and shorter detention centre orders and, instead, encouraged consultative arrangements between the various parties at the local level. The Magistrates' Association found the Government's response to be 'disappointing and inadequate in failing to give juvenile courts the powers they needed'. It was not until 1977 that a strategy of decarceration was spelled out. After considering evidence on the Massachusetts experience, a NACRO committee, under Peter Jay, suggested that a total of 400 secure places were required for juveniles in England and Wales and recommended that no other institutional provision be made (Jay, 1977, pp. 49-54). Two years later a similar stance was taken to the situation in Northern Ireland by the Black committee, which recommended that secure capacity be limited to 120 places and that other institutions be closed (Black, 1979, pp. 48-9). Practice and policy with respect to young adults and crime remained frrmly tied to the prison system. The legislation of 1969 did not deal with young adults, and in 1970 the Advisory Council on the Penal System was asked to undertake a major review. Four years later, under Sir Kenneth Younger, the committee called for action 'to effect a major shift of emphasis from treatment in custody to the control support and care of the offender in the community' (Younger, 1974, p. v). In particular, Younger recommended a control and supervision order which would give the probation service enhanced discretionary powers over young adults in the community. Many probation officers were unhappy about becoming 'screws on wheels', and some academic commentators were concerned about the considerable discretionary decision-making left to both the prison and probation authorities and regretted Younger's apparent indifference to the emerging justice model. The consequence of these and other objections to Younger was drift and inertia, which encouraged the Home Office to side-step Younger's central issue, namely shifting resources from custody to supporting young adults in the community. It is worth noting that both the Younger and Ingleby committees deliberated for four years, in contrast to the one year taken by the equally thorough work of the Gladstone and Lushington committees in the 1890s. It seems likely that in the case of the Younger committee some of the impetus for action was lost by the delay in producing the report. A further four years elapsed before the Labour government produced a green paper in December 1978, but this document, an initiative taken within the prison system, was entirely devoted to streamlining custodial arrangements. After the Conservative election victory, events moved rapidly. The Conservative manifesto of 1979 had promised to strengthen sentencing powers with respect to juveniles and young adults and, fifteen months later, the Government published a white paper, Young Offenders.!! The warm reception given it by the Magistrates' Association was hardly surprising, as the white paper met most of its demands of the previous fifteen years. The proposals formed the basis of the Criminal Justice Act 1982, which took effect in 1983. Ivan Lawrence QC, MP welcomed the legislation: 'One of the most im~rtantsteps in the bill which I strongly welcome is the reflection

63

of public opinion which says that we are fed up with letting sentences be decided by social workers rather than the courts . . . encouraged by wet socialist intellectuals from all over the place.' The Criminal Justice Act 1982 performed the coup de grace for borstals. Sentences of youth custody, fixed in length by the courts, replaced borstal and prison sentences for persons aged under twenty-one. Borstal staff were returned to uniform after having been in civilian clothes for sixty years. The 'penal reformatory' experiment, launched by the Gladstone committee in 1895, was over. The white paper had promised to retain 'the best of borstal' but youth custody is much closer in concept to the Parkhurst of the 1840s than to the innovative years between the wars. The overt confirmation of the punishment approach was even more apparent with the new focus on detention centres. In 1970 the Advisory Council on the Penal System had recommended that loss of liberty be the only punitive element to detention centres. Steps were taken during the 1970s to humanize the regimes, but these ended at the Conservative Party annual conference of 1979. William Whitelaw, then Home Secretary, announced that an experimental tougher regime in two centres would be evaluated. The results of the study by prison system psychologists was finally published in the early summer of 1984. No discernible difference was found in outcome between the experimental and the other detention centres which were studied. Despite the study's findings Leon Brittan, the new Home Secretary, announced that aspects of the 'tougher regime' (increased emphasis on parades and inspections, demanding work, fewer privileges and a brisker tempo) would be extended to all detention centres. A vignette of the detention centre at Send provides a picture of how 14-16 year olds are received from the court: The boy is hurried from the [police] car into the building, moving very fast. An officer stands very close to him and shouts commands.The officers behave like stereotyped sergeant majors because they are convinced of the value of setting the tone of the place at the start. They believe that a strict reception and induction procedure is an essential control mechanism for an institution that has a high turnover of trainees. There is rarely personal animosity towards a particular trainee. Instead officers tend to have a somewhat jaundiced view of the whole class. (Home Office, 1984a, p. 82) By the mid-1980s the punishment approach was supreme. The only deliberately punitive institutions within the prison system were exclusively for its youngest inmates. 12

NOTES 1. A useful appraisal of the work of Mary Carpenter can be found in Leon Radzinowicz and Roger Hood (1986, pp 161-171). 2. On the ideas and achievements of Alexander Paterson see also Victor Bailey (1987, esp. 193-226). Bailey emphasizes the intellectual impact of 'new liberals' such as T.H.Green and Arnold Toynbee upon Paterson and other criminal policy reformers of his generation. (ibid., pp. 2-3). On the wide ranging influence of the

64

'new liberals' on criminal justice at the turn of the century, see Garland (1985) and Rutherford (1988). 3. Section 44 of The Children and Young Persons Act 1933 states: 'Every court in dealing with a child or young offender who is brought before it, either as an offender or otherwise, shall have regard to the welfare of the child or young person...' 4. Usage fell between 1910 and 1933 (from 360 to none) but by 1939 was at 200 and continued to climb steadily during the war, and in 1949 was at 700. (See Radzinowicz, 1952, pp. 2-3). 5. Writing in 1954, Hoare had little to say about the differences between his bill and the Criminal Justice Act of 1948, describing them as 'almost identical'. He made no mention of Howard Houses and he curiously implied that detention centres originated in his bill. See, Templewood (1954). 6. Under the Criminal Justice Act 1948 powers to sentence juveniles to periods of up to one month in a remand home were to be removed as detention centres became available. 7. For an insider's view of the political process associated with these radical changes in Scotland see D.J. Cowperthwaite (1988). David Cowperthwaite was the senior official responsible for the legislation and he later wrote, in a letter to the Permanent Secretary of State at the Scottish Office: 'But my continuing sense of surprise relates to something more intangible which I doubt whether I have adequately expressed - that a novel and complex idea should have survived into fruition and general acceptance despite the cumbersome processes (involving Parliament, Ministers, the civil service, local government and the courts) by which we are governed, particularly in a field traditionally called criminal justice in which so many strong and conflicting ideas are held. It may be a sign of ageing or of bitter experience, but I feel that, if I were today to be in a position of ultimate official adviser to Ministers and asked by them whether they should seek to implement a change of so radical and involved a nature, my inclination would be to say 'it may be a good idea, but it's just not on.' My admiration for the civil servants in Social Work Services Group and their supporting legal advisers who brought the ship home has been considerably increased.' (Cited in ibid, 77). 8. The legislation was steered through the House of Commons by James Callaghan, who had become Home Secretary in November 1967. Speaking at a conference in 1968 he spoke of young people 'going through the difficult phase of obsolescence.' 9. On the origins and development of the notion of 'Intermediate Treatment' see Bottoms et al (1990, esp. pp. 2-6). 10. By 1981 there were 450 secure places (including the two youth treatment centres). In 1992 there were 311 secure places under the control of local authorities (with ~ further places about to be opened) and 70 places at the two youth treatment centres run by the Department of Health. The government's intention was to construct a further 30-35 places. In 1991 the average daily cost per child held in a secure unit was estimated to be about £155. See Home Office (1991, para 26), and generally NACRO (1991c). 11. The main political input came from Leon Brittan, then Minister of State at the Home Office, and Roger Sims (formerly on the Council of the Magistrates' Association), Parliamentary Private Secretary to William Whitelaw, the Home Secretary. 12. These sentences were written in the summer of 1984. No-one at that time predicted that within five years detention centres would disappear or, more broadly, that the prevailing ethos of dealing with young people in trouble would so dramatically change.

65

CHAPTER FOUR

A Quantum Leap In terms of ideology, the question of correctional reform is not whether we can break out of previous definitions to more up-to-date definitions. It is whether we can effectively break the vicious circle of defmitions calling for institutional arrangements which, in turn, revalidate the definitions; and build into new definitions, since they will come, enough categories that show the social and psychological strengths and lifespan of those defmed as delinquent or criminal. Jerome Miller, 1973, p. 6 A clue to your philosophy is your blithe description of delinquents as 'kids'. Many of the 'kids' I see every day in juvenile court are sexually precocious, street wise and sadistic. You may think they can be absorbed into decent society without discipline but I don't. And if I were you I wouldn't be too hard on the judge who sent a 'kid' to Camp Hill for knocking over tombstones. Any 'kid' who would destroy a gravemarker is capable of pushing his mother off a ninety foot cliff. Letter from a juvenile court judge to Dr Jerome Miller, Commissioner of the Office of Children and Youth, Pennsylvania, 1975

*

*

*

In the early months of 1972 the state of Massachusetts drew widespread attention with the abrupt closure of its 'training schools', incarcerative institutions holding young offenders. Jerry Miller, as head of the Department of Youth Services, pursued a 'deep end' strategy in seeking juvenile justice reform by greatly reducing institutional capacity prior to setting up community-based alternatives. Miller was convinced that the alternative and more conventional 'shallow end' strategy, of first developing alternatives and later phasing out institutions, would widen the net, with institutions remaining alongside new community-based programmes. In 1969 facilities for juvenile offenders in Massachusetts were not very different from those existing today in much of the United States and western Europe. Most young people on remand for the courts were held in secure detention centres, and those who had been sentenced were located in rurally isolated institutions known as training schools, some of which dated from the 1840s, including the Lyman school which was favourably commented upon by Mary Carpenter in 1853. Despite pretensions that these institutions provided treatment, they had in recent years become severely discredited.

66

The political conditions for change in Massachusetts were generally favourable. Throughout the 1960s the Division for Youth Services had been subjected to fierce criticism. State and federal inquiries had reported widescale abuses and recommended major changes. These demands for reform were supported by many sections of the media, in particular the influential Boston Globe. In January 1969 Francis Sargent, a liberal Republican, became governor and within two months had secured the resignation of the long-term head of the Division for Youth Services. In August, legislation which had been stalled in previous years was enacted, creating a new organisational structure with considerable authority and discretionary powers invested in the commissioner. Sargent appointed a selection committee to undertake a nationwide search for a commissioner. After considering some fifty applicants, the committee recommended that the governor appoint Dr Jerome Miller. Miller became the [lfst commissioner of the newly constituted Department of Youth Services in October 1969. Jerry Miller was born and raised in Fergus Falls, a rural community in north-eastern Minnesota. At the age of eighteen he entered Maryknoll Seminary and for the next five years underwent training for the priesthood. On leaving the order, where he gained a master's degree in social work, he was drafted into the United States Air Force and for ten years was an officer social worker dealing mainly with the children of air force personnel. During five years in England, based at Lakenheath, he was impressed by Maxwell Jones's pioneering work on the therapeutic community and with residential settings created by George Lyward and Ronald Laing. 1 On leaving the air force in 1968, he returned to the United States and, after a very brief spell with the Department of Youth Services in l\1aryland, he joined the Faculty of Social Work at Ohio State University. Miller has described the institutions as he found them on arrival in Massachusetts: The stress was on security and discipline. In fact the superintendent of one facility told me that it was his job to break kids down; that's how you change people - you break them down to nothing. They were really highly supervised: most of the doors were locked when the kids went in and out, they were watched with staff who followed them around with two-way radios. For instance, at Shirley, whenever they marched from cottage to cottage, you would see a staff person, usually in a very large car, driving behind all these kids as they walked in a row. 2 And at the Lancaster girls' training school Miller found that the girls wore long house dresses, or smocks that went almost to the floor. They were allowed no make-up, they were only allowed one bath a week, they had to sit in silence, and the only game allowed was Jacks ... they'd sit

67

around and bounce little balls. Every girl was given a vaginal exam as a routine, which was just barbaric. It was just a horrific, repressive and awful place. A former inmate of Shirley Industrial School, Michael Radan, subsequently the director of a hostel for young offenders, has described the consequences of absconding: If you tried to escape they usually had what they called goon squads. Staff members would go off and they would pick up usually the biggest and brawniest kids - and in most cases they were black - give them bats, put them in the back of the jeep, and they went looking for you. If they found you, you got a good whipping, and then brought back into discipline. I had seen kids come back with very severely bruised . . . broken bones; and that was a time for other inmates to really beat the hell out of you. During his first year as commissioner, Miller's principal goal was to humanise the training schools and to incorporate methods from the notion of the therapeutic community. He was sharply critical of existing arrangements, believing it was necessary to rebuke publicly his own department and, by implication, many of its personnel. Miller capitalized upon the groundswell for reform across the state, and actively encouraged the media to dramatically portray the institutions as destructive places. He regularly took part in television and radio shows and spoke at meetings throughout the state. On some of these occasions he brought along young people who persuasively echoed his dismay at the existing institutional conditions. Miller's purpose was also to change the widely held impression that young people involved in crime are of vicious and alanning appearance. He later commented: I think we found many natural allies, surprisingly perhaps from the more conservative end of the spectrum. I knew when the chips were down in Massachusetts, particularly during a couple of critical periods, that I could depend much better on the people toward the conservative end of the spectrum such as Lions Clubs, Kywanis and Rotary, than I could on my more natural liberal allies. Miller gained early support from the leadership of the state legislature, and although he had a number of persistent political enemies he sometimes encouraged such opposition to polarise issues so as to encourage support from persons who had been previously undecided. In what became a moral crusade for children in trouble, he had the backing of a variety of groups, from the League of Women Voters to the Lifers' Group at Walpole Prison. These and other nonprofessional groups were consistently more supportive to Miller than social workers and persons associated with established prison refonn groups, many of whom remained uncertain of the implications for them. Miller and his colleagues set about the uphill task of attempting to make

68

the institutions into decent places. His -first obstacle was to get institutional staff even to acknowledge what was going on. He has described the difficulties: I confronted the superintendent and assistant superintendent about the conditions in the facility and said that I wanted them to do away with the silence rule immediately, and to get a television and books in there at least so there would be something going on. 1 was told there was no silence rule; the boys just didn't wish to talk. It took us the better part of four meetings with the superintendent to establish that in fact there was a silence rule in that cottage, and we established it by accident. They were concerned 1 was going to close the cottage, which 1 eventually did, and in order to justify it after our first meeting they circulated a pseudosociological questionnaire to all the boys: 'I like Cottage 9 because...' with three choices. One of the questions on the second page was: 'I think the silence rule is a good idea. r Then I had them, because the administration had admitted in their own writing that there was a silence rule. Attempts were made to train personnel in treatment techniques and to provide them with a broader understanding of the needs of young people. These efforts included sessions in group techniques and the therapeutic community. Among the training consultants at one session was Maxwell Jones, whom Miller had met some years before in Britain. Miller became increasingly aware of the difficulties in improving the quality of personnel and disillusioned about the prospect for sustained institutional change. He later described an occasion when Maxwell Jones was brought into one of the institutions: We're in the midst of these sharing therapeutic group encounters where all the staff and all the youngsters are having this large Maxwell Jones type meeting, and in the midst of it the superintendent calls a line-up, and all the boys had to leave and go outside and stand in a line and be counted. Of course, they responded then by one of them running away and stealing a staff person's car during the conference, resulting in all sorts of people running in all directions to chase him. I can recall Maxwell Jones, as he left, pulling me aside and saying perhaps with this group his ideas might not work, and what he meant by the group were not the boys but the staff. He was simply not used to that kind of community meeting. A number of considerations began to convince Miller that more radical measures might have to be taken. The institutional staff remained hostile to the reform initiatives, and there were even occasions when some staff attempted to discredit what Miller was doing by encouraging runaways. Furthermore, it required enormous effort and endurance to maintain the momentum for change, and Miller became increasingly struck by the tendency of institutions to slide back to a deadening routine. Miller was aware that institutions 'cannot sustain their decency over an extended period of time. They tend ultimately to move toward repression and violence at worst, and apathy at best. And apathy is

69

ultimately violence.' Miller also recognised the ease with which a future commissioner would be able to undo any progress, and that humanization of the institutions, at best, could provide little more than short-term relief. Finally, Miller and his colleagues became impressed with the possibilities of extending the group therapy techniques into community settings far removed . from the context of the incarcerative institution. The process of youth decarceration in Massachusetts did not emerge from a preconceived plan but was the culmination of a series of events or, to use Miller's word, 'accidents'. The first institution to be closed was the maximumsecurity facility located at Bridgewater Correctional Institution, the state facility for the criminally insane, jointly administered by the departments of corrections and mental health and the setting for the celebrated Fred Wiseman documentary film Titicut Follies. 3 Miller was appalled by the conditions at this eightybed unit, designated the Institute for Juvenile Guidance. On one occasion he visited the institution with Jessie Sargent, wife of the state governor. Miller takes up the story: It was common to see kids there spread-eagled, handcuffed to their beds and that sort of thing, and staff always justified it by saying these were the worst of the worst, the most difficult. As we went into the main building there were no youngsters . . . it was quite silent, and there was a smell of urine, and water around on the floors. It was a foul old institution. And as we walked into the yard there was a commotion in the middle of the yard and suddenly a number of kids ran for the walls, in different directions, staff were running and pulling them down . . . and handcuffing them, and beating and swearing at them. Then the kids began to punch out windows and we had the beginnings of a little riot. Then the staff individually went in and got kids and put them in their cells and they were very roughly handled and I remember Mrs Sargent being very taken aback at that. She went around room to room, or cell to cell, talking to the youngsters through the little holes. As we were walking out she said to me, 'how can these kids get any better working with people like this', meaning the staff. I would guess for the governor's wife, it was one of the more exciting evenings of her career, and I thought she's probably going to whisper something in the governor's ear about this. So we decided this was our opportunity to close it, and we transferred maybe a dozen or fifteen to another institution, and we paroled the rest. At that time, probably it was my own naivety about government, but I don't recall ever asking the governor. .. I don't even think I told him. The institution at Bridgewater was closed in October 1970. By frrst closing the most secure of the system's institutions, holding supposedly the most difficult young people, Miller had begun the process of decarceration at the deep end. During his early months in office Miller was able to make overall

70

reductions in the training school populations by reducing the length of stay. As commissioner he had authority to parole young people and to transfer them to alternative programmes. He did not have the authority actually to close the institutions or to dismiss personnel. Miller's own account illustrates his opportunisti~ tactics: I sent out a memo really to protect myself politically, in which I said, or I thought I said, every youngster will have to do at least three months with us before he can be considered for return. My own ambivalence about the memo must have come through, or the staff wishing to see me in a certain way or perhaps even wishing to set me up a bit, interpreted the memo to mean no youngster may do more than three months, that they have to be sent home within three months. I got a call from a judge one day, not a terribly friendly judge, who was very upset about a youngster that had been sent home and he said he'd only been there a matter of three or four weeks; and I said well that's impossible, I sent out a memo saying he had to stay there, and as I recall the amount of time was three months, it may have been six, but I think it was three months. And I called the institution to check and he said, 'Oh sure, we're going along with your memo, everybody has to be sent home within three months of their commitment.' And 10 and behold they'd been sending all these kids home early ... by misrnke really. Well then I thought about it, and I said my gosh, I've only gotten one call from one judge who's not friendly anyway ... and they'd been going home . .. by the dozens and nobody seems upset, and nothing's happening. So I said let's keep our mouths shut, and I didn't call the judge back or anything, and I just didn't say anything about it, and the population just fell precipitously because they were sending everybody home, and no one was making a to-do about it. It was our chance because we were moving in that direction anyway, but that's how we lowered that population so dramatically - by accident. Miller displayed considerable ingenuity in side-stepping bureaucratic obstacles. For example, although he was not able to dismiss training school superintendents, he was authorised to grant leaves of absence. By persuading the superintendent of Shirley Industrial School to take sick leave the de facto control of the school was placed with one of his key aides, Paul de Muro, who once taught medieval English literature at Ohio State University, and who had been appointed to the one vacant staff position, as janitor to the institution. By speeding up the parole processes de Muro attempted during 1971 to phase out the Shirley school population, but his efforts were continually thwarted by staff resistance. By the end of the year Miller decided that gradual decarceration was far from inevitable: I felt that if we could show that we could deal with the most 'dangerous' kids in the department, supposedly, and I say that in quotes because they really weren't but they were defined that way ... If we could deal with 71

them in other ways than this kind of locked institution . . . well then one automatically would deal decently - hopefully - with simple burglars or runaways or whatever. We really thought that we were quite expendable at that time, that the idea the staff had was that 'commissioners come and go but we'll be here forever, and let's just ride him out, let's go through whatever routine we have to to convince him that we've changed our ways, but he'll soon leave and then we can go back to business as usual', so that we decided to pretend we were expendable, and that we would be replaced by Heinrich Himmler and the SS. Given that, how do you design a system that would make it difficult for Heinrich to make the system brutal? Well the first thing you do is to close the institutions and scatter the youngsters in all directions to various programmes. Miller became confident that it would be politically feasible abruptly to transfer the young people remaining in the training schools to alternative programmes. The main effort to transfer young people from the training schools took place in January 1972, through a novel and effective device. About a hundred young people (including some girls from the Lancaster institution) participated in a one-month residential conference on deinstitutionalisation held on the campus of the University of Massachusetts at Amberst in the western part of the state. Joint student/youth groups had the goal of developing alternative placement plans for the young people so that it would not be necessary for them to return to the training schools. The 'conference' was run in a rather infonnal manner, with one research team commenting: 'Advocates and "their kids" did their own thing and for the most part this appeared to work out rather well' (Coates, Miller and Ohlin, 1973). The conference was timed to coincide with university holidays, and it also occurred at a time when the state legislature was not in session. The day before the conference one of Miller's assistants briefed a senior aide of the governor as to what had been planned, and it was arranged that the governor should visit Amherst to participate in part of the proceedings. The final training school to be closed was the Lancaster School for Girls, abandoned in 1975. The fact that the institution for girls was the most difficult to close reflected both the department's neglect of the need to develop alternative placements for girls and strong resistance to efforts to phase out the institution. Instead of incarcerative institutions, Miller and his colleagues sought access to a \vide variety of programmes which would meet the diverse needs of young people. He was convinced that most of these programmes should be purchased from community groups and private non-profit agencies rather than being directly provided by the deparunent. Traditional welfare agencies such as the New England Home for Little Wanderers were among the new vendors, as were projects run by ex-prisoners and an array of treatment programmes. For the most part, the programmes did not exist prior to the removal of the young people from the institutions. The new alternatives to incarceration sprang up in a necessarily haphazard and uneven fashion, and some observers have described those tinles as being chaotic. 72

During the final months of Miller's period as commissioner severe strains were placed on the state's bureaucratic processes. The fundamental problem was that the department was still paying the salaries of institutional staff and for the upkeep of empty buildings in addition to paying the increasing number of private age~cies which provided the new programmes. By forcing the bureaucracy to adapt painfully to the new situation, Miller overcame one of the most formidable obstacles to decarceration. In January 1973, Miller left Massachusetts to become director of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, where he remained as director until August 1974. Joe Leavey, Miller's deputy, became acting commissioner. Leavey was from south Boston and, prior to joining Youth Services, he had been with the Department of Welfare. Miller was convinced that Leavey would be in a better position to bring about the needed bureaucratic adaptations and to reach agreement with the various interest groups, such as the juvenile court judges, many of whom remained opposed to the changes. During his two years as commissioner, Leavey made some progress in consolidating the new arrangements, giving particular attention to problems associated with the provision of secure placements. Much of his energy, however, was absorbed in dealing with attacks on the department's credibility and effectiveness. Leavey's position was also weakened by the failure of the new Democratic governor, Michael Dukakis, to seek his confrrmation as commissioner. During the latter part of 1975 the Department of Youth Services was subjected to a barrage of criticism from the media. The most concerted of these attacks was launched by a Boston television station during September. In a series of editorials, aired several times a day over a two-week period, calls were made for Leavey's resignation. Much of the criticism centred on the question of secure facilities for serious juvenile offenders. The last of these editorials demanded that Leavey be frred and that the number of secure beds be increased, commenting: 'A great deal of today's violent crime is committed by juveniles. Massachusetts simply cannot afford a Department of Youth Services which is so demonstrably incompetent.' In response to the criticism Leavey stated: We are attempting to establish small secure units that will provide security and treatment, yet will not repeat the abuses of jail-like settings.' The pressure 'on Leavey intensified and he resigned in December 1975. Leavey was followed as commissioner by Jack Calhoun, then director of the Justice Resource Institute in Boston, an agency responsible for a variety of experimental programmes in criminal justice. In his first twelve months Calhoun was detemtined to speed up the process of consolidation. In particular, he stressed the need for administrative and programmatic standards and the capacity to monitor the quality of services provided for young people. The period 1973-8 under Leavey and Calhoun was primarily characterised by attempts to consolidate DYS's new role. Both commissioners focused on programme development and on overcoming the polarised public perceptions of youth correction, distrust by the legislature, and severe fiscal and management problems. Calhoun was especially concerned with the establishment of standards and the quality control of programmes. Both commissioners were subject to considerable political pressures, especially in their relationships with 73

the courts. The overriding issue during this period was the number of secure beds available for young people committed to the department. Calhoun's response to the secure beds question was to establish a task force under Scott Harshbarger, then an assistant state attorney-general, to consider what was required. In 1977, Harshbarger recommended a slight increase in secure bed provision, taking some of the political pressure off the' department (Harshbarger, 1977). However, in 1978 Massachusetts voters elected Edward King as governor. King, a right-wing Democrat, had defeated the liberal Democrat Michael Dukakis on a bold law-and-order manifesto. Seven months later Calhoun resigned. When Edward King was sworn in as governor it seemed probable that over the next four years the decarceration process would be reversed. It was expected that King's choice for commissioner would share his highly conservative views on criminal justice. Alanning to the advocates of decarceration was the prospect of a successful legislative bid to provide the judiciary with direct sentencing powers. Bills incorporating direct sentencing provisions had been introduced on a regular basis since the closure of the institutions, but each failed to get sufficient legislative support. To the surprise of close observers of the Massachusetts scene none of these fears materialised.

The Appointment Commissioner

of Edward

Murphy

as

Edward Murphy was appointed to head the department in October 1979. Before taking up the position, an earlier nominee of the governor's had left to take an appointment in another state. One observer commented that 'some early King appointments had exploded' and that King primarily sought a politically neutral but effective administrator. Murphy's background was in the federal probation and parole service, and at the time of his appointment he was responsible for central and western Massachusetts. He was experienced in community-based programmes but was new to juvenile justice. Murphy's appointment prompted a negative comment in the Boston Globe but little was known of his views. Murphy has recalled that his mandate from the governor's office was 'absence of pain'. The question of returning to the use of training schools never arose in Murphy's discussions with the governor or with Murphy's immediate superior, the Secretary for Human Services. Indeed, Secretary Mahoney, who in the late 1960s had been an attorney in a case involving the Bridgewater Institute for Juvenile Guidance which revealed gross institutional conditions, certainly had no wish to turn back the clock. The central issue then, as before, was the number of secure beds. At the news conference announcing his appointment, Murphy was asked how many secure beds were required. An off-the-cuff response of 'maybe two hundred' was interpreted by the media as a substantial increase. Murphy later said he did not regret this reply as he thought his department gained support from criminal justice and other groups. 74

Edward Murphy's initial perception of the department was that 'some very severe management problems' existed. He was determined to put these right and to improve the department's image: We needed to convince the public we knew what we were doing.' Murphy brought in several professionals from outside Massachusetts. One of these was his deputy, Edward Loughran, who had been with the New York State Division for Youth for nine years and who was glad to get away from an increasingly repressive scene. The cover of the department's annual report for 1982 carried a quotation from Alfred North Whitehead: 'The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order'. A senior civil servant put it another way: 'Edward Murphy represented stability ... we had come close to losing the whole ball of wax.' Murphy maintains that the threat to deinstitutionalisation came less from the King administration than from the legislature. In particular, he had in mind a bill to enable judges to decide upon secure placements of young people sentenced to the department. Strengthening the powers of the courts in this way was strongly endorsed by a committee set up by the governor, which allowed for secure orders of up to six months for repeat-offenders and of up to twelve months for serious-injury cases. 4 In 1983 the bill was approved by the House but failed to get through the Senate. Democratic representative Paul White, a conservative on law-and-order issues, declared: 'The real negative of DYS is the complete inability of judges to deal with the juvenile hard core.' Powerful opposition in the Senate, including the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, blocked the bill. The chairman of the Senate Committee on Criminal Justice held that 'DYS has the expertise'. 'Despite the efforts of the King administration, in reality they were not able to achieve much.' So concluded Yitzhak Bakal, an assistant commissioner under Jerry Miller and later head of the Northeastern Family Institute, a major vendor with DYS. Similarly Susan Wayne, another former assistant commissioner under Jack Calhoun and later-executive director of another large vendor, Justice Resource Institute, would not have predicted that DYS would emerge unscathed. In January 1983 Edward King was replaced as governor with the re-election of Michael Dukakis. There was general approval when Dukakis retained Edward Murphy as commissioner. Murphy represented predictability, credibility and stability. During 1982 Murphy described how his role differed from Miller's: 'The task facing juvenile justice administrators in Massachusetts is to institutionalise the positive aspects of the change that had occurred here. The success of this goal does not depend on charismatic leadership and artful polemics. It depends instead on the development of consensus and the creation of a lasting infrastructure organised around the basic principles that our professional experience has taught us.'s Murphy was a pragmatic manager rather than a crusader and a commissioner who saw his department as a correctional agency; Miller saw his task as changing society's perception of young people involved in crime.

75

Indications of Slippage Towards the end of Edward King's administration, a leading child advocacy group published a highly critical report on remand practice in Massachusetts. 6 In September 1983 lerry Miller published an article in the Boston Globe headed 'DYS - Back to Bad Old Days', which, while critical in tone, was probably intended as a warning shot. Interviewed some months later, Miller's assessment was that developments in Massachusetts were holding up quite well. Slippage from the decarceration process is explored with reference to the following considerations: the number of secure treatment beds; detention practice; transfers to adult courts; the development of the network of community-based programmes; and the strength of groups supporting decarceration.

The number of secure 'treatment' beds The most volatile issue has continued to be the provision of secure settings for certain groups of juveniles, especially those sentenced for the most serious offences. The development of a wide variety of programmes in the community has demonstrated that these are appropriate even for some juveniles involved in serious offences. Non-residential programmes, such as 'tracking', can provide a high level of surveillance, where very regular contact is maintained between streetworkers and young people. The threat to decarceration in Massachusetts is not a return to large institutions but to a substantial increase in secure beds. Establishing the optimum level of secure beds while maintaining the decarceration process involves a host of political and programmatic considerations. Miller's position was that the number of secure beds should be kept very low, and that the ceiling be tightly enforced: regional offices were given quotas, and an additional placement meant someone had to be removed from the secure setting. Miller saw 'dangerousness' as being defined by continual political negotiation, and without vigilance the definition would broaden. On the other hand, there is a widely held opinion that, should the number of secure beds become too small, the decarceration process would be placed in jeopardy. For exampl~, Edward Murphy regards the provision of additional secure beds as essential to gain the credibility that makes the deparnnent politically viable. The issues surrounding the provision of secure beds have been clouded by ambiguity and confusion. Two problems arise. First, security is achieved by some programmes through high staff numbers rather than by locked doors, although in recent years it has become more common to define secure beds in terms of locked facilities. A second area of ambiguity arises because of overlap between secure 'treatment' and detention beds. Treatment beds provide for young

76

people sentenced to the department. Detention beds are intended for young people awaiting a court hearing but are regularly used for those who have been committed. Ambiguity in terminology and practice may be useful as a device to ensure minimal usage, but it also carries the danger of gradual and almost imperceptible increases taking place. Clarification rather than ambiguity is part of Edward Murphy's management style, which has the merit of at least leading to agreement on the criteria for deciding which young people to lock up, even though disagreement remains as to what the maximum number should be. These definitional difficulties arise when the development of secure provision is traced, and comparisons over the period since the early 1970s can only be approximate. In 1975 there were 105 secure treatment beds, of which seventy were within private programmes and relied more on staffing than physical security. In March 1980 there were seventy-nine secure treatment beds with another twelve about to become available. In January 1984 there were 103 secure treatment beds. These totals can be compared with two sets of recommendations. In 1977 the Harshbarger task force on secure care recommended that there be between 129 and 168 secure treatment beds (of which 29-38 should be administered by the Department of Mental Health, and 46-60 should provide less than full physical security). Four years later, in April 1981, Governor King's task force proposed that there should be a minimum of 326 secure treatment beds. By 1984 little reference was made to Governor King's task force, and it was generally the Harshbarger recommendations which were quoted. As already detailed, only twelve secure beds were added between 1980 and 1984. A more substantial increase in provision was planned for 1984-7, taking the total number of secure beds to 184. Edward Murphy has commented that this total will not be far removed from the Harshbarger recommendation of secure provision for 11 per cent of the department's population. On the other hand, the Massachusetts Advocacy Center argued in 1980 that the ninety-one beds then available exceeded the outer limit of Harshbarger's lock-up requirements by twenty-one. Murphy reached his total of 184 by assuming that 26 per cent of commibIlents to the department are for crimes against the person and that half of this group require security. Murphy has talked in terms of adding thirty or forty secure beds rather than twice that number, implied by his target for 1984. Murphy put the case as follows: To me this is a marginal change, one that is simply adjusting to changed circumstances and one in which, frankly, the department is trying to project to the citizenry here the fact that we are a credible agency in responding to juvenile crime. The degree to which we will be able to protect deinstitutionalisation in the existing juvenile code in the future ... to a large measure depends on our capacity to convince the public that we know what we're doing. If the addition of thirty or forty beds here manages to convince the public that we have those interests very much in mind, then to me I think that's a very beneficial result.

77

However, concerns about the planned expansion are raised in a draft departmental report, The Classification Policies and Procedures, Program Review (October 1983). Before reviewing the report's findings a brief description is required of the classification procedure. There are three major objectives, namely:

* To estimate the degree of risk and/or danger that the juvenile presents to the community and/or to him- or herself.

* To estimate the juvenile's actual and potential capability to modify his or her anti-social behaviour.

* To balance this assessment with the need to protect the community. Classification of Offenders by Offense and Offense Behavior

Offense Category MANDATORY REFERRALS: CATEGORY A Murder: First Degree Murder: Second Degree Attempted Murder Voluntary Manslaughter

MANDATORY REFERRALS: CA1EGORYB Involuntary Manslaughter Armed Robbery Assault and Battery (armed) causing serious bodily injury Forcible Rape Arson of a Dwelling House Kidnapping Homicide by Motor Vehicle

78

Age Limit

Mandated Time Limits

13-16 years

A minimum of twelve months to a maxiInum indeterminate stay. Length of time subject to periodic evaluation by treatment staff and legislation mandating release at age eighteen years, unless extension is granted by court.

14-16 years

A minimum of ten months to a maximum of fourteen months. Case conference can lead to early release or extension of maximum.

OPTIONAL REFERRALS Any juvenile whose offense behaviour presents a risk and danger to the community or who exhibits a persistent and escalating pattern of delinquency.

14-16 years

A range of months between a minimum of four months to a maximum of twelve months. Case conference can lead to early release or extension of maximum.

The above grid is applied to all commitments to DYS to detennine whether the case will be referred to the Classification Panel for consideration for placement in a secure treatment progrmnme. To be eligible for classification the individual must: (1) be at least 13 years of age and not yet 17 years; (2) have been adjudicated as delinquent by the court; (3) have committed any of the above offenses, or be considered a risk and danger to the community. (Source: Classification Policy Guidelines Concerning Entrance Into Secure Treatment Facilities, 1982)

The procedure is as follows: all commitments by the court to DYS are reviewed by the regional director, who must detennine whether the juvenile will be referred to the Classification Panel for possible admission to a secure setting. There are three categories of referrals: Mandatory A (homicide), Mandatory B (other serious violent offences), Optional (other offences). The departmental study was based upon a quantitative analysis of all young people referred for secure placement during the year beginning May 1982. Of the 169 referrals 20 per cent had been involved in offences resulting in injuries requiring hospitalisation; 13 per cent were violent offences without hospitalisation; and 67 per cent of the offences were non-violent (or at least involved no injury). Specified serious offences result in mandatory referral; optional referrals, on the other hand, allow for considerable discretion by agency staff. The study found that 'it was clear in the case of some optional and revocation referrals that the criteria for the referral was not so much the offence history, but rather the youth's self-destructive behaviour, failure in group or foster home placements, and frequent history of running and/or drug abuse, which provided the impetus for a referral to secure treatment'. The report recommends that the community-based system be examined 'to ensure that there are some alternatives available for a youth who may be disruptive for a time in a programme, but who does not necessarily present a risk to the community'. Noting the danger of inappropriate placement,· the study warns: 'as the

79

number of secure treatment beds increases, and the waiting lists diminish, it will be important to monitor for an increase in the number of optional referrals . from the regions.' The study found that two thirds of referrals were optional or revocation cases and might not be considered a serious risk to the community, emphasising 'the need for greater clarity on the criteria by which the majority of the youth are referred to secure treatment'. As far as dispositional practice was concerned, the study found that 'the panel accepts some optional and revocation referrals who did not meet this criterion [risk to the community], but who did not appear stable enough to be placed in an open setting'. In one case, which illustrated the hard-to-place dilemma, a youth sentenced to DYS for stealing a bicycle, and whose subsequent offences were property crimes, had a history of running from programmes and drug abuse. He was not a risk to the community, but the caseworker was convinced he would run from any currently available programme. The study notes: 'One of the panel members expressed frustration with the lack of other alternatives for the youth in the community-based system.' Most referrals were accepted by the panel. In fact the acceptance rate was higher in the case of optional and revocation cases than for A and B category cases. The study commented: 'Since the optional referrals are not necessarily of a serious offense history and are made at the region's discretion, it was of some surprise that the panel accepted 95 per cent of them.' It is clear that girls are treated differently from boys. In particular, in mandatory cases girls comprised only 15 per cent of all referrals. Most referrals were revocations, and the majority of girls were referred because their behaviour could not be controlled in an open setting. It was found that the number and type of proper resources for girls were much fewer than for boys. The study calculated a minimum cost (certain costs were not included) of $38,000 per annum per place and urged DYS 'to examine its regional community-based system to ensure all possible less expensive interventions are made with a youth prior to the last alternative of secure care'. Murphy was much concerned about the enormous discretion employed by his department, especially regarding the use of secure beds. The procedures as described above, which have been in force since early 1981, structure intake procedures and decisions on duration of stay. Murphy had these procedures incorporated into the State Regulations Act which ensures that modifications require a public hearing. Murphy's second achievement with respect to secure provision has been to upgrade the quality of accommodation and programmes. When he made his first visit to the secure programmes he was 'scandalized by the quality of the plant'. Likewise, when Edward Loughran first visited the secure treatment programme at Roslingdale he said he was afraid for his life. Some secure programmes are located in buildings attached to rurally isolated state mental hospitals which are in the process of being phased out. It is not without irony that the decarceration of mental health made space available for DYS to provide both secure and other residential programmes. Roslingdale, which was opened in 1956 as a detention centre (Le. for remand purposes), has for most of its existence been the subject of controversy. Miller later regretted 80

that he never closed it. An occasion arose during the first Dukakis .administration when it might have been closed, but this opportunity was not taken. Since April 1976 the facility has been subject to a consent decree ordered by a federal court, but there have been many difficulties in monitoring compliance to the decree's seventy-five provisions. In 1984 Roslingdale contained two secure treatment programmes (each with fifteen beds) and one detention programme (twenty-one beds). The immediate surroundings, given the facility's location between a graveyard and Boston's main psychiatric hospital, are desperately bleak. Although based in the city the facility is isolated with one approach road closed to discourage dumping of garbage. One staff member has said that the setting is at its best when the garbage is covered by snow. Edward Murphy regards the locked facilities in Massachusetts as providing the 'most humane security in the country'. The programmes are characterised by high staff ratios (about two staff to each resident), a relaxed level of interaction between staff and residents (especially apparent in the privately run programmes) and the relative absence of high-technology security paraphernalia. Considerable reliance is put on various points systems as a control device, thereby linking behaviour with privileges and comforts. Absconding from security facilities has been kept to an absolute minimum by means of wellresourced and professionally administered programmes. Edward Murphy is adamant that the increase does not amount to slippage. Most supporters of the decarceration process in Massachusetts appear to share this view. Certainly there is no support for a return to large institutions. However, some concerns still exist about the scale of the planned increase in secure treatment provision. Jerry Miller, in his Boston Globe article, raised questions about the development of secure programmes at a former girls' boarding school with the potential for two or three hundred beds. DYS officials insist that it will be limited to three programmes of fifteen beds each. Lloyd Ohlin, director of the Harvard research study on DYS, echoes these concerns, commenting that Murphy's 'clustering economy' carries the risk of large institutions.

Remand Unlike most stale juvenile corrections agencies, DYS has responsibility for the detention of young people remanded for court hearings.? Edward Murphy identifies detention practice and the difficulties of controlling the process as one of his most complex problems. Edward Loughran has underscored the issue by stating that 'detention drives the system'. The court sets the level of bail but, while the amount has some influence, it does not determine placement, which is the responsibility of DYS. Jerry Miller closed the state's training schools but the detention centres remained. However, there was a one-third reduction in detention centre beds in the ten-year period up to 1984, when there were 108 beds (although the number of detention 81

centres increased from four to seven). In 1980 the Massachusetts Advocacy Center identified secure detention as a major threat to the decarceration process.. The Center found that eight out of every ten young people in detention centres were not on remand status but had been sentenced to the department. Most were runaways from programmes or were awaiting placement to a secure treaunent unit. The Center's assessment was that in at least half of the cases detention was an inappropriate decision. The Center astutely observed that there is a financial incentive for DYS regional offices to use secure accommodation, including detention centres. Regions receive a purchase-of-service budget for community-based programmes, but secure provision is met by central office. 'The central office, therefore, has an incentive to keep fixed-cost programmes full' (Massachusetts Advocacy Center, 1980, p.128). More recent data on detention practice in Massachusetts were presented in a report by the Department of Youth Services. Based on nearly 600 cases over the first six months of 1983, the study found that 64 per cent of boys and 80 per cent of girls held in detention were released after trial. The report urged the development of state standards to govern closely the use of detention. The study did not deal with sentenced young people held in detention, an issue highlighted by the Massachusetts Advocacy Center and by a review of national practice (Krisberg and Schwartz, 1983, p.351). The planned expansion in secure detention beds, from 108 to 130, is directly counter to the conclusion of the Massachusetts Advocacy Center that the number of detention beds should be reduced substantially. It is recognised by senior DYS officials that additional beds will increase the temptation for courts to increase levels of bail. The department is planning to establish a pretrial unit so as to improve data on the early stages of the process and to reduce the number of young people locked up in detention facilities. It is also held that there is greater sophistication among regional directors in dealing with the detention process. These developments should not mask the scope and complexity of the problems posed by the detention process. Success or failure in this area may be the crucial factor in determining whether decarceration is advanced or retarded.

Transfer to the adult court An indication of how judges and prosecutors regard the juvenile justice process is the extent to which juveniles on serious charges are 'bound over' or transferred to an adult court. Transfer arrangements vary among states, but the legislative trend across the United States has been to make transfers more likely. Some states have gone even further. In New York, for example, where the juvenile court has jurisdiction up to the age of sixteen, the Juvenile Offender Act of 1978 gave adult courts original jurisdiction over 13-15 year olds accused of anyone of a lengthy list of serious offences. Under Massachusetts law a young person aged between fourteen and sixteen

82

may be transferred to an adult court if he or she has previously been committed .to DYS and is charged with an imprisonable offence or is charged with an offence involving the infliction or threat of serious harm. If probable cause is found, the court will then consider, but is not limited to, evidence of the following factors:

* Seriousness of the alleged offence.

*

The child's family, school and social history, including court and juvenile delinquent records, if any. * Adequate protection of the public. * The nature of any past treatment efforts for the child. * The likelihood of rehabilitation of the child. In 1976 a strict interpretation of the statute was decided by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, holding that: We do not believe that a decision to transfer is proper when supported by findings which deal only with the seriousness of the charge and the inadequacy of existing juvenile facilities in terms of safeguarding the public. Despite the importance of these two factors and the weight that they may have in support of a conclusion that there should be a transfer to adult court, there must also be a finding that the juvenile cannot be rehabilitated within the present juvenile structure or that, in the absence of long-term supervision and security, he poses a serious threat to the public, with subsidiary findings indicating the basis for this conclusion. 8 It would appear that this decision by the Supreme Judicial Court in 1976, which was reinforced by subsequent decisions, contributed to a decline in transfers to adult courts, as shown in Table 2 below.

TABLE 2 Juvenile bindovers 1973-83 Year 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983

Total 129 76 126 75 36 42 47 43 36 28 27 83

The decline in bindovers has led to some suggestions - for example, by Governor King's Task Force in 1981 - that the statutory requirements should be made less restrictive. A more likely legislative change will be to give original jurisdiction to an adult court in the case of frrst-degree homicide (and perhaps other types of homicide, for example when caused by drunken driving). Representative Paul White's bill includes a provision for the Superior Court to have original jurisdiction for murder, manslaughter and motor vehicular homicide. With respect to bindover practice Massachusetts shows every sign of having been more successful than most states in keeping juveniles out of the adult prison system. Since the early 1970s. there have never been more than five persons under seventeen years of age in the adult correctional system. 9

Strengthening programmes in the community There is a considerable diversity of community-based programmes, ranging from highly structured residential settings to outreach and tracking programmes. The 'shelter' detention programme, situated in the grounds of the state mental hospital at Danvers, is run by the Northeastern Family Institute. Twenty-six full-time staff work with eighteen young people. There is no physical security, but every effort is made to discourage absconding. Very much less structured is the programme at Hastings House, a group home run by Massachusetts Halfway Houses Inc. The director is Michael Radan, who was held in one of the training schools at the time JetTy Miller was appointed commissioner. As Radan put it: 'I am thirty years old and have been seventeen years in the business.' Situated in a racially mixed neighbourhood in Cambridge, Hastings House has aroused few concerns within the community. 'We get less complaints from neighbours than the Massachusetts Institute of Technology fraternity house across the street,' commented Radan. Situated in the Roxbury Boys' Club in the centre of the largely black district of Boston is an outreach and tracking programme administered by another private agency, Boston Basics Inc. The focus of the programme is educational and involves fifteen young people in a special school situation, preceded by breakfast. Some of the young people have shown a pattern of violence in the regular school system. Despite its location, there is a multiracial intake, with young people being collected by staff from their homes in various locations each morning. A certain level of support from the home is regarded as essential, and there are areas of the city, such as the desolate and mostly black public-housing area at Columbia Point, which the programme has failed to reach. In the mid-1970s researchers at Harvard Law School, engaged in a major study of the decarceration process in Massachusetts, developed a new way of thinking about community-based programmes. It was suggested that, as well as focusing on the individual programme, it was useful to regard all existing programmes as a network with two Inain components:

84

High level offlexibility The model assumes that young people's needs are not static or assessable in a highly prescriptive manner. A dynamic approach that recognises the need for the provision of programmes and services on both sequential and simultaneous bases is often appropriate. The department, in its brokerage function, is involved in the complex task of co-ordination and monitoring. The model also assumes the active involvement by the individual young person in the selection of services and programmes.

An alternative to incarceration At a broader level the model provides a useful perspective for approaching the task of developing alternatives to incarceration. Instead of regarding a single programme as an alternative to incarceration it may be more useful to think in terms of a network of programmes serving this purpose. Coates and his colleagues at the Harvard Center for Criminal Justice made a distinction between programme sets, programme strategies and individual programmes: a programme set is the total of all programmes designed to fulfil a given function; a programme strategy is the specific plan which defines goals at an operational level together with the means for achieving these goals; individual programmes are the means for implementing these strategies. The Harvard team was especially interested in the research implications of this perspective. They comment: 'Because of the rapid turnover of specific programmes in a changing correctional system, the different strategies become the principal focus for evaluation with the individual programmes (strategy components) becoming secondary' (Coates and Miller, 1975). If the major policy goal is to develop and sustain alternatives to incarceration, the operational task for the department is to put together the appropriate network of programmes. Failure to do this undermines the potency of anyone programme to act as an alternative to secure custody, and this underlines the imperative that it is to community-based provision that DYS must now give its primary attention. Edward Murphy has acknowledged the implications of these considerations for the department: 'An effective community based system requires decentralised decision-making. Administrators must have sufficient confidence in their subordinates to delegate some of the organisation's most important decisions to a level far removed from the central office' (Murphy, 1984, p. 6). The Harvard study has drawn attention to the distance which the department still has to go to integrate its work into the wider comlnunity: Staff in most programmes tend to try to do all tlle work themselves. They seem hesitant to involve the people of the community in either efforts to make youth want certain things or in efforts to make certain things 85

happen. It is as if they do not trust anybody but themselves to take care of the youth. The result, of course, is that there is a failure to line the youth into any controls in the larger community iliat can outlast the youth's stay in the programme. (Miller and Ohlin, 1983, p. 235) Lloyd Ohlin has summed up the implications for policy and practice: We only get effective treatment when we have some continuity of service with the family, with the school, with the neighbourhood system that builds in controls and supports. Those are the protections that those elderly people, and other potential victims, have to rely on, and they can do something about it, by trying to promote that kind of community assault on the problem.

Control over the private sector Sixty per cent of the deparunent's budget is for services contracted from private non-profit agencies. The original decision to encourage the private sector to provide alternative programmes was an important ingredient of the decarceration strategy, providing DYS with flexibility over a wide range of options. A perennial problem for DYS is to ensure quality control and develop an effective monitoring capacity. There are some eighty private non-profit agencies under contract to DYS, with contracts of between $120,000 and $800,000. In the mid-1970s fears were expressed that some private agencies had so grown as to impede the ability of DYS to insist that standards be met. By 1984, however, private agencies bad come a long way in their sophistication in dealing with young people, and DYS had made some progress in controlling the private sector, both fiscally and in tenus of programme quality.

The Federal Government In the early 1970s federal grants played a crucial role in facilitating the switch of the DYS budget from institutions to the purchase of services. The events in Massachusetts gained support from SOIne senior officials and legislators in Washington. For example, in 1973 the National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals reported: 'The Commission believes that states should follow the example of Massachusetts, which has closed down statewide institutions for juveniles.' The following year decarceration was one of the priorities of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (see Rutherford, 1977). However, by the end of the decade the mood in Washington had shifted. For three successive years the Reagan administration attempted to cut off funds to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention which was established to implement the 1974 legislation. Congress has continued to fund the office, but the new administrator, Alfred Regnery, was 86

unsympathetic to the 1974 legislative mandate. Regnery claims that during the 1970s the Offfice succeeded in removing juveniles from adult jails and 'status offenders' from incarcerative juvenile institutions 10 , and that now it has become appropriate to focus on the apprehension, prosecution and punishment of serious juvenile offenders. There has also been a shift in the Office's research priorities. It was decided in 1983 not to publish one of the federally funded final reports from the Harvard Law School on Massachusetts. Instead the Office has turned its attention to biologically oriented research into crime causation. 11

Emerging Issues in Massachusetts Decarceration in Massuchusetts has survived and shows no sign of being reversed. In particular, Miller's legacy to the state emerged relatively unscathed from the four years of the conservative King administration. Philip Johnston, senior advisor to Governor Dukakis, put it this way: My conclusion at the end of the four years of King was that it was a tribute to Jerry Miller and everything that's been built up in this state over the last twelve years. Even as right wing a governor as Ed King was unable to destroy what had happened here, and my theory is that if Ed King can't do it nobody can. I guess that there just simply is no political constituency in this state for putting kids back into those large institutions; there's no one in the state, who's serious, who would favour a return to that system.

1. DYS and probation A curious feature of juvenile justice trends in Massachusetts has been that sentences to DYS have risen since the late 1970s (although they fell in 1983) despite a decline in juvenile arrests. Juvenile arrests fell by 27 per cent between 1978 and 1982, largely reflecting demographic changes. Between 1970 and 1980 the number of 10-16 year olds in Massachusetts declined by 12 per cent and will drop a further 30 per cent between 1980 and 1990. As displayed in Table 3, the percentage decline in the number of juveniles appearing in court was twice the percentage fall in the juvenile population. It can be seen from the table that the rate of first-time commitments to DYS per 1,000 juvenile arraignments rose from 24 to 44 in the years 1978-83. In part this increased use ofDYS by the courts may reflect greater confidence in the level of services provided by DYS than, for example, by the Department of Welfare. Instead of being dealt with under a CHINS (Children in Need of

87

Services) petition some young people may have been prosecuted. 12 A related consideration is the relative absence of services available to probation departments. As noted by the Governor's Anti-Crime Council there is widespread agreement 'that a portion of the DYS commitment is caused by the way in which fiscal resources and commitments are structured in our juvenile justice system'. Arising from these concerns, initial steps are being taken to explore mechanisms which would shift fiscal resources in favour of probation services. Probation subsidy mechanisms in other states have been examined and, through the instigation of DYS, half a million dollars was made available in 1984 as a means to encouraging use of probation by the COurts. 13 In effect this scheme provides the courts with their own purchase-or-services budget and may represent a fust step in enhancing the effectiveness of probation in dealing with more serious offences.

TABLE 3

Numbers and rates ofjuveniles arraigned andfirst-time commitments to DYS 1978-82

Year

Number of Number of juveniles juveniles aged 10-16 arraingned

1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 Percentage increase/ decrease 1978-83

Arraignments Number of first-time per 1,000 commitments juveniles toDYS

718,599 699,531 671,675 653,691 627,487 605,690

28,419 27,244 25,943 22,121 20,799 18,122

39 38 39 33 33 30

-15.71

-36.23

-

686 743 854 855 863 799

+ 16.47

Convnittals rate per 1,000 arraignments

24 27 33 39 41 44

-

(Source: Juvenile Justice Committee of the Governor's Anti-Crime Council 1983. Updated for 1983 by Commissioner Murphy)

2. Models for practice The controversy arising from the events in Massachusetts has not been couched in terms of the traditional language of treattnent and punishment approaches.

88

The impetus for decarceration derived from pragmatic efforts to provide lessdamaging environments for dealing with young people rather than from any particular theoretical position. The administrative discretion available to J erry Miller to empty the training schools and for his successors to further the decarceration process derived from a treatment/welfare approach to juvenile justice, and this discretion was certainly counter to the just deserts perspective which came to the fore during the 1970s. Both treatment and just deserts are regularly referred to in support of a particular measure. For example, the American Bar Association standards are invoked to support recommendations of the Massachusetts Advocacy Center regarding very tight detention usage but are not referred to by opponents of the direct sentencing issue. Programme staff often use treatment and even mental health terminology with reference to services and goals, whereas Edward Murphy is anxious to structure staff discretion to provide protections for young people. As noted earlier, legislative efforts to give the courts direct sentencing powers have failed despite the persistent efforts of certain politicians and judges. A strong opposing voice is that of the Middlesex County District-Attorney, Scott Harshbarger: When the judges and probation officers get their act together and have uniform sumdards, and have specialised juvenile justice sessions, where they are relying on effective and consistent and comprehensive information, when we can be sure that the same judge in the same case, sitting in different parts of the state will determine roughly the same type of sentencing pattern, then we can seriously look at the question of should judges have the right to detennine what type of placement a juvenile should be in. But until then, very frankly, I think the pioneering concept here is that the placement of juveniles for purposes of correction, care and treatment is a speciality. There has to be some uniformity throughout the state and the single youth authority, tile Department of Youth Services, I think, provides the most effective way to balance the limited number of facilities that are available with the need throughout the state. For example, in certain communities in the state a juvenile judge would like you to go to a secure facility for breaking and entering on your first or second offence, to teach you a lesson. That might be appropriate, but when we have limited facilities and we have in another part of the state a juvenile committing three armed robberies and is demonstrably dangerous to the public, then in a choice of who should have that facility I would like to have somebody look at the overall picture and determine which of these kids is the most dangerous to ilie public, and iliat can't happen through individual sentencing by judges. Against this context it is somewhat surprising that in 1984 Edward Murphy proposed a complete revision of the state juvenile code. Almost eighty years after enactment of the existing code, Murphy believes that the underlying philosophical assumptions should be re-examined. These assumptions include 89

the parens patria tradition of the juvenile court which was challenged but not outlawed by the US Supreme Court in cases such as Gault (1966). At Murphy's instigation the Juvenile Justice Committee of the Governor's AntiCrime Council has recommended that a two-year code reform project be embarked upon. There are some observers who have concern that this effort might lead to a legislative free-for-all. Others regard the exercise as irrelevant to more immediate issues such as increasing resources for community-based programmes. In particular there is the question of whether enough is being done to explore new ways of approaching young people involved in crime - ways that harness resources within the family, school and neighbourhood. What more might be done to foster the pace of learning and innovation which was given impetus by the events of the early 1970s? For Jerry Miller the department's emphasis should be on providing growthproducing opportunities for young people in trouble. He is convinced that this cannot be done within an incarcerative institution because that is not what one would choose for one's own child. I do believe, to a degree, in the perfectibility of man, and I think that the best model I could use is what I would insist upon doing for my own were they in trouble, and I think that if we use that as the measure we would be in quite good shape, because we get very innovative, very creative when our own get in trouble, particularly if we're given the amount of money that the state spends to incarcerate youngsters that are in trouble. And I think one then moves into an entirely different realm. This idea that delinquents are somehow or other qualitatively different than the rest of us, or that our own have no propensity or possibility or potential for involving themselves in similar or worse behaviour, is nonsense. And the criminal justice system has had a long history and tradition of separating us one from another, of scapegoating, of stereotyping, of providing the definitions that allow us to exclude our fellow human beings from the human family, and I think to the degree that we design correctional systems they should be healing for the society as well, and hopefully that's what we accomplished in Massachusetts, at least to some small degree.

Conclusions Concerns remain with the expansion of secure treatment and detention beds and the neglect of community-based provisions. Nevertheless, the strength of the Massachusetts decarceration process is especially apparent in the context of what happened elsewhere in tlle United States during the decade up to 1985. Brief mention has been made of the shift in emphasis within the federal government with reference to juvenile justice priorities: a shift from decarceration to strengthened prosecution and sentencing of more serious offenders. This change of climate is reflected in tenns of institutional desires. 90

Lloyd Ohlin commented that the Massachusetts training schools were closed at 'the tail end of '60s and early '70s' and probably occurred just in time. Had the events taken place in the early 1960s their replication beyond Massachusetts would have been more likely.14 In terms of admissions to training schools during the period 1974-9, twenty-five states showed increases and twenty-five showed decreases. The declines were largely accounted for by fewer 'status' offenders being institutionalised. Similarly the overall decline in admissions to detention was largely accounted for by status offenders. One review of these national data implicitly endorses the logic of the Massachusetts deep-end strategy and argues that custodial capacity must be reduced: 'Diversion and alternative programmes have mushroomed while detention rates declined only slightly and training school admission rates not at all' (Krisberg and Schwartz, 1983).15 Massachusetts in 1982 had the lowest incarceration rate of juveniles in the nation (taking account of detention centres and youth institutions). For the US as a whole the rate was 134 per 100,000 juveniles compared with a rate for Massachusetts of 13 per 100,000. 16 lerry Miller sought a process of juvenile justice in Massachusetts which would resist efforts at reversal by Heinrich Himmler. Miller's colourful comment should not distract from the recognition that the response to young people and crime in Massachusetts represents an oasis in the United States. The process of decarceration in Massachusetts has largely survived the conservative law-and-order mood which has swept much of the country since the mid-1970s. 17 When Jerry Miller left Massachusetts in January 1973 he had been commissioner of youth services for less than forty months. He went on to hold senior appointments at a state level in Illinois and Pennsylvania, but powerful groups with investments in the status quo were able to organise effective opposition. On taking up his appointment as director of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services he was told that youth corrections would be transferred from the prison system to his agency. This never happened, and a decline in political support culminated in his transfer to a position in the governor's office. In January 1975 he joined the staff of Governor Milton Shapp of Pennsylvania (as director of community-based programmes) and in May of that year became Commissioner of the Office of Children and Youth within the Department of Public Welfare. He developed the brokerage role for both these state agencies. In Illinois a federally funded programme, Unified Delinquency Intervention Services (UDIS), provided an array of programmes for the young people of Chicago as an alternative to placement in state training schools. In Pennsylvania federal funds supported the Camp Hill Project, which developed a network of programmes to replace the incarceration of some 400 juveniles in an adult state prison (McGillis and

91

Spangenberg, 1976). In 1977 he founded an agency which works with defence counsel in providing sentencers with alternatives to imprisonment. IS In exile, Miller, the ultimate reluctant bureaucrat, waits in vain for a call to return to the crusade. Meanwhile, in Massachusetts the training schools remain closed, and the state is able to address itself to the problems of youth crime, unhindered by the irrelevant heritage of juvenile prisons. The work which remains to be done in Massachusetts in no way diminishes the significance of the gains that have been made. Lloyd Ohlin has summed up the key lesson as being confmnation of lerry Miller's faith in not over-reacting to teenage behaviour, reflecting 'an extraordinarily generous willingness to look at each offender as someone trapped by events, someone who is not an event but a person'. Ohlin concludes that incarceration is a deceptive policy which over the long term will inevitably fail and that only in the community can the problem of youth crime be effectively tackled. The first state training school in the United States was opened in Massachusetts in 1846. One hundred and twenty-six years later this and other training schools in Massachusetts were abandoned. Beyond Massachusetts the decarceration task is as urgent as it is formidable.

NOTES 1. As director of the Henderson Hospital in Surrey, Maxwell Jones pioneered the notion of the 'therapeutic community' with persons suffering from psychopathic disorders. His influential career spanned both sides of the Atlantic, and for some years he was Physician Superintendent at Dingleton in Melrose. He published widely, see, e.g., Jones (1968a and 1968b). George Lyward's work at Pinchden Manor in Tenterden, Kent is described by Burn (1956). Por many years, Ronald 0 Laing was associated with the Tavistock Institute, London. His best known books include Laing (1960 and 1967) 2. Unattributed quotations in this chapter are from the BBC radio documentary, The Massachusetts Alternative, researched by the author and broadcast on 2 May 1984. The indispensable account of these events, and a rare personal portrait of criminal justice reform, is Miller (1991) . 3. Pred Wiseman's other documentary films include Juvenile Court. He is a member of the advisory board of the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives which Jerry Miller founded in 1977. 4. Governor King established his Task Force on Juvenile Crime in October 1980 under the chainnanship of Judge James Nixon. The Task Force, which included Judge Poitrast of Boston Juvenile Court, Edward Murphy and James Q Wilson of Harvard, reported in April 1981. 5. Remarks at a conference held at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst on 8 January 1982, to mark the tenth anniversary of the closing of the Lyman School for Boys. 6. Massachusettts Advocacy Center (1980). The report concluded: 'The youth

92

services revolution in Massachusetts has not failed, but it remains unfinished.' 7. In Massachusetts, as in most American states, pre-trial detention is the responsibility of the city or county authorities. 8. A Juvenile v. Commonwealth, 370 Mass. 272, 280-283, N.E. 2nd 677 (1976) 9. Letter to the author from Professor Lloyd Ohlin, April 1984. 10. But see Krisberg and Schwartz, who report: 'While the policy thrust to remove status offenders and non-offenders from secure institutions has proven to be a major success, the overall results with respect to deinstitutionalisation have been far less than what reformers had hoped for' (Krisberg and Schwartz, 1983, p.357). 11. For an insider's account of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention during the final stages of the Carter Administration see Ira M Schwartz (1989, pp 107-129). 12. In 1974 responsibility for CHINS cases was transferred from DYS to the Department of Welfare. 13. This sum represented one-third of the DYS request and was not taken from the DYS budget. 14. Significant steps towards decarceration were taken in Utah during the 1980s. See Russell Van Vleet et al (1987); and on encouraging developments in Hawaii, see Matsuo (1992). 15. It was also found that 77 per cent of the variation between states in the use of detention could be explained in terms of the number of detention beds. The comparable explanatory percentage for training schools was 27 per cent (but this represented 82 per cent of all the variation that was explained by the selected independent variables). 16. Rethinking Juvenile Justice: National Statistical Trends, Minneapolis, Hubert H Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, 1984. The total numbers held in juvenile institutions in the United States fell from 77,000 to 72,000 between 1974 and 1979, but by 1982 had increased to 80,000. 'There is no solid evidence that these policies of increased juvenile incapacitation are positively affecting public safety' (B Krisberg et a1. (1985). 17. For recent assessments of the Massachusetts experience see especially, Miller and OhHn (1985) Loughran (1987) and Krisberg et al (1989). After reviewing the empirical findings, Jerry Miller concludes: 'Sadly, its survival will not be based on results, but will be a matter of chance, of happenstance, of politics and mood.' (Miller, 1991, p.226) 18. The National Center on Institutions and Alternatives has subsequently achieved a considerable reputation for providing the courts with 'creative sentencing' packages. Under Jerry Miller's leadership, the Center has continued to speak out on criminal justice and mental health issues of the day. It is often a lone voice in an immensely bleak terrain, where the overall prison and jail population rate had by 1991 exceeded 425 per 100,000 inhabitants, more than five times the rate for western Europe.

93

CHAPTER FIVE

Holding On Unless schools, parents and social workers are prepared to tolerate a certain amount of disturbance, in the confident expectation that most youngsters will grow out of their troublesome phase, and unless they are prepared to tackle some of the more difficult problems themselves, instead of exporting them to an over-burdened penal system, legal formulae for 'diversion' will be so much waste of paper. Donald West, 1982, p. 146

*

*

*

Management of young people and crime has to be rescued from criminal justice and other types of formal intervention and returned to where it belongs. The key question for policy-makers is how to foster and support the capacity of homes and schools to respond effectively and hold on to young people in trouble. The financial resources of homes and schools are only part of the requirement. The crucial ingredient is the level of personal support and commitment offered to young people. Without question, some everyday practice leads policy with respect to the developmental approach to youth crime. Much can be learned from the skill and determination of those parents and teachers who hold on to their young people, and from practice within the criminal justice arena which seeks to strengthen the community's capacity to manage young people and crime. Policy on youth crime has been retarded by a failure to build on the lessons of successful practice.

Holding On at Home The Black report on services for young people in Northern Ireland succinctly identified the importance of the family: The family is the first and most basic institution in our society for developing a child's potential . .. It is within the family that the child experiences love, attention, care, supervision, discipline, conflict, neglect, stress or abuse depending on parental and family characteristics and 94

circumstances . . . Society must seek to develop and provide the environment, resources and opportunities through which families can become more competent to deal with their own problems. (Black, 1979, pp. 6-7) Among problems with which the family may have to grapple are the young person's involvement in criminal and other troubling escapades. A critical aspect of bringing up children is the provision of support and control, especially during periods of difficult behaviour. Levels of control and support provided within the home depend upon many considerations, not least social circumstances and resources including the availability of an extended family. Social deprivation has been suggested by many studies as a factor within the home that is associated with crime. Donald West, for example, regards social deprivation as 'an agglomeration of interacting factors' and points to 'its aftermath, the antisocial syndrome' (West, 1982, pp. 117-19). But regardless of social and economic circumstances there are variations of styles of parental supervision, and these appear to be associated with the extent to which young people get involved in crime. Parental supervision, one study suggests, is a 'protective measure against delinquency [which] appeared to operate effectively among disadvantaged families resident in deprived inner-city areas' (Wilson, 1980, p. 204). Furthermore, social deprivation is not inherently associated with youth crime, as noted in a review of Swedish research: 'This steep rise in criminality [which has mainly involved young persons] has accompanied a rapid rise in national standards of material well-being.' It was suggested that this type of 'affluence criminality' is the consequence of a decline in informal social controls, resulting from 'the totally transformed role of teenagers in modem society. The most important element of this transformation is the transition from a producer to a consumer role. Young persons today are not subject to the preventive control formerly entailed by working together with adults' (Sarnecki, 1983, p. 2). The importance of social circumstances to the capacity of the home to hold on to a young person in trouble is far from straightforward. To a consider,able extent social and economic considerations determine whether options to criminal justice intervention are available to families. Some of these options, however, also lead to incarcerative institutions. Access to private secure psychiatric facilities makes middle-class young people especially vulnerable. As noted by two American sociologists: 'a social control perspective predicts, for adolescents, the separation of class origins from power and resources . .. The middle-class adolescent is more liable to "voluntary" incarceration than the lower-class adolescent' (Guttridge and Warren, 1984, p. 23). The following account by Carole of a winter with Rick, her fifteen-year-old son, describes an unremarkable family crisis met with fortitude and perseverance.

95

A winter's tale 'September is always the beginning of a new year in our lives. School starts and Rick says everything is "alright". By the end of October I'm vaguely aware that Rick is doing less and less homework, but I'm not really paying attention. What he is spending all the hours doing at home is secluding himself in his room on the phone. His social life clearly reigns supreme. Then in November his weekend behavior begins to get erratic. He goes to the skating rink but breaks every curfew - not by minutes but by hours. And for the first time in his life, he is becoming a pathological liar. He is absolutely never where he says he's going to be; he stays out all night, spending it at other kids' houses without even calling to let us know (and he not even yet sixteen); or sneaks into our house at 3.30 a.m. with two other boys who spend the night without letting their parents know. So every Friday night he would do something outrageous, which would keep us up all night long, result in our grounding him for the rest of the weekend, and require us to stay home the rest of the weekend to watch him, talking about his problems and ringing our friends. The atmosphere in our household had become exclusively high tension and anger. It was affecting Doug badly, he telling us we were always down on Rick. Doug began biting his nails vigorously. Doug also began lying to cover up Rick's sins of omission and commission. 'This awful state of affairs continued into January (including Christmas). Stan and I were sleeping miserably and spending our days obsessed with what to do about Rick, how to force, cajole or otherwise get him to take more responsibility for his own life, his obligations to his own future and to his family. 'By now I knew Rick was flunking (as in F's) his three key academic courses. And he was surely flunking the bigger course, life. We decided to investigate private schools, alerting Rick that if he didn't turn around at home and in school by the end of the semester we would have to send him to boarding-school where discipline is enforced and where self-discipline is taught in ways more effective than we had apparently taught it. To that end we wrote, called and read about a dozen schools, and ultimately visited, with Rick, three, in early January. All three essentially said to us: "Look, if you can't be more specific about what his learning disabilities are, we cannot place Rick. Perhaps you should go have him tested and diagnosed again, and then get back to us with the results." 'So on 21 January, he spent eight hours in testing (and $495.(0) at a place of excellent repute. They concluded that his language abilities are in the belowaverage range, that his math abilities indicate a fundamental learning disability, that his fear of being sent to boarding-school was so profound it would probably be counter-productive, that we should first try professional tutoring (which the Center would provide), and that the most we could expect of Rick was D's in regular classes. 'By now, his report card came with an F in English, F in Biology, D in Math, and even a D in Driver's Ed (success in which he clearly had an 96

incentive). His English and Biology teachers, in conference with his counsellor and me, were strongly urging that he be removed from their classes, as he hadn't even attempted the work in months! The counsellor agreed. However, it also was revealed in this conference that Rick had been erroneously assigned in both these classes - that they were accelerated classes for bright students, and he was supposed to have been assigned to a lower English and Biology course last September. 1 wanted to commit homicide on the counsellor, right there, but she being in power and me being only a parent, 1 thought better of it! 'I went home and explained the whole nasty mistake to Rick, told him we all wanted to reassign him to easier classes where he'd have a better chance at experiencing success, and he dug in his heels and said: "No. I am sick and tired of being in Learning Disabled classes, of the embarrassment and the label; I want to be like my friends. And I'd rather try to get a D in a hard class than a C or B in an easier one. No!" 'At this same time came one other little diversion. 1 came home from work one day in late January, to be infonned by Rick that he'd been picked up by the police that afternoon. His story was that he'd been fooling around with his friend, outside the local grocery store, in a mock karate fight and had accidentally kicked another ooy, a total stranger, who'd come by. And his friend had punched another boy, also a stranger. Further, the night before he had pushed the "victim's" brother in a snow bank, for calling Rick a name. So Stall and I were to go to the police station with Rick on Saturday morning. Go we did, to an interrogation room, where the policeman revealed that the victim's parents were pressing charges of assault against Rick for kicking the boy. The boy, it was admitted, was not hurt, did not fall down, but his parents wanted to teach Rick a lesson. My heart was in my throat because I felt certain that all the "I don't know" responses Rick was giving to the policeman's questions were not true. So did the police, who told Rick he'd better not commit petjury when the case came before juvenile court. Rick is visibly scared to death, I'm shaking, Stan is tearing at his beard, and we all go home and grill Rick for the rest of the weekend. Stan and I decide that if this really does go to court, we'll let the chips fall where they may, to teach Rick a lesson about controlling his anger and exercising good judgment. 'Nothing happens for three months on the legal front, but by late January Rick tells us he believes his life has hit an all-time low, that he can't get any lower, and that he is prepared to turn it around. He still says he wishes we would give him more credit for never taking drugs or alcohol (which all his friends do) but other than that lnerit, he counts among his demerits an inability to keep his friends, flunking in school, being always in trouble at home, and now in trouble with the law. He also analyses his behaviour over the past months, and decides that as soon as he had gotten a little behind and befuddled in his classes, he felt so overwhelmed and hopeless about it he totally quit trying. 'So in early February I started having weekly meetings with his teachers, getting from them the course outlines, lesson plans, schedules of exactly what would be due and when. I bought material to use for the study of skeletal,

97

muscular, circulatory, respiratory and digestive systems (all of which would be covered in the next quarter). I worked with Rick every night for two hours, reteaching him study skills, and relearning (for me) human and animal biology, interpreting Julius Caesar, teaching him how to take notes when he read a novel for a book report, or a research paper. And the tutor worked with him two afternoons a week. Hosanna! The homework, quizzes and tests started coming back with A's, A-, B+ and notes of congratulations to him from his teachers. The better he did the better he thought he could do. His 3rd Quarter Report Card came home last week: from F to B in English, from F to B+ in Biology, from D to C+ in Math, from D to B in Physical Education. 'The only cloud in this improving picture is that a real live summons appeared from juvenile court the last week in March, requiring Rick's appearance in mid-April. We all begin to get scared anew, and Stall and I decide we'd better not just let the chips fall where they may. Stan takes Rick to see a lawyer, who had previously been a policeman and a prosecuting attorney for juvenile court. He is now a defence attorney who knows more than we could ever have imagined about the juvenile justice system. You've already heard what can go wrong with the education system (not to mention the "parenting system"). Now read what can go wrong with the juvenile justice system. The parents, we learn, have charged Rick twice: one for a kick, and one for pushing the brother in the snow bank. The lawyer says the judge can sentence Rick to jail, and some judges have for similar offences. Or, worse yet, he can put Rick on probation (including a 10.00 p.m. curfew) for a year or two. If Rick were to miss that curfew by five minutes once, a bitter cynical probation officer could have him sent to a detention home, where he would live with juvenile rapists and murderers. Or he might get a suspended sentence. Any of those three outcomes result in Rick having a record until he's eighteen, clearly impeding his employability. The lawyer is brutally honest with Rick and Stall, and holds the system in disrepute. 'Stall and Rick decide to retain this lawyer, who says his first move will be to try to persuade the family to drop the charges. They drive home and relate all this to me, with Rick crying all the way home in the car. For the past three weeks, then, all any of us have been able to think about is the possible outcome of this trial. And the more we think about it, the more outrageous it seems that a teenager could get charged with assault for pushing another teenager in the snow. Somehow, that charge began to deprive dignity from the kicking charge. 'To end this story, the trial was Monday. The lawyer explained to the family the situation Rick was in when this happened back in January (the anger, the failure, the prospect of being sent away from home to boardingschool), and the extent to which Rick had turned himself around since then. They were initially resistant to dropping the charges (they wanted to set an example to their sons and had taken other teenagers to court before) but even the policeman urged them to do so. They finally agreed, so the judge did also. Rick apologized to the two boys and we all breathed a huge sigh of relief. 'It's spring. The new quarter has started and we're all proceeding with 98

renewed hope and optimism. Rick hasn't broken a curfew since January, has a cute girlfriend whose mother adores him. He's away at the beach with them this weekend.' Rick's story highlights the enonnous potential within the home to hold on to the young person in trouble, where there is the will and ability to harness resources and a strong and consistent commitment to the young person.! The account contrasts to situations where parents decide, for reasons which include the sheer scale of difficulties, tensions or lack of resources, that they cannot or will not hold on. 2 In these circumstances, and in others where intervention becomes inevitable, the difficulty for policy-makers is how to assist the home in harnessing resources and to avoid actions which weaken the capacity of the home to hold on. 3 The contrasting policy perspectives of Denmark and Sweden are instructive. In Denmark, where raising children is regarded as primarily the job of the family, guidance is available which supplements but does not replace the family's responsibilities. In Sweden, where the developmental role of the family has become weaker, the agencies of government have sought to give 'parents and children freedom to create their own lives within the larger "family" of Swedish society' (Tempkin, 1973). Sweden pioneered boarding out or fostering of young people as an alternative to incarcerative institutions. Nancy Hazel and others in England have d~monstrated that when used appropriately the foster home may have much to offer: 'Many adolescents are rejected by their parents, and delinquent or unacceptable behaviour both reflects and confirms this rejection. During placement, relationships with the family of origin tend to become more amicable, probably because the pressure of guilt is eased on both sides' (Hazel, 1978, p. 95). Hazel's social network of professionals and fosterparents which provides support and encouragement may be the type of arrangement that is required to keep young people in their own homes. If foster-parents routinely require support, can anything less be justified to see parents through a troubled phase?

Holding On in Schools The most important developmental institution outside the home is the school. Given the amount of time young people spend at school during their fonnative years, it is hardly surprising that research findings show schools having an impact upon pupils' behaviour beyond academic achievement. Since the late 1960s a series of studies have found that differences in truancy and offending patterns across schools cannot be entirely accounted for by variations in pupil intake. Michael Power's studies of London schools made this point with some

99

force (Power et al., 1967, 1972), but his proposal to examine how the schools accounted for the differences was blocked by the Inner London Education Authority and the National Union of Teachers. Further research in London by Michael Rutter and in South Wales by David Reynolds confrrmed Power's findings, and they were able to investigate how schools differed. Rutter's study of twelve comprehensive schools serving inner London produced these main fmdings:

*

There were marked differences in attainments and behaviour.

* The differences in intake did not wholly account for these differences. * The variations remained stable over a 4-5 year period.

*

The different forms of success were closely connected.

* The outcome differences were not due to physical factors or to differences in administration or organisation.

* The differences were systematically related to characteristics of the school as a social organisation; these were factors which could be modified by staff. * The outcomes were also influenced by factors outside the control of teachers, in particular the academic balance in the intakes to the schools; the effect of this balance was most marked with respect to delinquency. It seems that it is the school's particular ethos (set of values, attitudes, behaviours which characterise the school) that has greatest impact on pupils. * A causal process appears to be at work whereby to an appreciable extent children's behaviour and attitudes are shaped and influenced by their experiences at school and, in particular, by the qualities of the school as a social institution (Rutter et al., 1979, p. 179). Rutter explored the notion of ethos in detail, noting differences in disciplinary styles within the classroom and expectations of teachers regarding pupils. He comments: 'Schools which expected children to care for their own resources had better behaviour, better attendance and less delinquency ... The message of confidence that the pupils can be trusted to act with maturity and responsibility is likely to encourage pupils to fulfil those expectations' (Rutter et al., 1979, p. 188). Also of importance were the example set by'teaching staff, rewards and punishment, and the degree to which staff acted together to develop a school-wide set of values. Rutter suggests that, contrary to expectations, he found that the pupil mix most strongly predisposed to delinquency was not a mix of boys with the highest individual predisposition to delinquency, but one where there was a heavy preponderance of the least able. He suggests that the explanation may in part lie in the effects of scholastic failure on feelings of personal worth leading to anti-school peer groups. Nor was any particular style of leadership by headteachers important; indeed, the heads of the more successful schools took widely different approaches. Rutter suggests that these headteachers had essential elements in common which remain to be identified. Ruuer concludes 100

.

that schools can do much to promote good behaviour and attainments and that, even in a disadvantaged area, schools can be a force for the good (Rutter et al., 1979, p. 205). The results of the London study are usefully complemented by research in South Wales. The eight schools studied by David Reynolds served a relatively homogeneous former mining valley and, again, pupil intake did not fully account for the variation between the schools. Factors associated with the more 'effective' regimes included a high proportion of pupils in authority positions; low levels of institutional control; low rates of physical punishment; small overall size; more favourable teacher/pupil ratios; and more tolerant attitudes to enforcing rules on 'dress, manners and morals'. Reynolds concluded that schools differ in the strategies used to mobilise pupils towards acceptance of school pmposes. In broad terms, these strategies can be described as incorporation and coercion. Incorporation involves pupils in the organising of the school and eliciting parental support. Pupils are encouraged to take an active part in the classroom and in extra-curricular activities, discouraging anti-school attitudes. Pupils getting into trouble evoke therapeutic rather than coercive responses within the school. By contrast, in the coercive schools there was little tolerance of acting-out by pupils. In these schools (three of the eight) teachers anticipated that pupils would take advantage of leniency. Reynolds suggests that contrasting perceptions by teachers of pupils provide the most likely explanation as to choice of strategy. These perceptions, in turn, become selffulfilling prophecies. Reynolds suggests that the key to successful changes in school practice lies in the interpersonal relations and mutual perceptions of teachers and pupils. Of paramount importance is the school's ethos rather than its organisational structure (Reynolds and Sullivan, 1981). These studies have implications for explorations of schools' potential to cope with young people in trouble. The incorporative school will do what it can to hold on to disruptive,delinquent or truanting pupils because it regards them in positive terms. It believes that the school should not fail its pupils, and that it has something of value to offer. Furthermore, it enjoys the confidence of police and courts. Schools not only differ in the behaviour of their pupils but in the determination and the ability of the school to prevent or reduce contact between their pupils and criminal justice. 4 It is often the disruptive rather than the truanting child who most upsets teachers. 5 With such children a groundswell of opinion may develop among the staff to get them out of the school. Ways of achieving this include suspension or expulsion and propelling the young person in the direction of the police and the courts. The groundswell for getting rid of the child is especially likely when teachers see their job as strictly educational rather than in pastoral terms, or where the pupil is used by teachers as a means of taking on the headteacher. Powers to suspend and expel pupils derive not from statute but from the school's articles of govemment. 6 The rate of suspension varies greatly from

101

one school to another, and one source of variance may be that some heads and their staff have developed ways in which they are able to deal with pupils within the school setting. The governor of a London school has written that her 'strong impression is that the whole issue of pupils "in trouble" is the least satisfactory part of the authority's services' (Monck, 1983, p. 7). The range and quality of provision for troublesome pupils are considerable. In some areas extensive arrangements have been created, ranging from special units, where the child mayor may not finish his or her schooling, to home tutors. Very often the provision exists only on paper. Such arrangements are expensive and rarely sufficient to meet demand. Furthermore, they are not able to offer pupils involved a full curriculum. Thus there are both economic and educational pressures on authorities to restrict such special provisions. The Inner London Education Authority, for example, has encouraged headteachers to limit suspensions by tightening up on the formal procedures. It also keeps a close watch on how many pupils each school suspends. Under this pressure, some headteachers who are unwilling or unable to cope with the disruptive child within the school setting may more readily seek a solution through the courts. A custodial sentence achieves a 'suspension' without upsetting the Authority, and the headteacher achieves a low suspension rate. Another way headteachers can get rid of pupils without using formal suspension, and often for much longer periods, is to arrange for them to be directly admitted to the variety of special units. There are usually strict screening procedures involving the school's psychological service, but the influence of the headteacher remains paramount. It is not unusual for a large inner London secondary school to have twenty or thirty or more pupils on its 'special register'. These pupils count on the school roll and thus contribute towards the allocation of resources to the school (both human and physical) yet, in practice, attend other institutions, usually on a full-time basis. The allocation of resources on account of pupils who do not actually attend the school is clearly an encouragement for headteachers to build up their special registers. In London, for example, a special register of thirty.;four pupils would entitle the school to two extra members of staff. Since the thirty-four pupils would be educated elsewhere, these two members of staff could be deployed entirely within the school for the benefit of the remaining pupils. This could be justified if the pupils attended these units on a short-term and preferably part-time basis, but this is not normally the case. All too often the special units are seen as a means of permanently excluding difficult pupils. As already noted, the school may encourage prosecution and removal from home in order to conserve resources. The two key points of contact between the school and criminal justice are with the police, when prosecution is being considered, and with the courts, when a report is requested to assist the sentencing decision.

102

Contacts between school and police Arrangements usually exist for consideration by the police of the views of the school on whether or not to prosecute. This may be a formal process, such as the juvenile liaison scheme, where input is sought from the school, or it may be informal. In the latter case the initiative may be taken by the school. In cases of assault, robbery and theft within the school, the police generally require the victim to take out the prosecution. Where the victim is a child, this decision is usually taken by the parents, who tend to rely on the advice of the headteacher, taking account of the extent to which the headteacher is willing to deal with the matter him- or herself. The practice of headteachers varies greatly, and headteachers are not usually provided with any guidance. Some headteachers are keen to encourage prosecution whenever possible; others are equally keen to discourage it. Those who are quick to involve the police may do so out of a belief that crime is the province of the courts, or they may be influenced by practical considerations. Serious incidents in school can take up a great deal of time and effort on the part of senior staff. Investigation of the incident, written reports, interviews with parents, implementation of corrective action or punishment can take a heavy toll. By calling in the police, some heads are thereby able to avoid this unwelcome distraction. It seems likely that the most creative efforts to hold on to pupils are made in the private sector. It is not unusual for the private school to assure the police that it is able to take effective steps to deal with the matter or, at most, that a formal caution by the police may be useful. The private school may make assurances that the child will be moved to another school elsewhere in the country, or will be gated (Le. kept in the school), or that the victim has been recompensed and sees no need for prosecution. The private school may develop good informal relations with the police at senior level ensuring that incidents are smoothly dealt with as t11ey arise. An example of formal working arrangements between police and the school is where headmasters are invited to attend the weekly meeting of the juvenile liaison panel which is also attended by education welfare officers and other professionals. In at least one school, information will be lodged in the child's file and a form tutor will invite the pupil to talk about the trouble he or she is in, offering the school's help and support to the pupil and parents where possible. This school's headteacher has emphasised that the matter must not be broached where other children are present - that it must be brought up in a counselling capacity and with total confidentiality (Pask, 1982). This degree of sensitivity is not always present. For example, Lancashire police have decided, as a general rule, not to inform schools that a child has been cautioned, as senior police officers became concerned about cases of pupils who were identified as thieves in front of school assembly or by their names being written on a blackboard (Laughame, 1983).

103

Schools and courts The second main type of contact between schools and criminal justice is the report prepared by the school for the court. A review of forms used by forty education authorities found that in only one case was the school specifically asked what might be said in favour of the child. It has been suggested that the quality of pastoral care within a school can be measured by its school reports (Ball, 1982). One headmaster has written with reference to school reports: 'There is a strong temptation (to which teachers quite often yield, if evidence collected nationally is to be believed) to use the school report to the court as a forum for the expression of frustration, or even irritation and anger towards the child, especially in cases where the child is a nuisance at school. In some cases there is a temptation for us to claim that we had "foreseen this all along". In yet other cases we might even feel that our chance has come to get rid of a troublemaker. All such temptation must be resisted. No matter how irritating a child may be, how aggravating or aggressive his presentation, a juvenile before the court is in distress and, most commonly, has been failed to one degree or another by the adults responsible for his/her care' (Pask, 1982). Not only may the school seek prosecution but it may also seek to encourage the court to use its most severe powers and thereby rid itself of the young person. A deputy headteacher has noted: Many teachers see custodial provision as the ultimate sanction and they often express disappointment when a supervision order or community service is recommended. There is clearly a lot of in-service work to be done here. The school could play a valuable role in the developing policy of diverting juveniles from the courts, if teacher attitudes were to change. (Mayer, 1984, p. 10) The school report often reveals much about the school's level of support for the young person involved. In some instances the language is graphic in the extreme: 'This boy exercises an Al Capone influence in the playground'; and, 'Jimmy is a cancer to the student body - if he didn't commit this offence, then someone else in his family did'; The school has failed in its persistent efforts to exercise proper control over Derek ... We recommend that Derek is shown that his disregard for the ordinary rules of behaviour will not go unpunished and in spite of the fact that it seems unthinkable for someone of Derek's inadequacy to go to detention centre, this is what we feel forced to recommend'; and finally, 'This boy is big, black and smelly' (NACRO, 1984, pp. 10-11). There is considerable ambiguity in the rules governing juvenile court proceedings as to whether or not reports prepared by schools be shown to parents and/or the child. In a survey of all justices' clerks, Caroline Ball found: Changes [only 9 per cent of courts were said to have changed their practice over the past five years] towards showing [reports] appear to have been 104

instigated almost equally by magistrates and justices' clerks, whilst moves towards greater restriction were reported as having been made mainly as a result of requests to courts by headteachers, who are generally perceived by clerks as being jealous of the confidentiality of their reports. (Ball, 1983, p.201) Several clerks commented to the effect that when headteachers discovered that courts were showing their reports they 'were not at all pleased and, following a meeting, the practice was changed'. However, in one instance the change was in the opposite direction, at the instigation of a headteacher. Ball reported that where the change had been towards greater restriction, the indication was that reports were fuller and more detailed, but that when the change was in the opposite direction the reverse was not observed. One court clerk noted: 'Staff room gossip had gone but frankness of reports was uninhibited.' Caroline Ball concluded: With the collusion of clerks and juvenile panel justices, this has resulted in the current situation where a number of juvenile courts could, on good grounds, be open to charges of administering "secret justice" , (Ball 1983, pp. 8-10). The school's report to court is a strategic document which, as Henri Giller suggests, often imputes blame rather than placing the pupil in a favourable light (GiBer, 1982, pp. 4-6). This tendency has been commented on by a headmaster: Subject tutors' comments should not be reproduced in detail except where this may help to obtain a particular positive outcome. In many cases the subject reports may simply reiterate a child's failures or difficulties and therefore do him or her down. There should always be a positive side to the school report. This school is committed to the view that all youngsters should be given some success and invited to build on it. I have never known a young person for whom some success or something positive could not be identified. (Pask, 1982, p. 6) Considerations concerning school reports to court raise questions about the scope and objectives of educational settings. The school is concerned not only with academic achievement but also with preparing young people for the society and world in which they are growing up. The school's pastoral role has gained significance with the relative shift of influence over young people away from the family. lames Coleman, in exploring this transition, noted: 'This absorption of adolescent time by the school has contributed to the dominance of the student role among the many roles that a young person might have. This family role has been diminished as the family has declined in size and strength' (Coleman et al., 1974, p. 80).7 The school's pastoral role involves watching over the pupil's development

105

and recognising opportunities to provide support when the young person is in trouble. Pastoral responsibilities are often neglected because, as Peter Maher comments, many teachers take an insular view of tbeir profession. Very little of teachers' initial training deals with pastoral care (Maher, 1984, p. 2). Schools vary in the priority placed on pastoral responsibilities. Coleman has argued that the large American high school has failed to meet the diverse nature of the challenge: 'There are limits on how comprehensive any educational organisation can be without blandness eroding all sense of purpose and enterprise.' Coleman and his colleagues urged changes in the school's structure, so that it might address more than a narrow range of tasks (Coleman et al., 1974, p. 146). The pastoral role is commonly recognised in the private sector, where personal tutors keep a watchful eye over particular pupils and, when necessary, are in close contact with their parents. In the state school system there are often obstacles owing to resistance by teachers and the expectations of young people and their parents. Howard Parker, in his appreciative study of working-class youth in Merseyside, writes: 'The Boys treated school as simply a process they were involuntarily put through.' He noted that several of his group had passed the 11 + exam but were unable to handle the grammar school situation (Parker, 1974, pp. 197-200). Mutual stereotyping, self-fulfilling prophecies and cynically negative attitudes contribute to the sometimes herculean nature of the task of releasing the school's capacity as a developmental institution. 8 Home and school, and places of further education, may continue to provide the protection of the developmental institution up until the early twenties and sometimes beyond. Most further education institutions have their own disciplinary procedures and prefer these to be used instead of invoking the criminal law. If the police do become involved, an offer by the institution to deal directly with the matter may often be acceptable. By contrast, for many young people these types of protective arrangement from late adolescence into early adulthood do not exist. An important aspect of education beyond the minimum school-leaving age is the link it provides to future employment and career prospects. For the undergraduate, achievement of a good degree and taking a full part in the life of the institution increase career choices. But for many young people the situation is starkly different. The opportunities for apprenticeships or for steady work on leaving school at the age of sixteen have become scarce. The prospects for work of any kind, even 'dead end' jobs are bleak. In some parts of Britain more than six out of every ten school-leavers face the void of unemployment. While there is no proven clear-cut relationship between unemployment and crime, the status of joblessness leaves the young person more vulnerable to sentence to the prison system. As Norman Tutt has suggested, with high levels of youth unemployment the inclination is no longer for the state to encourage the development of young people but to guarantee their control (Tutt, 1984, p. 306). The spectre of long-term unemployment casts its shadow beyond those

106

immediately affected. The absence of work prospects for young people has especially insidious consequences for the home and school, sapping their effectiveness as developmental institutions.9 The remainder of this chapter explores three applications of the developmental approach within the criminal justice process. First, the crucial gatekeeping role of the police is examined both in terms of its success in diverting young people away from criminal justice and also as a warning of how formalised schemes can have results very different from those intended. The two other examples explore attempts to identify and use resources in the community in managing young people and crime. Everthorpe borstal, as it then was, exemplifies the constraints inherent in efforts to link: the incarcerative institution with the localities to which young people will be returning. Finally, the Woodlands Centre in Basingstoke provides rare testimony to what the tetm 'community-based' might mean.

Policeman at the Gate Many events and situations concerning young people which are brought to the attention of the police proceed no further, because police officers decide that prosecution would serve no useful purpose. Traditionally this takes the form of an informal warning. The proverbial 'clip round the ear' and 'cuffing' (noting the offender's name on the officer's shirt cufO means there is no further progress into the criminal justice process. As one chief constable has observed: 'Officers regard street cautions as part of the nonnal learning process of young persons' (Laugharne, 1983). On an infonnal basis, cautioning was a way out of the criminal justice process. It was when some cautions were made on a formal basis that the problems began. Following endorsement of the notion of 'diversion' in the white paper of 1968 Children in Trouble and in the Children and Young Persons Act 1969, many police forces greatly increased the number of juveniles they formally cautioned. Prior to the 1969 Act one third of 10-13 year olds and one fifth of 14-16 year olds were fonnally cautioned. By 1983 more than three quarters of 10-13 year olds and about half the older group were cautioned. On the other hand, only 4 per cent of young adults were cautioned. (These percentages are of the number of young people cautioned out of the total found guilty or formally cautioned for indictable offences). Decisions not to prosecute are determined in part by the assessment by the police of the young person's attitude and social circumstances. The Home Office has referred to 'parental attitude: the ability and willingness of the offender's parent or guardian to help the offender take heed of the caution' (Home Office, 1984b, p. 29). Trevor Bennett has examined the impact of parents' attitudes on the decision by police about prosecution. He quotes two contrasting police reports. One assessment reads: 'The television was on all the time I was speaking to Mr X and, though on two separate

107

occasions I asked him to turn it off, he merely turned it fractionally down.' And, with reference to the daughter of a building-society manager: 'They are intelligent, well-oriented parents and have kept the incident in its true perspective; that is against her normal rational outlook.' Bennett found that 'not only do working-class parents seem to praise their children far less than middleclass parents in the presence of the juvenile bureau officer, but also they frequently seem to offer quite damaging information very likely to enhance the juvenile's delinquent identity'. One middle-class parent, by contrast, produced a character reference written by the local vicar (Bennett, 1979, pp. 142-4). In reviewing explanations for the lower use of cautions of black youngsters, a different London study found that black juveniles more frequently came from disrupted families than did their white counterparts. The authors comment: 'These conditions may also reduce the likelihood of full co-operation between the juvenile's parents and the juvenile bureau' (Landau and Nathan, 1983, p. 144). Decisions on whether or not to prosecute may also be influenced by the school and by social services departments. On some occasions, social services seek prosecution as a short-cut to obtaining a care order. By the early 1970s the American diversion experience should have been a powerful warning to policy-makers that as police cautioning became formalised the likely result would be not to narrow but to widen the criminal justice net. The danger was twofold. First, in addition to replacing prosecution as intended, fOImal cautioning would also replace some informal cautions. The Home Office guide to the 1969 Act reminded police officers that infonnal warnings and taking no further action remained important alternatives to prosecution. Nine years later the Home Office reminded chief police officers that fOImal cautions required sufficient evidence to prosecution and an admission of guilt by the juvenile in the presence of parents. The second net-widening danger was that the formal caution would have consequences similar to those of conviction. This would be the result if formal cautions became part of any subsequent court proceedings. By the mid-1970s it was clear that this was the practice of many courts, and in 1978 it was endorsed by the Home Office. An allied danger is that cautioning results in informal supervision or some other programme placement. Diversion into programmes typified much of the American scene and exacerbated net-widening results. Some Intermediate Treatment projects have used police cautioning schemes as a means of recruiting clients, and in such instances net-widening can only result. Some research findings have underlined the danger of net-widening resulting from formal cautions. David Steer found that in two out of every five cautions there was either insufficient evidence for caution or the complainant was unwilling to give evidence (Steer, 1970). The impact of formal cautioning in London was examined by Farrington and Bennett, who concluded that there was a widening of the net of arrested juveniles especially in the younger, under-fourteen age group (Farrington and Bennett, 1981, p. 128). The diversionary effect of tlle caution increases if police are encouraged to re-caution young people. These are cases where the court would probably be less inclined to consider a lenient disposal. A recent study found that eight 108

police forces explicitly permitted second cautions, and these included forces with the highest cautioning rates. In Suffolk, for example, where 28 per cent of repeaters were cautioned, the standing orders read: 'proceedings will normally be taken if the juvenile has been formally cautioned on two separate occasions or has made a court appearance for a similar offence' (Laycock and Tarling, 1984, p. 39).10 The formal cautioning rate for young adults by most police area forces has remained very low. In 1982 only three forces had rates above 10 per cent. Greater use of fonnal cautions for this age group seems likely to receive more official support. 11

Everthorpe The incarcerative institution faces insuperable obstacles in any serious pursuit of the developmental approach. This proposition was amply confirmed during the early 1970s at Everthorpe borstal where attempts were made to bring about organisational changes which would make the institution relevant to the situation facing the young men on their release. Everthorpe, which is now a 'youth custody centre', is a secure institution, holding about 300 'trainees' aged between fifteen and nineteen. The institution is situated in a rural part of East Yorkshire, about 150 miles from where many of the trainees live. Certainly in the early 1970s most of the trainees were from the industrial areas of Merseyside and Manchester. Over a three-year period efforts were made by staff and trainees to bring about changes within the institution and in relation to the mandatory period of supervision following release. The results were clear-cut. No substantial change was achieved within the institution, but some significant steps were taken to alter the after-care relationship between trainee and probation officer. By 1972 the conclusion was evident: 'We are in need of some fonn of declaration that states our work is within the urban setting' (Rutherford, 1973). The organisational tool selected to bring about the required change was the 'workshop'. One or two full-day sessions involving trainees and staff focused on offending patterns and particular types of crime. Increasingly, people were invited to workshops from the trainees' home localities. Such persons included former trainees, police officers, magistrates and probation officers. Frequently, trainees would ask that members of the local CID be invited and, despite the distances, occasionally the invitations were accepted. The ensuing discussions focused on mutual stereotypes and tlle task of the former borstal trainee in convincing the local police that he was staying out of trouble. The positive response by the police highlighted tlle potential within police forces to recognise the support. required for young people with serious criminal records.

109

One of the most regular events was the after-care workshop which drew its participants from a particular town or city in northern England and generally involved six to ten probation officers, around twenty trainees and several borstal staff. The after-care workshop was especially conducive to spill-over or what Douglas and loan Grant once called 'the principle of contagion'. This spill-over mainly took the form of after-care groups involving one probation officer and up to eight trainees from the same area. While the trainees were in the borstal the probation officer visited and met with the group every two or three weeks and continued to meet regularly after release. The group setting provided mutual support and allowed for a greater degree of negotiation between probation officer and former trainee than would be likely with one-to-one supervision. For example, a group might agree to meet away from the probation office. Agreement sometimes was made to involve others such as girlfriends and family members. After-care groups directly challenged the long-established assumption that ex-offenders should be kept apart. About half of the groups established inside continued to function after discharge. A Teesside probation officer wrote:The after-care group is part of a scheme which is ambitious yet experimental. It would be premature to suggest any fmn conclusions and the significant test of the group's work and viability is still to come. The project does not imply rejection of traditional probationary techniques which are still applicable to the majority of our clients. It is geared specifically to bostal trainees from a common home area. If the group disintegrated tomorrow I would feel that efforts thus far were worthwhile in view of the extent of discussion and the fact that a willingness to consider alternatives has been generated. I am fairly hopeful that the group will survive in Teesside. It will be a considerable time before we can assess the impact, if any, on reconviction rates. Nevertheless the experience of the last seven months would seem to justify an enthusiastic continuation of the experiment. (Keane, 1972) Another group which was based on the vast housing conurbation of Kirkby near LivetpOOl was also described by its probation officer: After twelve months' existence it seems appropriate to review the process by which the group started and the progress it has made. In crude statistical terms the group has been very successful. Six months after release all four members still had their liberty and three of the four are still in work. Only one offence has been committed, that of under-age drinking by the member who lost his job. The group has provided its members with an opportunity for dynamic growth. Group pressures have been strong and have been given as one reason for avoiding delinquent involvement. Each of the members has verbalised his intention of not being the [lfst to break down. It has also been interesting to note the development of individuals within the group. One individual has assumed a dominant role, both economically and emotionally, in his fatherless family. Another, initially introverted and withdrawn with his problems compounded by a bad stutter, has now gained sufficient self confidence to be a successful operator as a door to door salesman. 110

In attempting to assess the success of this group the probation officer noted that contributory factors may well have been the fact they were released on the same date, that there had been a large number of meetings within the borstal prior to release, and that the small size of the group itself may in some ways have been useful. He feels that a further factor was his own personal commitment to the group and a heavy investment of his time and effort. This, he says, certainly affected his attitude towards the group on release. He wrote that he learned something of the sociological and psychological factors that foster criminal behaviour. 'Perhaps the biggest single factor I have noted that seems to have affected the attitude and behaviour of the group is that of maturation'; and he continued: 'now the lads can buy clothes and entertainment, visit clubs and stay out late, they no longer feel the need to steal.' He added: This is perhaps a none too startling conclusion after twelve months' hard work, however, it was important for me to learn this and for the group to see I had learned, in fact the group members have demanded part of my salary as they consider I have done nothing to modify their attitudes and behaviour. They see it very much as coming from within themselves as a process of maturation. However, they are willing to admit that I was able to retain a focus on this developmental process and this is perhaps the significance of the Kirkby After-Care group. (Whiffm, 1972) Several key lessons emerge from the Everthorpe experience. In the frrst place, the institution was very much more resilient to change than external agencies such as the probation service. Although many borstal staff demonstrated considerable enthusiasm, the demands of the custodial organisation limited the contribution they were able to make. On the other hand, probation officers displayed considerable adaptability. Their involvement in workshops and after-care groups appeared to give them greater confidence in being able to hold young persons in the community. There was, for example, a greater expressed willingness to avoid recommendations for custody in writing social inquiry reports to courts. This new confidence also applied to the trainees, who demonstrated commitment and skills in keeping themselves and others out of incarcerative institutions. Of primary importance, the Everthorpe experience strongly suggested that the institutional part of the borstal sentence might be dispensed with. The incarcerative institution got in the way of and postponed the critical work which had to be done. In other words, for sentencers and probation departments the implication was that the required resources actually existed to bypass the institutional stage. What was needed was the means by which these resources might be harnessed. From the borstal setting it was not possible to reach out sufficiently to persons and groups outside the criminal justice system. Spillover from the institution into the localities of the young people clearly has much less potential for bringing about change than efforts finnly rooted in the community.

III

The Woodlands Centre In the summer of 1981 several citizens of Basingstoke, a town in north Hampshire with a population of about 132,000, took innovative steps to deal with young people and crime. There was growing despair that the juvenile court did not have local alternatives to incarcerative institutions, and a powerful determination emerged to do something about it. The main initiative was taken by Margaret Baring, chairperson of the juvenile court. She and other magistrates, the clerk to the court and other local people wanted a programme which did more than pack young people and canoes into a mini-bus. Baring was able to interest the Rainer Foundation in her ideas. Named after Frederick Rainer, a Hertfordshire printer who gave a few shillings to the Church of England Temperance Society to undertake missionary work in police courts, the Rainer Foundation was founded in 1876. With its considerable experience in responding to young people in trouble, the Rainer Foundation in the early 1980s gave priority to initiating a variety of community-based programmes. In assuming responsibility for the Woodlands Centre, the Foundation acquired the necessary funding and appointed the first director. The arrival of Chris Green at the Woodlands Centre determined that the programme's sights were set on Basingstoke rather than on the criminal justice arena. Green had been a member of a research team at Lancaster University which served as a resource to local authorities wishing to develop alternatives to sentences of care and custody.12 He brought much more than concern for programme ideas to the new project; he insisted that Woodlands should be as much concerned with changing the existing pattern of decision-making across juvenile justice, especially with reference to sentencing. A unique feature of the Basingstoke initiative was the recognition that, unless process issues were addressed, programme aspects might be counter-productive. Under Green's direction, Woodlands was to deal with older adolescents (not the younger age group who were in the minds of some of the founder group), and to confine its attention to young people who almost certainly would otherwise receive institutional sentences. Green firmly rejected the conventional interpretation of Intermediate Treattnent, or IT as it had become known. The 1968 white paper Children in Trouble had called for a new legal and administrative framework which would encourage 'the development of a variety of fonns of intennediate treatment for children placed under supervision by the courts'. The white paper also envisaged that IT would be used as a preventive measure for young persons who had not been before the courts. During the 1970s most IT programmes remained fmnly located at the periphery of the criminal justice process. Indeed, not infrequently, IT projects were located outside the criminal process, dealing with youngsters deemed to be at risk not of custody, but of crime. The proliferation of IT activities occurred with disregard to the effect on decisionmaking within criminal justice. The result was that not only did IT fail to reduce sentences to the prison system, but it widened the net by bringing young

112

people into the criminal justice process. The American experience, which contained profound warnings, was either unknown or ignored. Most social workers were too busy to find time for reading. By contrast, the Woodlands Centre adamantly refused to paddle safely in the 'shallow end' and opted for the tougher challenges of the 'deep end'. According to Green, Woodlands had 'the uncompromising objective of reducing the number of custodial and residential sentences in the juvenile court to zero' (Green, 1983a). Green was confident that the courts could be provided with an alternative to incarceration in which they had confidence. The Woodlands Centre also saw as its mandate to develop a response to crime and delinquency which focuses upon the offence and the damage done, which is rigorous and constructive - and which thus seeks to minimise the damage done by the juvenile's offence, both to the community and within the lives of the young offenders themselves; to reduce the incidence of re-offending by juveniles, and nurture growth into a mature and law abiding adulthood. (Green, 1983a) Woodlands is a two-storey structure situated on a housing estate within Basingstoke. The Centre operates during week-day evenings, mostly providing a one-to-one focus on the pattern and circumstances of offending and consideration of alternatives. Aims of the programme are:

*

* *

*

To identify rational behaviour responsible for the offences, which might then be modified to produce behavioural changes. To reidentify the young person with his or her immediate locality, and to build trust and shared relationships between young people and the community so that the individual can undertake some form of reparation for the offences committed. To confront the young person with issues of responsibility and control. To detail a process of reconciliation between the individual and the community. By involving the young person in community issues, the community may abandon stereotypes about the young person.

Chris Green and his colleagues explicitly recognise how much their approach contrasts with that of the incarcerative institution. Removing the young person from his or her locality is 'to remove him or her from the scene of the offence and any subsequent responsibility for reparation and atonement'. The result of incarceration is mutual isolation and labelling: 'This isolation and labelling of young offenders from community members results in two groups having little or no contact with each other' (Green, 1983b). For Woodlands the targets of change are both the young person and the locality. The Woodlands Centre combines an informal atmosphere with firm and clearly articulated requirements of the young people it serves. While the shape of the programme continues to evolve and develop, the overall intent is to provide for different levels of intervention according to seriousness of offence and offending pattern. The 'high intensity' programme is intended as an 113

alternative to sentences of youth custody. This consists of 280 hours of attendance over a periexl of twelve months. As attendance is reduced the focus is widened to include social problems and difficulties in general. During this stage youngsters may carry out studies of offending patterns or examine particular problems such as youth unemployment or glue-sniffing. For young people who would otherwise have received care orders or detention centre sentences, a 'medium intensity' programme consists of 100 hours of attendance over a period of six months and a condensed version of the programme undertaken by the high-intensity group. The third group is a spillover from the early months of the Centre's existence and was not originally anticipated. During this time there were several referrals for whom full programmes would have been inappropriate, either because of the minor nature of their offences (which would warrant rather lower tariff sentences such as fines or supervision orders) or because of the limited extent of their criminal careers to date. It was thought that for this group, particularly those in the latter category, a confrontational focus on offences and offending might confirm rather than reduce their commitment to delinquency; so the Centre offered voluntary attendance for the Thursday night activities with the addition of some weekly reporting or contact sessions with the Woodlands staff. These youngsters were not subject to Intermediate Treatment orders, and their attendance was arranged in conjunction with social workers or probation officers. The final group are youngsters who wish to participate in recreational and social activities. Most of these are friends or acquaintances of others who already attend the Centre. For one evening each week Woodlands serves to enhance local youth club provision. Woodlands is pioneering a variety of novel ways of working with young people. One important technique is to have the young people draw cartoons of their offences and offending patterns as a means of identifying trigger points.

Burglary of a warehouse (see cartoon on following three pages) Note provided by Woodlands staff: This cartoon was completed by a fifteen-year-old; it was his first offence, and he got involved with a group of young lads who acquired keys to the warehouse through an earlier burglary. Originally the idea was only to do the warehouse once, but having easily got away with it the first time they met again in the Chang Hoo and agreed to do it a second time (cartoon episode 6). The author of the cartoon was quick to see the escalation in his offending and the temptation to take part. For each cartoon he provided points at which he could have backed out of the offence and said no.

Young people at Woodlands are also involved in role plays focusing on their offences. These may be put on video so that the group can then discuss the content of the role play. Photography is used to trace the young person's 114

1

: .; .:: :.~ .:: ..-

... :.:. -, :.~............... 'My friends and I met at the Chinese at 7.00 pm.'

2

'We decided to walk into town. On our way we walked past a warehouse. Two of my friends had the keys to it.' 115· Points where I could have said no and avoided getting involved: 1. I could have backed out by not tunling up. 2. I could have walked to town a different way.

3

I .'....':. ;...,'....: ... ..,...... I.-:..:r:,"-..: . • . , ....... ::.;-.: ~ . _ I I

J

~-.J

~

'One of my friends suggested we go into the warehouse.'

116

'Inside there was lots of drink. We took some and left.'

Points It/here I could have said no and avoided getting involved: 3. I could have said it was dangerous to go in. 4, Once inside I could have said I was scared and left.

'We drank some in the park and threw the rest away. Then we went home.'

• 'f'

6

f

•

.....\.

~"':"":

.... , t

,- - '"

Next day: 'We met at about the smne time the next day and decided to go to the warehouse.' Points 'where I could have said no and avoided getting involved: 5. I could have not drunk anything and said I didn't want anything to do with it. 6. I could have not turned up.

117

life history by setting off with a camera into Basingstoke and its surrounds where photographs are taken of scenes illustrating the young person's life. A staff member has described how she was taken by a youngster to photograph the mental hospital where his mother was a patient for some years. While the first six months of the programme are based at the Woodlands Centre, the final three months involve a community placement serving as a means of reparation for the offence, not to the individual victim but to the community as a whole. The placement is located near to where the offence took place and consists of working one evening a week, often with a youth group or tenants' association. A purpose of the placement is for the young person to become incorporated into a network of people which in turn provides friendship and support. Put another way, the placement serves to bind the young person into his or her locality. The assistant director, Pauline Owen, has described the spill-over from community placements in a passage which captures the essence of the developmental approach: It is within community placements that the most significant changes have occurred. Growing from a crude notion of using voluntary help and effecting indirect reparation, the placell1ents now encourage the local community to take an interest in, and indeed, 'manage' the delinquents within their area. Obviously, this requires support, encouragement and supervision from the Centre, but we have been encouraged by the positive response shown by local communities in dealing with their young offenders. Through such local help, the youngster is encouraged to develop local ties within his/her immediate environment, and gain respect for work achieved. The community, on the other hand, benefits from the indirect reparation, and from the growth of a more mature and socially integrated young person. (Owen, 1984, emphasis added) The impact of Woodlands on the local criminal justice process is of considerable significance. In 1980 eighteen juveniles were sentenced to the prison system. In 1982, the fIrst operational year for Woodlands, there were five custodial sentences. In 1983 there were two. This remarkable transfonnation in sentencing practice was largely achieved as a result of the Woodlands Centre assuming a gatekeeping role at the point when a custodial sentence or an alternative disposition at that level of the tariff is being considered. In the period 1981-3 some thirty youngsters were received at Woodlands on orders from the court. Another fifteen to twenty were assessed by the programme. Remarkably, these youngsters were refused not because they were too difficult to handle but because their offences were not high enough on the tariff. That is to say, in the view of the Woodlands staff, the case did not merit a custodial sentence, and the young people were diverted to lower-tariff sentences. This gatekeeping function may have contributed to the reduction in the number of referrals to Woodlands after its second year of operation. For the gatekeeping role to be effective it is essential that potential cases are referred to 118

the Centre. Once the department of social services. or the probation service have received notification of prosecution by the police, and if care or custodial sentences are a possibility, arrangements are made for the Woodlands Centre to make an assessment. The assessment consists of a minimum of two family interviews and two individual interviews with the young person. The assessment concentrates on the offence and the young person's offending pattern, forming the basis of the Centre's report to court. If an IT order specifying Woodlands is recommended, the report specifies what will be demanded of the young person. The report subsequently becomes the contract between Woodlands and the young person. As the requirements are demanding, the youngster must fully understand and be willing to comply with the order. In preparing a report to court the Woodlands staff anticipate that there is likely to be a future court appearance. A crucial feature of Woodlands is to hold on to young people, and any breach of the order, if the court is to be persuaded, would not result in removal to an incarcerative institution. Although the Woodlands Centre is closely aligned to the court its approach bears little resemblance to the punishment approach; nor do notions of treatment and welfare provide a useful framework for assessing its contribution. Both in terms of the way it deals with young people and with reference to the impact on its locality, the work at Woodlands precedes the language by which it might be described. In programme tenns, Woodlands is consistent with the developmental approach. Young people are held accountable for harm they have caused. A full assessment of the offence and its consequences connects with strategies to provide for atonement and reparation. The essence of the Woodlands programme is to bind the young person with the locality. In this respect, Woodlands has made little attempt to work with families. Family counselling is regarded as excessively time-consuming, and the Woodlands staff also doubt its appropriateness. It is felt that the involvement of families might shift responsibility for the offence away from the young person and, furthermore, that by the age of sixteen many young people are looking for support from beyond their families. The Woodlands Centre is used as families and schools might be used. Woodlands is pioneering the developmental approach by seeking to mobilise wider sources of support and control within the locality. Woodlands has successfully brought about changes within the local criminal justice process. In particular, fewer young people have been sentenced to the prison system. This is an especially remarkable achievement given the new short detention centre provisions which took effect in May 1983. The minimum three-week sentence to detention centre, with one week off for good behaviour, has eroded the threshold between custody and alternative sanctions. In 1984 six juveniles received custodial sentences in Basingstoke. Two of these were for twenty-one days and a further three for twenty-eight days. The disturbing implications of the new sentencing provisions remain to be worked out by Woodlands staff in conjunction with local criminal justice practitioners. Consistent with the developmental approach, the Woodlands Centre has experienced continual adaptation and innovation. Furthermore, the Centre's 119

excellent relations with the police, probation service and other agencies is evidenced in useful spill-over. Examples include a senior police officer's considering using unemployed young people as car park attendants in order to discourage theft, and the local probation service's application of the Centre's approach to young adults. The Woodlands staff are anxious that the Centre's physical location does not inhibit it from being more fully absorbed by the town. The impact of Woodlands reaches beyond local criminal justice arrangements. An essential task of the Centre is to use its knowledge and experience of young people and crime to benefit the local community. Advice on crime prevention has been packaged and distributed to households; information on the use made of recreational facilities in the town centre has been submitted to the town council; and exploratory work has been carried out to set up a victim support group. 13 Pauline Owen has aptly described the Centre's role as 'providing both infonnation and skill in managing delinquency within Basingstoke and providing information valuable to the work of crime prevention' (Owen, 1984).

NOTES 1. Eight years later Rick was reported to be settled and doing very well. 2. The importance of child-parent relationships is emphasised by Riley and Shaw (1985). 3. The white paper, Crime, Justice and Protecting the Public (1990) emphasised the responsibility of the parents and the family to share the juvenile's liability for his criminal behaviour: 'Crime prevention begins at home . . . when effective family control is lacking, children are more likely to grow up without self-discipline and a sense of concern for others. They are more likely to commit crimes.' (p.40). The government went on to propose legislation which would require parents to attend court with their children, allow for the means testing of parents by a court which is minded to impose a fine on their child, and a duty to order the parents of a juvenile convicted of criminal offences to enter into a recognisance of up to £1000 to take proper care of them and exercise proper control over them. These provisions were largely incorporated into the Criminal Justice Act 1991 (ss.56-58), although not without much criticism that such measures to enhance parental responsibility would only serve to weaken family relationships. At the Committee stage of the House of Lords debate on the Criminal Justice Bill 1991, Lord Henderson, for example, claimed that Clause 48 (now s.57 of the Act) regarding imposing financial penalties on parents of delinquent children 'cannot make things better. It can introduce resentment and stress into an already stressful situation' (H.L.Debs., Session 199091 vo1.528, co1.98). In the event the Bill's provisions were softened in favour of the court retaining a discretion. See also Chapter 8 note 1. 4. See Graham (1986) 5. See, e.g., Tattum (1985); and for a perspective on European developments, see Lawrence et al (1985). 6. The Education Act 1986 (No.2) now provides statutory authority for the duty of

120

head teacher of any school to exclude any pupil whether by suspension, exclusion or otherwise (s.22(f) To this extent, while the head teacher may determine the school's 'ethos' by setting forth a standard of acceptable behaviour of pupils as part of his or her general disciplinary duties under s.22 of the 1986 Act, the provisions of s.22(f) offer the head the option to relinquish any 'pastoral' responsibilities in respect of troublesome pupils. See generally, DES (1989). 7. See also, Rutter and Giller (1983, pp 329-30) and NACRO (1988). 8. The National Curriculum recently implemented in state schools under the Education Reform Act 1988 may further threaten the school's ability to fulfil this pastoral role. The Curriculum aims to provide a 'balanced and broadly based' (s.I(2» secular education for all pupils in all schools nationwide, and to that aim the duty fell upon a National Curriculum Council (set up under s.14 of the Act) to establish attainment targets, programmes of study and lists of core and foundation studies to be taught to and achieved by pupils of all ages. The result has been a process of centralisation of the organisation of the content of education, removing this responsibility from individual head teachers and local education authorities and passing it to a central Council under the supervision of the Secretary of State for Education. On the one hand, a more centralised system might maintain consistent standards of education throughout the country, and might better seek to uphold the various educational principles (such as that laid down by the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child, Provision 7), which lays down the rights of children to a free, compulsory, balanced and objective education. On the other hand, in formalising the content of the education process it is possible that the school's ability to address the behaviour of troublesome pupils may be severely impaired. The concentration on teaching the basic core and foundation subjects of the new syllabus leaves little time and resources for extra curricular activities, and the new responsibilities placed on teachers regarding the high level of assessment of pupils from the age seven, or for dealing with the individual needs of pupils with special problems. Hilary Wilce reported the anxiety of teachers in primary schools that they would be too overburdened with the formal requirements on them and their pupils under the new system to inject any of their own specialist or progressive elements into their teaching practice. (The Independent, 16 February 1989). The same would undoubtedly apply to those who teach older children. Indeed, teacher training courses \\'ill now obtain a heavy concentration on the practical application of the National Curriculum, with little, if any, preparation of teachers for a 'counselling' role. Further, any partnership that the school might have had with the parents of problem children in sharing the 'pastoral' role in dealing with delinquency is likely to be eroded by the new system where parents are being regarded more and more as clients. Wilce explains that, 'the model is changing from that of the parent as a voluntary helper who might be told things, to the parent as a client, who has to be told things'. (ibid). Indeed a Department of Education and Science Consultation Paper on the National Curriculum (1987) used the same corporate language in stating that teachers now have a responsibility for 'realising the shared aims of the education service and its consumers alike in raising standards'. As long as the education system continues to be run with such corporate ideals as efficiency, attainment targets and 'consumer' satisfaction, the pastoral role seems likely to be severely eroded. 9. The situation for 16 and 17 year oIds \vas made increasingly difficult in 1988 with the Government's decision that 16 year olds must either continue at school, enter work or find a youth training place. With high levels of unemployment in the late 1980s and early 90's the 'guaranteed' place on a youth training scheme was often

121

not met. In April 1992 this situation was strongly criticised by the Social Security Advisory Committee, Eighth Report (London, HMSO, 1992). On the mounting economic pressures on many young people see Stewart et al (1989). 10. Geographical inconsistencies in juvenile cautioning policies both between and within the 43 police forces in England and Wales are also marked, despite the attempts by the Home Office circulars 14/1985 and 59/1990 to create a more uniform national approach. Differences in police practice are only partly explained by differences in crime patterns in certain areas (Wilkinson and Evans 1990). Indeed, Tutt and GiBer (1987b) found that individual revised police force guidelines on cautioning, produced in response to the Home Office Circular 14/1985 may have contributed, in part, to the variations in practice. Westwood's study of police cautioning in Avon and Somerset found that the Home Office Circulars themselves were partly responsible for this process of Justice by geography', particularly since both Circulars included reference to decision-making criteria based on previous convictions, cautions and character (including employment status) of the offenders. When the offending history of adults and young adults in Avon and Somerset were ignored, a much more consistent approach emerged. Westwood (1991). See also Richardson (1989) and Evans and Wilkinson (1990). 11. Recommendations to this effect were made by the All Party Parliamentary Penal Affairs Group (1981) and a Home Office working party (Home Office, 1984). From the mid-1980s onwards, there were increasingly strong endorsements of formal cautioning as a mode of disposal with respect to young offenders. See, e.g., Home Office Circular 14/85: 'In the case of juveniles there may be positive advantages for society as well as for the individual in using prosecution as a last resort.' The Code for Crown Prosecutors (1986): 'The stigma of the conviction can cause irreparable harm to the future prospects of a young adult, and careful consideration should be given to him or her by means of a caution.' Home Office Circular 59/90: 'The court should only be used as a last resort, particularly for juveniles and young adults.' Research by Evans and Wilkinson (1990) showed a sharp increase in the average national use of cautioning for male young adults, particularly after the implementation of the Home Office Circular 14/1985, reflecting a change in police policy and practice with regard to this age-group of offenders. For a European perspective see, Lemert (1986) which includes a discussion on the high levels of diversion of juveniles in Italy, which has, in part, been attributed to an acknowledgement of the family as a source of social control and a willingness on the part of the criminal justice authorities to let the family deal with petty delinquency. 12. The Lancaster team, which was led by Norman Tutt and David Thorpe, made a considerable impact on practice in many parts of the country during the 1980s. See especially, Thorpe (1982). Considerable consultancy work with local authorities has also been carried out by Social Information Systems. See e.g., Tutt and Giller (1987a). 13. Since 1986 Woodlands has been incorporated within the multi-agency Hampshire Juvenile Justice Service. Hampshire has been to the fore in the juvenile justice transformation described in Chapter One. Between 1984-91, the number of custodial sentences imposed on males aged 14-17 in Hampshire were reduced from 135 to 11. See generally, Hampshire Juvenile Justice Services, Report 1989/90 (1991).

122

CHAPTER SIX

Danger Ahead In this era of economic difficulty, we can expect more social junk to be washed upon the shores of economic decline, and more entrepreneurs to seek a living from their bodies. Juvenile delinquents, the elderly, the nonworking, and other socially useless persons, the mentally ill, the mentally retarded, the handicapped, the sick and the criminal - all are potential sources of revenue from these new and other, still newer, forms of social control. CarolVVarren, 1981,p. 739

*

*

*

VVarning signs are all too easily disregarded. In 1975 an American sociologist, Paul Lerman, clearly spelled out the unintended and unanticipated consequences of some criminal justice reforms. He demonstrated, for example, that the muchheralded probation subsidy scheme in California had not reduced incarceration but had shifted its locus from state to local government (Lerman, 1975). In 1982 Lerman was again the bearer of bad tidings. Commenting on efforts to remove young people from penal institutions across the United States, he suggested that many were now held in other types of institution (Lerman, 1982). The following year Krisberg and Schwartz reported that a private institutional system had rapidly evolved for disruptive or 'acting out' young people who are no longer processed by the public juvenile control agencies (Krisberg and Schwartz, 1983; see also Austin and Krisberg, 1982). The appearance of new fonns of incarceration has led some scholars to dismiss decarceration as an illusion. Instead of there being less reliance on institutions, they suggest there has been a shift of young people from one type of institution to another or 'transinstitutionalism', representing a shift from criminal justice to mental health and also from public to private social control. One girl's experience illustrates some of the forces at work. The trouble with Sarah was that she was a punk rocker and had rather more rows with her parents than most girls of her age. Furthermore, her father, a prominent American educator, was exasperated by fifteen-year-old Sarah's apparent lack of ambition. A psychiatrist recommended that Sarah be examined at a hospital in Minnesota, some 1,500 lniles away, with a view to in-patient treatment. Sarah was told that she was going to Minnesota with her parents for educational tests. On reaching the hospital Sarah refused to get out of the car, and she was forcibly taken into the building by hospital employees. The 123

clinical staff decided, with her parents' agreement, that Sarah should be admitted to the hospital. Eleven months later, Sarall contacted a Minneapolis lawyer who later recalled: She was a punk rocker. She smoked heavily but she did not use drugs or alcohol. I think to her credit she had successfully avoided becoming involved with the kind of life-style to keep her out overnight and that would get involved with drug use. She said in an insightful way that she was a teenager, an adolescent, and she simply needed time to work that through. At one point she said to me, 'I understand that I'm not going to be involved with punk rock for my entire life but it's a phase and I should be allowed to go through it, shouldn't 1.'1 After meeting Sarah, the lawyer wrote to the hospital director. The letter stated that Sarah 'is not mentally ill, yet she has been admitted and retained against her will without even a neutral independent psychiatric examination directed to determining whether she needs prolonged treatment ... Although we have advised our client that there is a basis for litigation, we believe it is important to make the attempt to resolve the issue by means of negotiation.' Sarah was promptly released and she returned home. The hospital fees, at $350 per day, amounted to about $120,000 and these were paid by her parents' private health insurance. Sarall's experience testifies to the rapidly expanding practice of placing children, some as young as two years old, in private psychiatric hospitals across the United States and mostly paid for by insurance premiums. In Minnesota, for example, the admission rate of children to psychiatric hospitals, situated in the major metropolitan area, more than doubled between 1976 and 1983; over the same period the rate of admissions across the state of juveniles (persons up to the age of eighteen) for in-patient psychiatric treatment increased from 91 to 184 per 100,000 of that age group. In 1982 the average length of stay for juveniles was thirty-eight days compared with twenty-one days for adults. Data from Blue Shield and Blue Cross, a major non-profit private health insurance company, show that 'admissions are most often made for emotional disturbance, conduct disorder, neurotic disorder, depression and adjustment reaction' (Schwartz et al., 1984, p. 37). As a proportion of insured cases, juveniles rose from 16 to 24 per cent between 1978 and 1982. The new industry has expanded at an extraordinary pace, with most of the growth taking place since the early 1970s. The main driving force is economics. The context has been bluntly described by one observer: 'the policy of deinstitutionalisation is best understood as a political and economic measure designed to sustain near-bankrupt state governments and to establish the basis for transferring funds from public services to the private sector' (Rose, 1979, pp. 444-5). In the early 1970s there was considerable concern in Minnesota about the lack of care for the mentally ill and for 'chemically dependent' persons

124

abusing alcohol and drugs. With the state's tradition of high-quality health care it was hardly surprising that Minnesota became the first state to mandate legislatively that private health insurance include coverage for psychiatric and chemical dependency treatment. Insurance is now playing the crucial role. As noted by a citizens' organisation: Having had favourable experiences with employees treated at Hazeldon and other centres, Minnesota corporations began including chemical dependency treatment in their employee health packages. Such coverage expanded voluntarily during the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1973, the Minnesota legislature required health insurance plans to cover chemical dependency treatment in hospitals. The results of the interlocking relationship between insurance companies and treatment centres is disturbing, the system of funding for chemical dependency treatment in large part determined the type of treatment which often was the most expensive and intensive treatment available. (Citizens League, 1984) Legislatures acted with the best of intentions but failed to pay heed to the vulnerable status of young people. For health care companies such legislation has been highly opportune. Hospital care in the United States has been going through difficult times, largely as the result of an over-capacity of hospital beds. The wider insurance coverage of mental health and chemical dependency has enabled health care companies, in the words of one executive, 'to reposition themselves in the market place'. Companies have transferred their activities from relatively unprofitable areas such as medical surgery, where insurers insist that diagnostic categories limit in-pat.ient days, to the more lucrative pastures of behavioural medicine where no such limits exist. The daily fee is unlikely to be less than $200 and at one hospital in California exceeds $1,000. Surgical wards are being closed to make way for locked wards, very often for adolescents. One health care company spokesperson explained: 'In 1983, we closed those units where we had medical surgery problems, coronary care and intensive care. We believe that our speciality areas are mental health and chemical dependency treatment.' The hospital chief administrator had this to say: Well obviously to remain viable you have to be able to produce a bottom line, a profit, and a lot of institutions across the United States are going out of business because they cannot produce a bottom line. They are going to look down at their services and they are going to say, 'We can make money around the behavioural medicine', but they don't necessarily make money on open heart or cardiac surgery or some of the other kinds of speciality work. A report by the Metropolitan Health Board of Minnesota confmned this trend, showing that during the 1970s in-patient hospital utilisation rates declined significantly. Medical and surgical hospital usage rates fell from 902 days per 1,000 in 1970 to 774 in 1980. The rates for pediatric hospitals fell from 108 to 65 days and for obstetric hospitals from 87 to 69. By contrast,

125

in-patient chemical dependency rates rose from 57 to 73 days and psychiatric rates from 103 to 127. A Minnesota citizens' group commented in 1984: 'These trends lead some health policy analysts to wonder whether hospitals were using these services to fill empty beds' (Citizens' League, 1984). Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota have reported that juvenile psychiatric in-patient claims between 1978 and 1982 increased at more than twice the rate for adults. As Patricia Guttridge and Carol Warren of the University of Southern California have commented, in theory any expansion of entitlements through insurance should serve to protect individuals from social control but this is not the case for young people 'volunteered' into hospitals by their parents. The shift in hospital bed-space is accompanied by extensive marketing activity. Advertising on television and radio is targeted with precision. One health company official commenting on the choice of programmes for their television advertisements remarked: We advertise on all of the channels but we advertise on certain shows because our marketing is for a certain social class. So, one of the programs that we advertise on is the Rockford Files.' Asked if the target audience is predominantly middle class, the official replied, 'Certainly, white middle-class America.' One advertisement has this to say to parents: 'What will your child be taking in school this year? You are convinced he is using drugs, and drinking too. He's had trouble in school and scrapes with the law. No parent wants to admit that his child is in such serious trouble, but you are at the end of your rope ... Call the Adolescent Care Unit. No one ever said growing up was easy.' The same firm informs hospitals that they may be missing 'an opportunity to put under-utilised beds to profitable use ... Better than 95 per cent of the nation's alcoholics are middle class, successful and responsible citizens. The Care Unit program caters to precisely these kind of people.' In its advertising to recruit staff for 'adolescent chemical dependency opportunities', another company in Texas states that the 'candidates will have previous experience in all phases of adolescent chemical dependency treatment and possess strong marketing and management skills.' The marketing strategy includes 'outreach' into schools. Health company officials explain to teachers what their psychiatric facility has to offer. Troublesome children, given the agreement of parents, can, at least for the time being, be removed. A health care marketing specialist, formerly a child therapist, has explained that she visited primary and secondary schools offering 'a way out' with pupils that teachers cannot manage in class: We also offer them a free service where we will come out to do a free evaluation. There are some teachers in the schools who believe that you should keep children out of the hospital almost under any circumstances. I really work at trying to convince them that we are not trying to get business that we don't need to have, but we are trying to get the business of kids who really need to be hospitalised. She went on to relate the case of a fifteen-year-old boy who had been

126

referred by a teacher: I met with the child and I met with the father, and the child was clearly psychotic and needed to be intervened with some medication. The school people told me that he had been in and out of psychosis for the past five years. He was in and out of reality, with beliefs that he was going to be a football star ... but he was a very small-built child, not athletic in any shape or fonn. Having made the diagnosis, she admitted the boy to the hospital and two days later a psychiatrist confirmed her opinion 'and put him on some medication which clearly helped him'. She was asked whether the boy's parents wanted him to be hospitalised: A: I believe there was some fear. It was helpful for them to see someone that didn't look like I was going to lock him up. Q: But you were going to lock him up weren't you? A: No, well he is in the hospital so he is locked up but it is different than being in a jail; they can't leave the grounds, that is true. Teachers are regarded as an especially valuable referral source and are regularly invited to special events at the hospital. For psychiatrists, the relationship with the hospital may be rather closer. One hospital has an accreditation process whereby the psychiatrists who make referrals are hired to make consulting visits to the hospital for a weekly fee of $300 per visited patient. 'It is a 50/50 relationship, we give them as much business as they give us,' a health care company executive explained. As Carol Warren found in her California study, there are large profits to be made not only for the hospitalowners but for others involved. At least one hospital-owner is considering setting up an insurance company to address directly the client group in which he is a specialist. For parents, as for teachers, the health care industry offers the seductive promise of a quick fix. Parents become convinced that there is an institutional panacea for difficulties within the school and the family. Instead of making additional efforts to keep the child in the home and school, market forces favour in-patient intervention. A study by the Health Insurance Association of America found that most policies covered less that $1,500 per year for outpatient psychiatric care, while in-patient psychiatric care was covered at the same level as other medical problems. Some parents fail to appreciate the longtenn consequences of their child having a record of in-patient psychiatric care. Furthennore, parents may be reluctant to disagree with medical professionals or to question the validity of treatment terminology. Youngsters are being admitted to psychiatric facilities under an array of 'conduct disorders'. In a study of four hospitals in the Los Angeles area, Guttridge and Warren found that 70 per cent of adolescent admissions were for anti-social behaviour, depression, running away, drug abuse or personality disorders. 'Hospital staff routinely 127

divide their adolescent patients into those with nothing really wrong with them other than behaviour problems and the "really mentally ill".' Diagnoses include 'adolescent adjustment reaction' and 'attention deficit disorder' (Guttridge and Warren, 1984). Vague diagnostic criteria, the availability of insurance coverage and aggressive marketing have continued to produce what Minnesota state representative Connie Levi calls 'third-party-payment-driven diagnosis'. In other words, the condition which justifies admission is detennined by what is reimbursable under insurance coverage. One law enforcement official has been quoted as saying: 'A decade ago, kids with problems were sent off to boardingschools. Now they're being sent to psychiatric hospitals as so-called voluntary patients. This is a real problem, and the public policy-makers in California have not been able to deal with it.' Or, as stated by an academic lawyer. 'By and large, kids are being hospitalised as much for the parents as for the kids. It's an easier solution to put the kid in the hospital than deal with the family system or deal with the child in the home.' (Stephen Morse quoted in the Los Angeles Times, 14 August 1983). Warren and Guttridge conclude: 'A lot of these kids are your basic Southern California adolescent.' Seventy per cent of the Los Angeles admissions were for anti-social behaviour, personality disorders, depression or running away from home. Warren observed: 'Parents may want to avoid routine parental duties or gain respite from the troublesome child.' The middle-class young person has suddenly become vulnerable. 'If middle-class parents are bothered by their adolescent's behaviour, they have both the resources (financial through insurance policies and/or fees) and the power (of legal and medical decision-making over the adolescent) to hospitalise the minor. The middle-class youngster is more liable to "voluntary" incarceration than the lower-class adolescent' (Guttridge and Warren, 1984). As put by a legal commentator: 'the child whose parents can afford to pay for his institutionalisation has less protection than his poorer counterpart.' With the length of stay as the measure, the higher the social class the longer the average stay (Dillon et al., 1982, p. 21). An official report in California found: 'In family crisis situations, it is often the middle-class parent who is unable to manage what might appear as normal adolescent behaviour of the acting out kind ... in these cases, there is no real severe pathology, but the family is unable to cope ... in many cases it is the family (the parent) who is in crisis and not the child' (Orange County Board of Supervisors Report, 1980, p. 8, cited in Guttridge and Warren, 1984). One hospital counsellor acknowledged that 'almost always you find that it is a family issue; it is not just the patient who has got the problem'. The following dialogue ensued: Q: But it is the child who is being treat.ed as the patient. A: Right, that's true. Q: It seems unfair, doesn't it? A Well sometimes there needs to be an identified patient before something can be initiated. 128

There are few protections for children against inappropriate admission to a psychiatric hospital where they may be subject to physical treatments. The United States Supreme Court in Parham v-J.R. (1979) overturned decisions by lower courts to hold that: 'Most children, even in adolescence, simply are not able to make sound judgments concerning many decisions, including their need for medical care and treatment. Parents can, and must, make these decisions.' The Supreme Court held that admission of a child to a psychiatric facility did not require a formal or even quasi-fonnal hearing but merely 'some kind of enquiry'. The law has not kept pace with the rapid growth of the problem. One legal commentator noted just prior to the Parham decision: courts and legislatures have been left without guidance concerning the constitutionally acceptable alternatives to unfettered parental discretion ... protecting the family from outside interference is quite distinct from fortifying the family's power over one of its members. Although constitutional support for the former is clear and well-established, the constitutional support for the latter is not. The commentator held that by the age of fourteen the young person has acquired a basic capacity to make intelligent choices and that by this age the welfare rationale for parental authority loses most of its force (Note, 1978, pp. 187-202). In theory the psychiatrist, with ultimate authority to accept or reject the comminnent, should be a check on parental autonomy. But as has been noted: 'in practice, there are many variations on this basic framework. Not only parents but juvenile authorities, schools, social workers, and other social institutions bring children with problems to the attention of mental health professionals' (Dillon et al., 1982, p. 385). But when mental health professionals err, there is a strong tendency to err on the side of over-diagnosis and, 'given the severe deprivation of liberty that accompanies involuntary commitment to a mental institution, many courts and commentators have concluded that if, on the request of parents, medical professionals have the sole authority to accept or reject commitments, the error rate will be constitutionally intolerable' (Dillon et al., 1982, p. 391). Although designated as hospitals, the institutional settings share many security and control features with punishment institutions. Locked rooms, high-fenced recreational areas and other security paraphernalia abound. Similarly, there are pervasive concerns about control. At one hospital on a unit of up to twenty children aged from two to thirteen, behind heavy locked doors there are three 'quiet rooms'. The senior counsellor explained: This room is called the quiet room. It is mostly used when patients need to take time out to express anger. We encourage them to look at it for more appropriate ways to deal with their anger. We may give them a ball to bounce on the walls, or a phone book to rip up.

129

She then pointed to a large mat, about one and a half inches thick. This mat you see on the floor is something that we may roll them up in to help them get in control. You lay them this way with their head at the top and you roll this across their body, and keep rolling them with their anns down at their side ... the quiet room is a place where they are more free to express themselves, where they are not going to hurt themselves, or someone else. Other forms of physical restraints and medication are used in many of these settings. Most of this 'treatment' remains out of sight of official regulatory agencies. The emerging privately administered and fmanced psychiatric control of young people remains largely unregulated by public agencies. This is especially likely to be the case where public funding is not involved. Guttridge and Warren comment: 'if mental hospitals are private and do not receive federal, county, state or local funds, then their in-patient censuses need not be reported to statistics-collecting public agencies.' They go on to comment: 'Public funds are avoided to remain free from both reporting requirements and accounting strings attached to public monies' (Guttridge and Warren, 1984; see also Warren, 1984). In Minnesota, for example, officials in state regulatory departments of health and social services do not know how many young people are held in private psychiatric hospital settings. Ira Schwartz of the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota has aptly written of the new 'hidden' system of juvenile control (Schwartz et al., 1984). State government in Minnesota is only just beginning to grapple with the implications for public policy of the hidden system. The non-partisan Citizens League has voiced concerns, and a state-wide task force has been set up; but it remains doubtful that there will be effective public regulation of what has become a highly profitable industry. Since 1981 Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota have been screening cases, but only after treatment has been completed. No such screening is carried out by commercial insurers wbich account for almost two thirds of the private insurance market. Although direct comparisons are difficult to make, there are some disturbing similarities between Britain in the mid-1980s and Minnesota in the early 1970s. There are about 10,000 private hospital beds in Britain, but the occupancy rate is estimated to be about 65 per cent. About 10 per cent of these beds are psycbiatric. Private health insurance is growing, and about 2 per cent of in-patient claims are for psychiatric care. Of these claims, it has been estimated by BUPA that about 150 a year are for young persons under sixteen. There is also an expansion of privately administered residential settings, some of them locked, for young people with behavioural problems. These facilities mostly depend upon placements funded by local authorities and area health authorities. However, in one of these institutions, owned by a private health care company, a third of the residents are paid for through private health insurance. The American experience provides salutary warnings. In particular, 130

Britain should be alerted to the flexible nature of boundaries between the public and private sector and across the arenas of criminal justice, welfare and mental health. Aspects of Samuel Butler's Erewhon are alive and well in Minnesota and other parts of the United States, and Ira Schwartz has made this warning to Britain: 'If you go down the path of what we have found out in Minnesota and also the rest of the country, you are going to be on the road of bankruptcy. It is going to cost an enonnous amount of money; you will not be able to turn it around, and you're going to hurt a lot of kids and families in the process.'2 There are some indications that in Britain the [rrst steps have already been taken down the path described by Ira Schwartz and other observers of the American scene. Very few protections exist for young people under sixteen years old where parents seek 'voluntary' placement within mental health institutions. Rachel Hodgkin of the Children's Legal Centre has expressed alarm at the growth of the adolescent psychiatry industry in the United States, 'because we look to the States as having a better record on civil liberties than this country as America has a constitution which protects the individual's rights. What happens in America today may happen in this country tomorrow.' Indeed, American health care companies are already advertising in British newspapers, with a particular focus on mental health problems and alcoholism. The increasing public concern regarding the misuse of heroin in Britain is likely to encourage private health care companies to broaden their marketing into the arena of narcotics and other drugs. As in the United States, government departments in Britain have shown little inclination to monitor closely the activities of private health care companies. These events in Minnesota and throughout much of the United States demonstrate the extraordinary resilience of the treatment approach. The explosion in behavioural medicine with its wide and flexible net has brought new energy to the machinery of incarceration. The benign image of the hospital which compares favourably with that of criminal justice and welfare institutions, is one source of this growth. Also of crucial importance is the shift in revenue from taxation to health insurance premiums, thereby reducing the burden of government. An irony of this new fonn of institutionalisation is that it is not the children of the poor but young people from financially betteroff homes who are most at risk. As Ira Schwartz has pointed out, curiously, racial minorities and other economically disadvantaged young people appear not to have these types of behavioural disorders and instead continue to be placed in criminal justice institutions. A disturbing feature of the new situation is the emerging symbiosis between private and public institutional provisions. l'he private mental health institutions, if they are to be attractive to parents who are adequately insured, must compare favourably with public institutions. Indeed, for the new private control system to flourish it may need, as is sometimes suggested by the advertising, a bad public counterpart. Across the United States, a new institutional treatment apparatus is taking hold. The economic invesunent is so considerable that alternative approaches are rarely acknowledged. Out-patient work with young people and their families 131

could be consistent with the developmental approach, but this is discouraged by the arrangements created by insurers and health care companies. 3 On television in the United States there has been a public service announcement which asks: 'It is ten o'clock ... Do you know where your children are?' This is a question not only for parents but for society as a whole.

NOTES 1. Unattributed quotations are from the BBC radio documentary The Child Fixers, researched by the author, and broadcast on 18 October 1984. 2. For a recent assessment of the situation in the United States, see Schwartz (1989, pp 131-148). 3 . Staff employed at private residential homes are not subject to any local authority regulatory vetting process, and information on numbers and case histories of children in those residential care homes is scant and not readily available. As an academic commentator has observed: 'For at least a half-century private children's homes have been able to trade almost unnoticed even by the social work profession of which they have been, and are, a small but increasingly significant part' (T. Hopkins, The Guardian, 1 April 1992). This state of affairs has not altered, despite legislation in the Children's Home Act 1982 which aimed to introduce regulatory procedures, but was never implemented. The situation is even more alarming given the numbers of children held in forms of 'hidden custody' such as semi-secure residential homes (those which are not officially labelled as secure units, but which nevertheless keep children behind locked doors or within secure boundaries to prevent them from leaving) than are held in establishments which are formally registered as 'secure'. (Stewart and Tutt 1987). Further, Stewart and Tutt estimated that a large number of under 17 year olds (although the exact figure could not be ascertained from their survey) are being held in mental illness or handicap hospitals, not usually under section 3 of the Mental Health Act 1983, but prevented from leaving without the consent of their parents who often had originally initiated their admission. Stewart and Tutt's difficulties in ascertaining exact figures or details of children in such institutions reflects the lack of government regulation and the basic lack of information on such forms of custody, and a reluctance on the part of the institutions themselves to admit to locking up children, preferring to see such measures as part of their treatment programme or as an essential means of achieving certain objectives in respect of individual children.

132

CHAPTER SEVEN

Getting Tough Very little attention is paid to the basic elements of society, namely intermediate institutions; that is to say, small local groups in which face to face contact between the members is possible . . . the State must provide support to intennediate institutions and the control of conflict and of mediation must be left to them as much as possible. Lonk Hulsman, 1981, p. 155

* * * A developmental approach to youth crime poses tough and complex challenges to policy-makers and practitioners. Nothing less is required than a reversal of the existing policies which have become trapped within the approaches of punishment, welfare and treatment. Each of these three approacbes serves to widen the nets of criminal justice, welfare and mental health, ultimately reinforcing incarcerative institutions, the very antithesis of normal growth and development. As a result, increasing numbers of young people are becoming more deeply enmeshed in the apparatus of surveillance and incarceration. Reversal of these trends requires an insistence that the management of young people in trouble be entrusted to homes, schools and other developmental institutions. The punishment approach to young people and crime once again dominates, just as it did during the frrst half of the nineteenth century. The predominance of punishment is in part due to support by liberals for the notions of just deserts and the deification of proportionality between harm done and dosage of pain; this alliance between old-fashioned punishers and liberal reformers is already showing signs of collapse. As the cruder consequences of the punisbment approach become more obvious, it is probable that there will be a resurgence of interest in other approaches. The supporters of treatment and welfare wait hopefully in the wings, but both these approaches inevitably lead to the cul-de-sac of incarceration. The claims of the welfare approach are more likely to be based on practice in Scotland than on the situation south of the border. In Scotland there has been an encouraging decline since 1973 in the number of young people up to the age of seventeen placed in incarcerative institutions. The factors responsible for this decline require close empirical exploration. It would be premature to put too

133

much weight on the Scottish experience of the welfare approach. Furthennore, practice in Scotland may largely reflect the developmental ethos which underscored the Kilbrandon report of 1964. It is the treattnent approach which continues to demonstrate extraordinary resilience. Despite the damning research results on programme effectiveness and alanns raised as to the civil liberties of young people, it is treatment which seems most likely to challenge the punishment approach up to the turn of this century, just as it did at the close of the nineteenth century, when it was proposed that the penal reformatory at Elmira be regarded as a school or hospital. A hundred years later, the massive growth of incarceration within the mental health sector across the United States exceeded even the grandiose speculations of Zebulon Brockway. It is misleading to regard the approaches of punishment and treatment as competitive. In fact, the two approaches enjoy a complementary relationship. From the treatment standpoint, the institutional setting reinforces the assumption that the problem is within the individual inmate. Treatment institutions attempt to be selective, accepting only inmates regarded as amenable. Punishment institutions are regarded as appropriate for non-amenable cases. Similarly, when treatment activities have a non-institutional basis, the focus is on young people regarded as amenable. Or, as put by Jerry Miller: 'A natural and understandable process of "creaming" takes place whereby the "most likely to succeed" are admitted to the program and kept inordinately long, thereby guaranteeing program peace and financial security' (Miller, 1978, p. 58). For the 'non-amenable', punishment institutions provide a suitable receptacle. Any perusal of social inquiry reports, prepared for courts by social workers and probation officers, confirms the widespread dumping of 'nonamenable' young people in punishment institutions. For example: His response to supervision could be described as satisfactory but superficial, but it has not been successful in deterring him from breaking the law. It is perhaps unfortunate that at the point of leaving school and successfully obtaining work he should now face the real possibility of losing his liberty for the [rrst time. However, despite the hardship this may cause, the court may feel that something needs to be done to try to break his pattern of offending and may consider a short period at detention centre as being the best method of doing this given that softer options have hitherto failed. (probation officer's report resulting in sentencing to a detention centre) 1 The trend towards a revitalised treatment approach is characterised by a new interest in physical technology. In particular, behaviour modification schemes lend themselves to the incarcerative institutions where the individual's environment can be controlled. Conveniently, these techniques also provide a means of institutional control. Medication, using a variety of drugs, is

134

prevalent, especially in mental health settings. It also seems likely that direct medical interventions such as hormone implants and even surgery will be increasingly offered as ways of fixing the problem, and using the threat of punishment to gain the individual's consent. The prospect of a revitalised treatment approach reinforcing the apparatus of punishment can only be regarded with alarm. Any retreat by liberals from punishment into treatment would further strengthen incarcerative institutions. An alternative route has to be charted. The book's central argument is that the developmental approach does suggest such a way forward. The traditional approaches threaten to move young people deeper into the official mechanisms of control; the developmental approach seeks to strengthen the commitment and capacity of home and school to hold on to young people. Four fundamental steps must be taken to pursue seriously the developmental approach. In the [rrst place, a reversal is required of existing financial incentives which favour incarceration. Instead, there must be powerful financial disincentives to shifting the action away from developmental institutions. The situation described by Lloyd Ohlin and his colleagues in the United States is germane to Britain: The schools have been the subject of draconian cutbacks in a time when corrections have continued to develop. We are changing our society. We are retreating from working with youtll in the school and working more with them in corrections. If we do not change that pattern of shifting emphasis we will also no doubt shift the youth to where the emphasis is, and find ourselves working proportionately with more and more youth in corrections and fewer and fewer youth in the schools. (Miller and Ohlin, 1983, p. 237) It is a paradox of the incarcerative institution that, despite the high financial costs incurred, it is offered as a 'no cost' solution to parents and teachers. The dramatic example of seductive pressures on parents in Minnesota and other parts of the United States demonstrates how medical insurance is paving the way to psychiatric incarceration. In much the same way, financial considerations may encourage teachers, social workers and probation officers to rid themselves of troublesome youngsters. When central government meets the cost of incarceration in the prison system there is a disincentive on local areas to set up alternatives. In 1983 the Home Office attempted to dissuade eager detention centre staff from blatant recruiting of inmates from the courts. In a memorandum to governors, the Home Office wrote: With reference to enquiries about detention centre vacancies, we understand from a number of justices' clerks that when courts telephone to ask about the availability of places for people they propose to sentence, it is not uncommon for them to be told not only that there is a vacancy but also that the court is welcome to send as many more offenders as it can find' (Home Office, 1983). Even in Massachusetts, where the state has abandoned most of its incarcerative institutions, financial incentives exist for regional offices to use 'no cost' secure beds. The resurgence of private, including profit-making, activity and funding presents yet a further obstacle to the path ahead. Just as the private welfare 135

institutions of the late nineteenth century would ease cash flow problems by holding young people for the maximum period, contemporary growth by private interests poses problems of oversight and monitoring, commonplace in the public process, but multiplied many times in the private sector. The financial interests at stake are enormous, and these will tend to gravitate to the incarcerative institutions where the costs are highest. If there is to be involvement by the private sector it must not be allowed to have any sort of stake in incarcerative institutions. Commercial exploitation, as in some of the advertising by American health care companies, of poorly endowed public incarceration should also be discouraged. Efforts by the private sector, whether profit-making or otherwise, should be concentrated on supporting developmental institutions. If the developmental approach is to be facilitated, the second fundamental step is to cut back on the use of incarcerative institutions before setting up new programmes in the community. The genius of Jerry Miller was his appreciation that decarceration had to begin at the 'deep end', with the most secure institution. The conventional strategy, as expressed in the Children and Young Persons Act 1969, is for institutions to be phased out as new alternatives become available. The result was that during the 1970s there was a fourfold increase in the number of young persons sent to the prison system, notwithstanding the rampant proliferation of Intermediate Treatment and other community-based initiatives. Had Jerry Miller been a rational bureaucrat the Lyman School for Boys would still be the oldest training school in the United States, operating alongside an array of new programmes. The overall net of criminal justice would have been widened because the new programmes would have almost certainly supplemented and not replaced incarceration. The avoidance of net-widening requires that careful attention be given to how one set of decisions connects with decisions made elsewhere in the criminal process. If magistrates regard the caution as a frrst conviction, the result is inversion rather than diversion. The Woodlands Centre is one of the very few Intermediate Treatment programmes to take serious account of the gatekeeping role. The concerted effort to locate Woodlands near the deep end of criminal justice has had the consequence of making Basingstoke a custody-free zone. Elsewhere typical practice is to set up a programme and naively hope to reduce the use of prison system institutions. In January 1983 the government announced that £15 million would be made available over three years to support more intensive IT programmes designed specifically for those young people who would otherwise go to incarcerative institutions. But with little effort to monitor how the new initiatives fit into the local criminal justice process, much of this finance will do little other than divert social workers from more useful tasks. 2 The third step in moving to a developmental approach is to give close attention to linkages between criminal justice arrangements and developmental institutions. The real significance of Woodlands goes beyond changes effected

136

in local criminal justice decision-making and extends to strengthening the capacity of the town to manage young people and crime. Although Woodlands is part of the criminal justice apparatus it has much in common with developmental institutions in that it seeks to hold on to young people by creating bonds for them with the locality. Acting, in part, as a substitute for home and school the Woodlands strategy has a particular relevance to young people no longer at school and seeking independence from home. Fourthly, it must be recognised that there may be self-serving resistance by professionals and others with a vested intere~~. in existing arrangements to recognising that the arena for action in dealing with young people and crime is mainly within the home and school. The campaign by the Magistrates' Association for short detention centre sentences and for direct sentencing powers to borstal/youth custody had a great deal to do with enhancing magistrates' autonomy over other professional groups within the court. In the early 1970s Scottish social workers successfully hijacked the Kilbrandon report from the education department. When Jerry Miller closed the training schools in Massachusetts it was the non-professionals and not the professional groups which came out in support. Professional social workers and others recognised the damaging consequences of the incarcerative institutions but remained uncertain where the dissolution left them. At one level it meant working with more difficult young people in the community without the threat of incarceration to gain compliance, but at another level it raised questions as to who might most appropriately work directly with young people. If parents, teachers and other rnon-professionals' are to carry much more responsibility for holding on to young people in trouble, this will necessitate considerable adaptations by professionals. In particular there will need to be a shift from working directly with young people to providing support to developmental institutions. These support services require different levels of skill which, in turn, have implications for professional training. The overriding need is for public policy to take full account of good existing practice both within and beyond the boundaries of juvenile justice. This means there has to be recognition by policy-makers that the most effective and least dam3ging work with young people in trouble occurs outside formal specialised arrangements. It is informal and often intuitive action within the home and school that provides the best response to these young people. It is developmental institutions which quietly demonstrate that, above all else, what is needed is time. Far from amounting to a soft option, the developmental approach poses many tough challenges to policy and practice, as is indicated by the proposals set forth in the next chapt.er.

NOTES 1. During the 1980s the 'dumping' of youngsters into penal institutions was most evident with respect to applications by social workers for 'unruly certificates', which, until the Criminal Justice Act 1991, was the method of removing a remanded

137

young person from the jurisdiction of the local authority to the prison system. A report by a residential social worker, written in 1987, said of one youngster charged with unlawful sexual intercourse and criminal damage: 'At mealtimes he shows no sign of ever having been taught any social graces at all. He thinks nothing of putting salad cream in a fellow peer's tea or in spreading food up the wall, for a laugh. We have pondered for some considerable time trying to think of some positive side to his behaviour but we cannot produce even the smallest nicety. He comes over as a thoroughly badly behaved and perhaps amoral person.' 2. Fortunately, considerable efforts were made to monitor the schemes funded by the Initiative and the overall impact was, as discussed in Chapter One, to encourage the turn towards decarceration that occurred in the mid 1980s. See especially, NACRO (1991) and Bottoms et al (1990).

138

CHAPTER EIGHT

The New Era During the 1980s very considerable progress was made in dealing with young people in trouble. As set forth in Chapter One, juvenile justice practitioners were able to prompt and shape initiatives across a broad terrain. In the early 1990s, juvenile justice appears to be at the dawn of a new and promising era. This final chapter builds upon the conclusions which were set out in the closing pages of the frrst edition. Although the following twelve proposals for policy and practice primarily address the situation in England and Wales, it is intended that they also be viewed in a wider perspective.

I. Broad-Ranging Policies to Support the Home Related to the well-being of the home are a variety of policies encompassing housing, health and social services. Their common goal is to ease pressures on the parental task of bringing up children. In part these pressures are economic, and child benefit allowances, housing subsidies and day care form key parts of the package. But, as the Minnesota saga (Chapter Six) demonstrates, the need goes beyond economics. Stresses and strains within the home cut across all social and economic groups. It is tough work holding on to young people in trouble, regardless of social circumstances. Support for the home can vary from what a relative or friend might provide to specialised family counselling. There can be no justification for adding to parental pressures. For example, fining parents for their children's misdeeds, as allowed for by the Criminal Justice Act 1982, and the 'parental responsibility' provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 1991 are directly counter to the developmental approach.!

2. Emphasis on the School's Pastoral Role There has to be a massive injection of resources into schools and other educational institutions, especially with respect to the strengthening of pastoral responsibilities. This involves broadening basic teacher training and in-service training, and provision of a variety of specialists whose task is to support teachers and, when necessary, to work directly with pupils. As the Lushington and Kilbrandon reports had done before, the Black report regarded the school as being involved with the development of the whole child, leading it to

139

recommend a school-based forum in which the appropriate counsellor, the education welfare officer, the educational psychologist and the social worker familiar with the catchment area of the school might combine (so as to bring about) the early identification and resolution of the problems facing children and young people and the construction of an integrated programme of help for children in need from the pre-school age (Black, 1979, pp. 910). This task has been made all the more difficult as a consequence of policies developed by central government. In particular, the Education Act 1986 (No 2) extends the powers of headteachers to exclude children and may thereby undermine the school's incorporative function. This danger may have been further compounded by the pressures on schools arising from the National Curriculum which was introduced under the Education Reform Act 1988. These developments sharpen the challenge for teachers, governors and parents to encourage the growth of a school ethos that seeks to work with rather than get rid of difficult pupils.

3. Support Arrangements beyond School There needs to be urgent exploration of additional supports that might see young adults through difficult phases. This is especially important where the role of the home and school is diminished and where employment prospects may be non-existent. Gaps in the provision of developmental supports for this older age group cry out for creative practice. One of the most valuable resources that may be harnessed in this effort is the potential for mutual support among young adults themselves.

4. Setting the Age of Criminal Responsibility at Fourteen The age of criminal responsibility should be raised to fourteen. It is extraordinary that policy has been so slow in backing good practice in this respect. Legislative opportunities were missed during the 1980s to lift the age limit to at least twelve. By 1989 only about one in every twenty children of this age group who were known offenders were prosecuted. Less than one in every ten children under age fourteen were prosecuted. This latter group amounted to 2,700 youngsters. The pace has been set by the police and the Crown Prosecution Service, and this now needs to be consolidated by statute.

140

5. Avoiding Prosecution With the new youth court having responsibility for seventeen-year-olds, it can be anticipated that the 26% who were cautioned (of all known offenders of that age) in 1989 will rise to be much in line with the 40% cautioning rate for sixteen-year-olds. Concerted efforts will be required however to increase the level of fOmlal cautioning of persons aged 17-21.

6. The Jurisdiction of the Youth Court Many of the proposals made under this heading in the rust edition were acted upon in the Children Act 1989 and in the Criminal Justice Act 1991. In the light of Proposal 4 to raise the age of criminal responsibility to age fourteen, the jurisdiction of the youth court would be from age fourteen up to the eighteenth birthday. As a general rule, a common sentencing framework should apply across the age group. The concept of 'near adults' with respect to sixteen and seventeenyear-olds, as expressed in the white paper, Crime, Justice and Protecting the Public (1990) and carried forward in the Criminal Justice Act 1991, does not provide a useful guide for practice. 2 The youth court should have the following main features:

* *

* *

The youth court bench would reside in the petty sessional division. The recruiunent of magistrates would reflect closely the socio-economic and ethnic features of the petty sessional division. Magistrates would be expected to complete a rigorous training course during the frrst year of their appointment and attend subsequent on-going training sessions. Youth court magistrates would be recruited in their twenties and thirties and their appointment would not be extended beyond the age of fifty.

Youth court proceedings should share the legal safeguards available in the adult court. The more infonnal traditions of the juvenile court would be retained so as to ensure that the young persons and their parents fully understood the proceedings.

7. Remand Powers of the Youth Court Remand has remained one of the most intractable areas of juvenile justice reform. Many of the problems of addressing remand which were encountered in Massachusetts (and described in Chapter Four) have plagued practice and policy in Britain for many years. The four-year timetable to phase out remanding juveniles to the prison system, envisaged by the framers of the Criminal

141

Justice Act 1991, is unacceptable. 3 However, the Government's tardiness, in part at least, arises from an apparent lack of will to tackle this issue by juvenile justice practitioners. Practice has simply not provided the lead for policy with regard to remand to anything like the extent as was the case with custodial sentencing. As Graham Sutton of the Home Office remarked: 'If we had been able to get some good practice going on the remand issue at the same time as we are getting good practice regarding sentenced youngsters, the problem with juvenile remand would be much smaller today.' While a few isolated pockets of excellent practice exist, information about these examples has not been widely disseminated. The neglect of the remand issue at both the policy and practice level is unfortunate. Remand was not addressed by the 1983 DHSS Initiative, and the existing fmancial structure favours the status quo. As Lorna Whyte commented, there is a fundamental problem for local authorities because there is no financial incentive for social services departments to get involved. 'What we need is a concept of the local management of crime where the money is attached to the individual. There would then be an incentive for local authorities to make bids for that individual.' The suicide of fifteen-year-old Philip Knight, in Swansea prison in July 1990, underlined the urgency of the task ahead. 4 It is clearly an area where local practice must be prepared to take the lead. The following episode, described by Sue Wade, illustrates how practitioners are able to make a difference and underlines the need to be able to cross agency boundaries. It is also a graphic example of what the sea-change in juvenile justice in the '80s was about. One Monday morning I heard that two sixteen-year-olds, both with one previous conviction each, had been remanded to the local prison by a Saturday court. I decided to abandon caution but frrst of all it took me a day to find out the facts. That made me even more angry because it seemed noone was particularly concerned that this had happened or was trying to sort it out urgently. Quite clearly somebody with one previous conviction should not be in prison. It was absolutely outrageous. They were both young men who over the summer had left school, not got work, had problems with their families and were living rough. It was quite clear that the court had been given incomplete information to make the remand decision and I decided to appeal to the Justices' Clerk's sense of justice. I was also quite worried as we had the suicide at Swansea prison so I phoned the Clerk at home. He said to telephone him the next day. I phoned him in the morning but he was in court all day and his clerks said I should wait until Thursday when the case would be back in court. I said that we were not going to wait until Thursday. I went down and sat outside his court until he came out for lunch. He then gave me his office and telephone and

142

said: 'Make all the phone calls you need, use my authority and we will pretend Saturday did not happen and rehear the case this evening. You must get the governor to let them go, because we can't do it without the two of them.' He said he would get a prosecutor and that I should get a solicitor. I frrst phoned up the probation service at the prison and they could not understand why I was getting involved in this, and said that it had nothing to do with them. I thought [me, thanks very much and put the phone down on them. I phoned the prison's discipline office and they said they were sorry they had far too much to do at the moment and all that sort of thing. I said thanks very much and put the phone down. I thought, right, I will have to go to the top and phoned the governor who was away at a conference. But I got the duty governor, an assistant governor. I explained to him that we really had to have these two bodies and that if we could do that I was sure the court would agree to a remand in care. He said it sounded like a good idea but he had no-one to transport them, which he had to do because they were in his custody. I said: 'Well how about if I said to you that social services transport people to secure units which is the same sort of thing. They could do all the transport.' He thought about it and said 'Let's have a go at it.' I asked: 'If I come at two o'clock we can then have them. I won't have any paperwork but can we have the two bodies?' He said that would be fine. We then went to get these two kids from the prison. I won't forget it ever. They brought us into the special visits area. It was me and a colleague, who was on his first day of the job. He must have wondered what he was getting into. I have never seen people so frightened in my life. They smelled to high heaven of sweat and fear and had obviously not slept at all. We explained to them what we were doing and they had to go to court. I got them in my car, and when we drove out they were both in tears. They had just had the worst experience of their lives, not because of any lack of care by the prison authorities but because they were incredibly vulnerable sixteen-year-oIds. The court agreed and so we got them out. It was the best thing I have ever done.

8. New Initiative on Serious Offenders The rapidly increasing numbers of 'serious' offenders receiving periods of detention under Section 53(2) of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 is another area that demands urgent action. Between 1980-88 the numbers so sentenced rose from 65 to 177, although, encouragingly, the provisional total for 1990 was 125. It remains something of a lottery as to how particular juveniles find themselves sentenced under this provision, and there is every appearance that black youngsters are disproportionately dealt with in this way. 5 The situation is likely to become more acute with the inclusion of seventeen-year-olds in the youth com.

143

9. Racial Discrimination What little monitoring there has been with respect to ethnic origins suggests that black youngsters are over represented at all stages of the process, and especially so within its deeper recesses. Rob Allen is surely correct in locating the problem within the broader issue of the relationship of young black people to society generally, and in terms of the opportunities they face and the kind of discrimination that prevents them from achieving their potential which in some sense makes it more likely that they will find themselves in the criminal justice system. One has to look at education, housing, recreation, employment and the whole range of experiences black people have and at the racism that exists, because it does not surprise me that this is reflected in the overrepresentation of young black people in the criminal justice system. The Criminal Justice Act 1991 acknowledges, for the first time in statute, the existence of a duty on practitioners to avoid discrimination 'on the ground of race or sex or any other improper ground.'6 This requirement is certainly a step forward but as Loma Whyte pointed out, some people will still find reasons to avoid it because of their fear that they would find something that they could not deal with. When we start talking about issues of race, fear is a motivation. It often stops people from doing things. We need a greater understanding of what is happening. People need to get away from the idea that it is all about what individuals do to other individuals and to understand that it is much more likely to be about how systems are operating. Race is not just about black people but about how the system is operating. She drew particular attention to black youngsters not fully benefitting from the juvenile justice movement. While we have managed to do very good things around the decarceration of juveniles, this does not appear t.o be happening in relation to black young people. These are major issues for the society as a whole, because if we do not tackle it there will be increasing generations of people with a very negative experience of our justice system who are going to be the parents of the next generation. That experience will be passed on because it is the only experience that people know. It is a social policy issue rather than just being about juvenile justice.

144

10. Powers of the Courts The youth court should have no powers to impose custodial sentences. Youngsters convicted of grave offences (to be more narrowly defined than currently) would still be dealt with by the Crown Courts and, where appropriate, be subject as now to periods of detention. Local authorities, and not the prison system, would be responsible for any pre-trial detention. These proposals build upon the experience gained during the 1980s, and would bring seventeen-year-olds fully into the orbit of juvenile justice. There is a danger that developments of policy and practice will sidestep the special needs of young adults. A tentative start was made by the Home Office in 1988 with the encouragement of 'action plans' involving not only the probation service but also other agencies. Since then, there have been very few instances of good juvenile justice practice being transferred to work with young adults.? As a result of the Criminal Justice Act 1991 the 18-21 year-old group are, in terms of the courts' sentencing powers, in almost all respects similar to adults. Much remains to be done at the level of both policy and practice. Furthermore, there is a strong case for widening the definition of young adults to encompass young persons up to the age of twenty-five. As Rob AlIen pointed out, this age group are responsible for most offences and share problems relating to work and accommodation. 'We need to be more liberal about the notion of growing out of crime. Perhaps people do not mature and settle down until they are in their mid-twenties.'

11. Geographic Diversity Areas of the country exist that remain largely untouched by the juvenile justice movement. This is often because no steps have been taken to establish specialist juvenile justice teams, and they are poorly placed to respond to the challenges and pitfalls associated with the new youth courts. The notion of Justice by geography' has been mostly explored with reference to differential patterns of police cautioning, 8 but its effects require fuller exploration at the later stages of the process. Loma Whyte regretted that although there is some very good practice, because it is in pockets it has not always had the desired results. 'Ways have to be found of getting the best of practice operating more widely. Over a small geographic space in London there might be two or three completely different systems operating despite the fact that young people do not pay much attention to the boundaries in which they offend.'

145

12. The Articulation of a New Values Base The statutory framework for the 1990s has been set with the Children Act 1989 and the Criminal Justice Act 1991. These statutes emerged from the Department of Health and the Home Office respectively and are constructed on quite distinct philosophical foundations. In establishing the new Family Proceedings Court (which deals with all civil law matters), the Children Act expressly states that, 'the child's welfare should be the court's paramount consideration.' The youth court (which deals only with criminal cases) is wedded to the notion of Just deselts' or proportionality between offence and punishment. It should be noted, however, that the youth court remains bound by the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 to have regard to the welfare of the young people it deals with. 9 Inevitably, the new legislation leaves considerable discretion with practitioners. But in fmding their way towards a new values base, practitioners are less likely to rely on terms such as 'justice' and 'welfare'. Indeed the Justice versus welfare debate' that so preoccupied much of the literature in the period 1970-85 now seems rather outdated and irrelevant. IO These terms are not ones that provide helpful signposts for the 1990s. The concept of 'development' that is central to this book seems to offer a more constructive direction for practitioners seeking to synthesise the positive features of both the new statutes. The elements of this synthesis are likely to include aspects of the crime prevention responsibilities entrusted by the Children Act 1989 to local authorities, and also a new willingness by juvenile justice teams to address issues that reside in the wider community.!! As in the 1980s, much will depend upon juvenile justice practitioners themselves. As Loma Whyte commented: 'It is for managers to open up and to allow practitioners to take the lead. It is also for practitioners to say that they want to go for it and to take some control over the services they can provide.' The central challenge for juvenile justice practitioners in the '90s goes beyond consolidating the striking successes of recent years. Practitioners must recognise that their essential mastery of every nuance of the juvenile justice process is but a preliminary stage to more effectively supporting developmental institutions such as the family, school and neighbourhood where the preventative and healing resources ultimately reside. It is making these connections beyond the fonnal arrangements of juvenile justice that could make the '90s every bit as exciting and rewarding as the decade that went before.

NOTES 1. One of the most controversial aspects of the Criminal Justice Act 1991 related to the intent of the Government to strengthen the notion of 'parental responsibility'.

146

For example an editorial in the Magistrates' Association magazine The Magistrate stated: 'It is felt by a wide range of organisations, including the Magistrates' Association, that if implemented these proposals are not only unlikely to achieve the Government's objective, but are likely in many instances to damage such little cohesions as may survive in already fraught and vulnerable families.' (The Magistrate. vol 46, No.ll, December-January 1991). In the event the Bill was amended so as to soften the powers with respect to binding over parents, up to an amount of £ 1000, to exert control over a child. For a full appraisal of these provisions, see Ashworth et al 1992b, pp 92-102. By contrast, the Children Act 1989 seeks to provide support services and assistance to parents to ease the task of parenting and emphasises the concept of a parental partnership whereby the parents and the local authority can share the responsibility of caring for and controlling children. For example, s.17(1) states: 'It shall be the general duty of every Local Authority to safeguard and promote the welfare of children within their area who are in need . . . by providing a range and level of services appropriate to those children's needs' which should include day-care, child-minding and accommodation. 2. A contrast exists in the way that the Children Act 1989 and the Criminal Justice Act 1991 deal with the older age-range of juveniles. On the one hand, the Children Act, s.105(1), simply defines a child for the purposes of that Act as a person who has not attained the age of 18 years. However, the CJA differentiates between younger juveniles under 16 years and those aged between 16 and 18, creating a middle age-group between juveniles and young adults. Sections 56-58 CJA 1991 are directed towards the parents of juveniles under 16, whose responsibility is greater in respect of these younger children. However, after the age of 16, when parental responsibility diminishes and the juvenile begins to 'take more responsibility for the consequences of their own decisions and actions [in the] intermediate stage between childhood and adulthood' (Home Office 1990, p.43), the CJA 1991 opens up a new range of 'adult' sanctions which may apply to such juveniles, for example curfew orders (s.12), probation orders (s.8) and combination orders (s.ll). So while the Children Act envisages a full parental role for parents or local authorities in respect of children up to the age of 18, the CJA 1991 treats the older range of juveniles as adults in the context of sentencing. On the Children Act 1989 see generally, Eekelaar and Dingwell (1990) and White, Carr and Lowe (1990). 3. The Criminal Justice Act 1991 provides for the phasing out of custodial remand. The Government's rationale was set out in Home Office (1991). See also ACOP and NACRO (1991). 4. Philip Knight was one of three 15 year olds to have committed suicide in prison system institutions during 1990-91. In the early 1990's suicides by teenagers within the prison system was recognised as a major problem. See, e.g. Grindrod and Black (1989). 5. See generally, NACRO (1988), and also The Prince's Trust (1991). 6. Section 95, Criminal Justice Act 1991. See especially, Ashworth et al (1992a) pp 45-54. See generally, NACRO (1991b and 1992). 7. See e.g. Brownlee (1990). 8. See especially Tutt and OilIer (1987b), and Evans and Wilkinson (1990). 9. See generally Hanvey (1992) and the discussion in Ashworth et al (1992b) esp., pp 16-19. 10. For useful reviews of the 'welfare versus justice' debate see Pratt (1989) and Harris and Webb (1987). 11. See e.g. Pitts (1992) esp., pp 146-7.

147

Bibliography Abbott, Jack Henry (1982), In the Belly of the Beast, New York, Village Books. ACOP and NACRO (1991) Unheard in Prison: A Study of Unconvicted Juveniles Held in Prison Establishtnents, London. AlIen, R. (1991) 'Out of Jail: The Reduction in the use of penal custody for malejuveniles, 1981-88', Howard Journal of Criminal Justice 30, pp.30-52 Ashworth, Andrew et al (1992a), Introduction to the Criminal Justice Act 1991, Winchester, Waterside Press. Ashworth et al (1992b), The Youth Court, Winchester, Waterside Press Austin, James, and Krisberg, Barry (1982), 'The unmet promise of alternatives to incarceration', Crime and Delinquency, pp. 374-409. Ball, Caroline (1983), 'Secret justice: The use made of school reports in the juvenile court', British J. Social Work, pp. 197-205. Bailey, Victor (1987) Delinquency and Citizenship: Reclaiming the Young Offender 1914-1948. Oxford, Oxford University Press Bennett, Trevor (1979), 'The social distribution of criminal labels', British Journal of Criminology, 19, pp. 134-145. Berlins, Marcel, and Wansell, Geoffrey (1974), Caught in the Act: Children, Society and the Law, Hannondsworth, Penguin. Black Report (1979), Report of the Children and Young Persons Review Group, Chairman, Sir Harold Black, Belfast, HMSO. Bottomley, Keith and Pease, Ken (1986) Crime and Punishment. Interpreting the Data. Milton Keynes, Open University Press Bottoms, Anthony et al (1990) Intermediate Treatment and Juvenile Justice. Key Findings and Implications From a National Survey of Intermediate Treattnent Policy and Practice. London, HMSO Brim, Orville G., and Kagan, Jerome (eds~) (1980), Constancy and Change in Human Development, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press. Brownlee, I. D. (1990) 'Targeting the Young Offender: an evaluation project in Leeds'. Criminal Law Review, pp.852-858 Bruce, Nigel (1982), 'Historical background', The Scottish Juvenile Justice System (eds. F. M. Martin and K. Murray), Edinburgh, Scottish Academic Press. -Bum, Michael (1956) Mr. Lywood's Answer, Boston, Beacon Press Burney, E., (1985), Sentencing Young People. What Went Wrong with the Criminal Justice Act 1982, Aldersho4 Gower. Cadogan Report (1938), Report of the Departmental Committee on Corporal Punishtnent, Chairman, Sir Edward Cadogan, Cmnd. 568, London, HMSO. Canvey, C. (1992) 'The Children Act and the Criminal Justice Act - Bridging the Philosophical Divide' AJJUST 29,pp.I-8 Caputo, T. (1991) 'Pleasing Everybody Pleased Nobody: Changing the Juvenile Justice System in Canada' in L.Samuelson and B. Schissel (eds.) Criminal Justice: Sentencing Issues and Reform, Toronto: Garamond, pp.130-146 148

Carlebach, Iulius (1970), Caring for Children in Trouble, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul. Carpenter, Mary (1851), Reformatory Schools, for the Children of the Perishing and Dangerous Classes andfor Juvenile Offenders, London, Gilpin. Castle, Barbara (1980), The Castle Diaries, 1974-1976, London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Cawson, Pat and Martell Mary (1979), Children Referred to Closed Units, London, DHSS Research Report No. 5. Children's Society (1989) Penal Custody for Juveniles - The Line of Least Resistance. Report of the Children's Society Advisory Committee on Penal Custody and its Atlematives for Juveniles, London. Christie, Nils (1982), Limits to Pain, Oxford, Martin Robertson. Citizens' League of Minnesota (1984), Meeting the Crisis in Institutional Care, Minneapolis. Cline, Hugh F. (1980), 'Criminal behaviour over the life span', Constancy and Change in Human Development (eds. O. G. Brim and J. Kagan), Cambridge, Mass., Harvard, pp. 641-74. Coates, R., Miller, A. D., and Ohlin, L. E. (1973), 'Strategic innovation in the process of deinstitutionalization: The University of Massachusetts conference', Closing Correctional Institutions (ed. Y. Bakal), Lexington, Mass., Lexington Books. Coates, R B., and Miller, A. D. (1975), 'Evaluating large scale social service systems in changing environments: The case of correctional agencies', Journal ofResearch in Crime and Delinquency, 12, pp. 92-106. Coleman, James, et al. (1974), Youth: Transition to Adulthood, Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Cowperthwaite, D. J. (1988) The Emergence of the Scottish Children's Hearings System, Southampton, Institute of Criminal Justice, University of Southampton DES (1989), Discipline in Schools: Report of the Committee of Enquiry. Chairman: Lord Elton, London, HMSO. DHSS (1985a) Review of Child Care Law: Report to Ministers of an Interdepartmental Working Party, London, HMSO. DHSS (1985b) Social Work Decisions in Child Care: Recent Findings and Their Implications, London, HMSO DHSS (1987) The Review on Child Care and Family Services Cm.62. Dillon, Carol, et al. (1982), 'In re Roger S.: The impact of a child's due process victory on the California mental health system', California Law Review, 70, pp. 373-478. Driscoll, Judge Margaret( 1977), Juvenile Justice Digest, Vol. 7, 5 April. Edwards, S. (1976), Treatment in Security, London, Institute for the Study and Treatment of Delinquency. Eekelaar, John and Dingwell, Robert (1990) The Reform of Child Care Law, A Practical Guide to the Children Act 1989, London, Routledge Empey, LaMar(1976), a monograph. Evans, R. and Wilkinson, C (1990) 'Variations in Police Cautioning Policy and Practice in England and Wales', Howard Journal of Criminal Justice 29,

149

pp. 155-176. Expenditure Committee of the House of Commons (1975), Eleventh Report, The Children and Young Persons Act 1969, 2 vols. Farrington, David (1977), 'The effects of public labelling', British Journal of Criminology, 17, pp. 112-25. Farrington, David (1981), 'Delinquency from 10 to 25', unpublished paper. Farrington, David, and Bennett, Trevor (1981), 'Police cautioning of juveniles in London', British Journal of Criminology, 21, pp. 123-35. Fox, Sanford (1974), 'Juvenile justice reform: The child's right to punishment', Juvenile Justice, 25, pp. 2-6. Giller, Henri (1982), unpublished paper for NACRO. Gladstone Report (1895), Report of the Departmental Committee on Prisons, Chainnan, Herbert Gladstone, C. 7702. Garland, David, (1985) Punishment and Welfare: A History of Penal Strategies. Aldershot, Gower 1985 Graham, John (1986) 'Schools and Delinquency', Honw Office Research and Planning Unit Research Bulletin 21, pp 21-25 Green, Chris (1983a), 'The Woodlands Centre: A fresh approach to the management of delinquency', unpublished paper. Green, Chris (1983b), 'The Woodlands LT. Centre: A community response to delinquency', unpublished paper. Greenberg, David (1983), 'Age and crime', Encyclopedia of Crinw and Justice (00. S. H. Kadish), New York Free Press. Grindrod Helen and Gabriel Black Suicides at Leeds Prison: An Enquiry Into the Deaths of Five Teenagers During 1988/89. Report of an Enquiry set up by the Howard League for Penal Reform, London, Howard League for Penal Reform. Guttridge, Patricia, and Warren, Carol (1984), 'Adolescent psychiatric hospitalisation and social control', unpublished paper. Harris, Robert and Webb, David (1987) Welfare. Power and Juvenile Justice, London, Tavistock Harshbarger Report (1977), The Issue of Security in a Community-Based System of Juvenile Justice, Chairman, Scott Harshbarger, Boston, Department of Youth Services. Hazel, Nancy (1978), 'The use of family placements in the treatment of delinquency', Alternative Strategies for Coping With Crinw (ed. N. Tutt), Oxford, Blackwell, pp. 82-102. Home Office (1959), Penal Practice in a Changing Society: Aspects of Future Developnwnt, Cmnd. 645. Home Office (1965), The Child, The Family and the Young Offender, Cmnd. 2742. Home Office (1968), Children in Trouble, Cmnd. 3601. Home Office (1980), Young Offenders, Cmnd. 8045. Home Office, (1983), Criminal Justice Act 1982: Advice to Courts on Sentencing, Memorandum from Prison Department to detention centre wardens, 20 May 1983. 150

Home Office (1984a), Tougher Regimes in Detention Centres, Prison Department Young Offender Psychology Uni~ London, Home Office. Home Office (1984b), Cautioning by the Police: A Consultative Document, London, Home Office. Home Office, (1990a) Crime Punishment and Protecting the Public. Cm 965 Home Office, (1990b) Criminal Statistics. England and Wales 1989 Cm. 1322 Home Office (1991) The Remand ofAlleged Juvenile Offenders -

A Consultation Paper Hood, Roger (1965), Borstal Re-assessed, London, Heinemann. Hulsman, Look (1981), 'Penal refotnl in the Netherlands - Bringing the criminal justice system under control', Howard Journal, pp. 150-59. Ingleby Report (1960), Report of the Committee on Children and Young Persons, Chairman, Lord Ingleby, Cmnd. 1191. Irwin, John (1970), The Felon, Englewood Cliffs, N J, Prentice-Hall. Jay Report (1977), Children and Young Persons in Custody, Report of a NACRO Working Party, Chairman, Peter Jay, London, NACRO. Jones, M (1968a) Social Psychiatry in Practice - The Idea of the Therapeutic Community. Hannondsworth, Penguin Jones, M, (1968b) Beyond the Therapeutic Community: Social Learninq and Social Psychiatry. London, Yale University Press Junger-Tas, Josine, 'The juvenile justice system in Holland', unpublished paper. Kagan, Jerome (1979), The Growth of the Child: Reflections on Human Development, Hassocks, Sussex, Harvester Press. Keane, Barry (1972), 'The Teeside afrer-care group', unpublished paper. Kilbrandon Report (1964), Children and Young Persons: Scotland, Chairman, Lord Kilbrandon, Cmnd. 2306. Kilbrandon, Lord (1976), Introduction to Children's Hearings (eds. F. Martin and K. Murray), Edinburgh, Scottish Academic Press. Krisberg, Barry, and Schwartz, Ira (1983), 'Rethinking juvenile justice', Crime and Delinquency, 29, pp. 333-64. Krisberg, B, et at (1985) The Watershed of Juvenile Justice Reform, Hubert H Humphrey, Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota Krisberg, Barry, Austin, James and Steele, Patricia (1989) Unlocking Juvenile Corrections: Evaluating the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services, San Fransisco, National Council on Crime and Delinquency. Laing, R D (1960) The Divided Self, London, Tavistock Laing, R D (1967) The Politics ofExperience, Hannondsworth, Penguin Landau, Simba, and Nathan, Gad (1983), 'Selecting delinquents for cautioning in the London Metropolitan Area', British Journal of Criminology, 23, pp. 128-49. Laugharne, Albert (1983), unpublished paper to NACRO. Lawrence, Jean, Steed, David and Young, Pamela, (1985) European opinions on disruptive behaviour in schools: provisions and facilities, causes and cures' Cambridge Journal ofEducation, pp.49-58 Laycock, Gloria, and Tarling, Roger (1984), in Home Office Consultative 151

Document on Police Cautioning, Home Office, pp. 36-47. Lemert, E (1986) 'Juvenile Justice Italian Style' Law and Society Review 20, pp.509-544 Lerman, Paul (1975), Community Treatment and Social Control, Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Lerman, Paul (1982), Deinstitutionalization and the Welfare State, New Brunswick, NJ, Rutgers University Press. Loughran, Edward, J, (1987) 'Juvenile Corrections: The Massachusetts Experience', in, Reinvesting Youth Corrections Resources: A Tale of three States. Center for the Study of Youth Policy, University of Minnesota. Lushington Report (1896), Report of Departmental Committee on Reformatory and Industrial Schools, Chairman, Sir Godfrey Lushington. McGillis, Daniel, and Spangenberg, Robert (1976), The Camp Hill Project: An Assessment, report prepared for the National Institute for Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, US Department of Justice by Abt Associates. Malony Report (1927), Report of Departmental Committee on the Treatment of Young Offenders, Chairman, Sir Thomas Malony, Cmnd. 2831. Manton, Jo (1976), Mary Carpenter and the Children of the Streets, London, Heinemann Educational Books. Massachusetts Advocacy Center (1980), Delinquent Justice - Juvenile Detention Practice in Massachuseus, Boston. Massachusetts Department of Youth Services (1982), Classification Policy Guidelines Concerning Entrance into Secure Treatment Facilities, Boston. Matsuo, Wayne (1992), 'Rethinking Juvenile Corrections: The Hawaii Experience', Paper presented at the Western Society of Criminology Conference, San Diego, California. Mayer, Peter (1984), 'The frontiers of teacher responsibility', paper to Howard League. Miller, A. D., and Ohlin, L. E. (1983)~ Final Report of Research on Correctional Reforms in the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services, Harvard Law School, mimeo. Miller, AIden D and Ohlin, Lloyd E (1985) Delinquency and Community: Creating Opportunities and Controls, Beverly Hills, Sage Miller, Jerome (1973), Closing Correctional Institutions (ed. Y. Bakal), Lexington, Mass., Lexington Books, pp. 3-12. Miller, Jerome (1978), 'Systems of control and the serious juvenile offender', The Serious Juvenile Offender, Washington DC Dept of Justice. Miller, Jerome G (1991) Last One Over The Wall, The Massachusetts Experiment of Closing Reform Schools, Columbus Ohio, Ohio State University Press Millham, Spencer, et al. (1978), Locking Up Children, Farnborough, Gower. Monck, Elizabeth (1983), 'Expulsion and supervision', Contact (ILEA newsletter), 9 September. Murphy, Edward (1984), 'Deinstitutionalization: Myth and reality', unpublished paper, August 1984. NACRO (1984), School Reports in the Juvenile Court, London.

152

NACRO (1988) School Reports in the Juvenile Courts, A Second Look. London. NACRO (1991a) Seizing the Initiative, NACRO's Final Report on the DHSS

Intermediate Treatment Initiative to Divert Juvenile Offenders from Care and Custody: 1983-1989, London. NACRO (1991b) Black People's Experience ofCriminal Justice, London. NACRO (1991c) Juvenile Offenders and the use of Local Authority Secure Accomodation in England, London. NACRO (1992) Black People Working in the Criminal Justice System, London. Note (1978), 'The mental hospitalisation of children and the limits of parental autonomy', Yale Law Review, 88, pp. 186-216. Owen, Pauline (1984), unpublished paper on the Woodlands Centre. Parker, Howard (1974), View from the Boys, Newton Abbot, David and Charles. . Parker, Howard; Sumner, Maggie and Jarvis, Graham (1989) Unmasking the

Magistrates, The 'custody or not' decision in sentencing young offenders Milton Keynes, Open University Press Pask, Roger (1982), 'Court reports', paper prepared for NACRO. Pisciotta, Alexander (1983), 'Scientific reform: The new "penology" at Elmira, 1876-1900', Crime and Delinquency, (October), pp. 613-30. Pitts, J. (1988) The Politics ofJuvenile Justice, London, Sage. Pitts, J. (1990) Working with Young Offenders, London, Macmillan. Pitts, John (1992) 'The End of an Era', Howard Journal of Criminal Justice 31, pp.133-149 Power, M. J., et al. (1967), 'Delinquent schools', New Society, 10, pp.542-3. Power, M. J., et al. (1972), 'Neighbourhood, school and juveniles before the courts', British Journal of Criminology, 12, pp. 111-32. Peatt, John (1989) 'Corporatism: The Third Model of Juvenile Justice', British Journal of Criminology 29, pp.236-254 Prince's Trust (1991) Waiting for Change - A Report on the Experiences and Needs ofSection 53 Offenders. London. Radzinowicz, Leon (1952), Detention in remand homes, London, MacMillan. Radzinowicz, Leon and Hood, Roger (1986) A History ofEnglish Criminal Law and its Administration from 1750 Volume 5, The Emergence ofPenal Policy, London, Stevens Reynolds, David and Sullivan, Michael (1981), 'The effects of school: A radical faith restated', Problem behaviour in the Secondary School (00. B. Graham), London, Croom Helm. Riley, David, and Shaw, Margaret (1985), Parental Supervision and Juvenile Delinquency, Home Office Research Unit Study no. 83, London, HMSO. Rose, Stephen M. (1979), 'Deciphering deinstitutionalization: Complexities in policy and programme analysis', Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, 57, pp. 429-60. Ruck, S. K. (00.) (1951), Paterson on Prisons, London, Frederick Muller. Rutherford, Andrew (1973), 'Workshops: Linking the institution and urban 153

area', Prison Service Journal, 14, pp. 1-6. Rutherford, Andrew (1977), Youth Crime Policy in the United States, London, Institute for the Study and Treatment of Delinquency. Rutherford, Andrew (1983) 'A Statute Backfrres: The Escalation of Youth Incarceration in England during the 1970s' in J Doig (ed.) Criminal Corrections, Ideals and Realities, Lexington, Mass., Lexington Books, pp.7391 Rutherford, Andrew (1988) 'Boundaries of English Penal Policy', Oxford Journal ofLegal Studies; 8, pp.132-141. Rutherford, Andrew (1992) 'Adolescents and the penal system: Hopeful straws in the wind.' Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health, 2, pp.15-22 Rutter, Michael, et al. (1979), Fifteen Thousand Hours: Secondary Schools and Their Effects on Children, London, Open Books. Rutter, Michael and Giller, Henri (1983), Juvenile Delinquency: Trends and Prospectives, Harmondsworth, Penguin. Sarnecki Jerzy (1983), 'Research into juvenile crime in Sweden', Information Bulletin of the National Swedish Councilfor Crime Prevention, Stockholm. Schur, Edwin (1973), Radical Non-Intervention, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice-Hall. Schwartz, Ira, Jackson-Beeck, Marilyn, and Anderson, Roger (1984), 'The "Hidden" system of juvenile control', Crime and Delinquency, 30, pp. 371-85. Schwartz Ira M. (1989) (In)Justice for Juveniles, Rethinking the Best Interests ofthe Child, Lexington, Mass., Lexington Books Select Committee on Social Services (1984), Children in Care, Session 83/84, HC 360-61. Sparks, Richard F., and Hood, Roger (1968), Introduction to The Residential Treatment of Disturbed and Delinquent Boys, Cambridge, Institute of Criminology, pp. 7-11. Steer, David (1970), Police Cautions - A Study in the Exercise of Police Discretion, Oxford University Penal Research Unit, Oxford, Blackwell. Stewart, Gillian and Tutt, Norman (1987) Children in Custody, Aldershot, Avebury Stewart, Gillian, Stewart John, Prior, Anne and Peelo, Moira (1989) Surviving Poverty, Probation Work and Benefits Policy. A Report commissioned by the Association of Chief Officers of Probation. University of Lancaster. Tattum, D P (1985) 'Disruptive Pupil Behaviour: A Sociological Perspective', Maladjustment and Therapeutic Education, 3, pp.12-18 Tempkin J. (1973), 'The child, the family and the young offender - Swedish style', Modem Law Review, 36, pp. 569-86. Templewood, Lord (1954), Nine Troubled Years, London, CoIlins. Thorpe, D H, Smith D, Green C J and Paley, J H (1980) Out of Care: The Community Support ofJuvenile Offenders, London, George Allen and Unwin. Thorpe, D H, 'Intermediate Treatment: problems of theory and practice' in Theory and Practice in Social Work, Oxford, Blackwell. Troup, Sir Edward (1925), The Home Office, London, G. P. Putnam. 154

Tutt, Norman (1984), 'Civil liberties and youth', Civil Liberties 1984 (00. P. Waddington), Oxford, Martin Robertson, pp. 289-308. Tutt, Norman and Giller, Henri (1987a) 'Manifesto for Management - the elimination of custody' Justice ofthe Peace 151, pp. 200- 202 Tutt, N and Giller, H (1987b) 'Police Cautioning of Juveniles: The Continuing Practice of Diversity', Criminal Law Review pp.367-374. Vestergaard, Jom (1991) 'Juvenile Contracting in Denmark: Paternalism Revisited' in Annika Snare (ed.) Youth, Crime and Justice, Scandinavian Studies in Criminology, Volume 12, Oslo, Norwegian University Press, pp.73-97. Warren, Carol (1981), 'New forms of social control: The myth of deinstitutionalization', American Behavioral Scientist, 24, pp. 724-40. Warren, Carol (1984), 'Privatizing the public sector: Health care and "social control" institutions', New Management, 1, pp. 29-33. Watson, John (1942), The Child and the Magistrates' Court, London, Cape. West, Donald (1982), Delinquency: Its Roots, Careers and Prospects, London, Heinemann. Westwood, D (1991) 'The Effects of Home Office Circulars on the Cautioning of Offenders', Criminal Law Review, pp.591-597 Whiffin, Alan K. (1972), 'Group work: An experiment in Borstal through care', unpublished paper. White, Richard, Carr, Paul and Lowe Nigel, (1990) A Guide to the Children Act 1989, London, Butterworth. Wilkinson, C and Evans, R (1990) 'Police Cautioning of Juveniles: The Impact of Home Office Circular 14/1985', Criminal Law Review, pp.165-176 Wilson, Harriett (1980), 'Parental supervision, a neglected aspect of delinquency', British Journal of Criminology, 20, pp. 203-5. Wolfgang, Marvin, et al. (1972), Delinquency in a Birth Cohort, Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Young, Warren (1986), 'Influences upon the use of imprisonment: A Review of the Literature', Howard Journal of Criminal Justice 25, pp. 125-136. Younger Report (1974), Young Adult Offenders, Report of the Advisory Council on the Penal System, Chairman, Sir Kenneth Younger, London, HMSO. Zimring, Franklin (1978), Confronting Youth Crime, New York, Holmes and Meier.

155

Index Abbott, J. H., 34 Adderley, C, 40, 43 Advisory Council on the Penal System, 63-64 Advisory Council on the Treatment of Offenders, 55-56 After-care, 55, 111 AlIen, R., 16, 18, 21-23, 26, 144 American Bar Association, juvenile justice standards of, 32, 89 Amherst conference on deinstitutionalization, 72, 77 Approved-school orders, 59 Approved schools and the Ingleby committee, 56 creation of, 41, 52 numbers in, 53 replacement of, 57, 59 see also: Community homes; Industrial schools Arrests, juvenile (Massachusetts), 87-88 Asquith, H., 43 Association for Juvenile Justice (AJJ), 21, 22, 26 Attendance centres, 54, 56 Austin, J., 123 Bail, 81-82 Bakal, Y., 75 Ball, C., 104 Baring, M., 112 Barnardo, Dr, 48-49 Beccaria, C., 31-32 Bedford Prison, 48 Bennett, T., 107-108 Berlins, M., 61 Birkett, Mr Justice, 56 Black report (1979), 63, 94-95, 140 Boarding out, 48-49, 99 Borstals, 50-55 creation of, 43-44, 50, 56 minimum age for, 53, 56 replacement of, 57, 59, 64

see also: Everthorpe; Youth custody Boston Basics Inc, 84 Boston Globe, 67, 74, 76, 81 Bottoms, A. E., 26, 138 Brim, 0.,28 Brittan, L., 64 Brockway, Z., 47, 134 Bruce, N., 58 Bullock, R., 28 Burney, E., 17 Buxton, Sir F., 54 Cadogan report (1938), 54, 56 Calhoun, 1., 73-74 Callaghan, J., 61, 65 Camp Hill project, 66, 91 Capital punishment, 40 Care orders, 59 Carlebach J., 41, 43 Carpenter, M., 40-42, 59, 64, 66 Caseloads, shifts in, 12 Castle, B., 61-62 Cautioning, 12, 27, 34, 107-109, 122, 140, 145 Cavadino, P., 16, 17, 27 Cawson, P., 31-32 Chamberlain, N., 54 Child, the Family and the Young Offender, The (1965), 57 Children Act 1908, 50 Children Act 1989, 27, 38, 141, 146-147 Children and Young Persons Act 1933, 53, 65, 143, 146 Children and Young Persons Act 1969, 11, 59, 60-61, 107, 136 Children and Young Persons in Custody (NACRO), 62 Children in Trouble (1968), 59, 107,112 CHINS (Children in Need of Services), 87-88 See also: Status offt.~nclcrs Christie, N., 28, 3 1 Churchill, W. S., 39 Classification panel, 78--80 Cline, H. F., 36 Coates, R., 72, 85

157

Coleman, J., 105-106 Community homes with education, 41-59 Community-based programmes, 66, 76, 84-85 Conservative Party conference, 64 Control and Supervision Order, 63 Cooper, J., 58 Corporal punishment, 40, 58 Court reports, use of, 134 Cowperthwaite, D., 65 Crime, Justice and Protecting the Public, 38, 120, 141 Criminal Justice Act 1948, 53, 56, 57 Criminal Justice Act 1982, 16, 18, 24,63,64 Criminal Justice Act 1988, 17 Criminal Justice Act 1991, 13, 19, 38, 120, 137, 139, 141-2, 144, 145-147 Criminal responsibility, age of, 39-40, 52, 56-57, 59, 140 Crown Court, powers, 145 Crown Prosecutors, Code for, 122 juvenile specialists, 27 role of, 140-141 Custody, anti-custody ethos, 25 decline in use of, 14, 38 Declaration on the Rights of the Child, United Nations, 121 De-escalation 11--16 Deinstitutionalization, Amherst conference on, 72 Delinquent Justice, report of Massachusetts Advocacy Center (1980), 76, 92 Denmark, role of family in, 99 Deprivation, effect of, 31, 42, 95 Detention centres and Magistrates' Association, 56-57, 61-62 establishment of, 57 lack of vacancies in, 60·-61 phasing out of, 59-60 regime of, 64

158

retention of, 61 revival of, 11 Send, 64 tougher regimes in, 64 DHSS, initiatives by, 18, 24, 142 see also 'LAC 83'; Initiatives DilloD, C., 128, 129 Discharge, use of 14 Discrimination, 144 Dorrington, Sir J., 49 Driscoll, Judge M., 32 Drug abuse, 36, 161 Drugs, use of in mental health institutions, 134-135 Dukakis, M., 73, 75, 81, 87 Ede, Chuter, 56 Education Act 1870, 42 Education Act 1986 (No 2) 120121, 140 Education Reform Act 1988, 121, 140 Edwards, S., 60 Elmira reformatory, 47-48, 134 Elton Report, 121 Empey, L., 39 Erickson, E., 34 Ethos, anti-custody, 25 European Commission on Human Rights, 27 Everthorpe borstal, 109-111 Faithfull, Baroness, 16, 27 Family effect of, 94-95 role of in Denmark and Sweden, 99 Family councils, 57 Family courts, 57, 146 Farrington, D., 34-35, 108 Fining of parents, 139, 146 Fostering, 99 Fox, S., 32 Fry E., 54 'Gate-keeping', 23 Gault, (1966) ; US Supreme Court, 90 Geographic diversity, 145

GiBer, Ho, 22, 105 Gladstone, Ho, 43-47, 51 Gladstone committee (1895), 43, 44-47, 48, 50 Green, Co, 112-113 Greenberg, Do, 34 Group therapy, 69 Guttridge, Po, 95, 127-132 Hampshire Juvenile Justice Service, 122 IIarshbarger, So, 74, 77, 89 Harvard Center for Criminal Justice, 85-87 Hastings House, 84 Hawaii, 93 Hazel, No, 99 Healey, Do, 61 Health care companies, advertising in Britain, 130 Health insurance, private, effect of, 124-125 Hill, Mo Do, 40, 59 Ho are, So, 54 Hoare, Sir So, 54-55 Hodgkin, Ro, 131 Home Office cautioning, 107-108 Children's Branch, 51 Circular 14/85, 27, 122 Circular 59/90, 27, 122 detention centres, 64, 137 industrial schools, 42 Hood, Ro, 52, 53, 56, 60 Hopkins, To, 132 Hosie, Ko, 28 House of Commons Expenditure Committee, 61-63 Howard Houses, 54, 56 Human Rights, European Commission on, 27 Hulsman, Lo, 133 Illinois, 91 Imprisonment effect of, 34, 48 financial incentive for, 137 new forms of, 123 of juveniles, 32, 39-40, 44, 46, 54

of juveniles, decline in Scotland, 133-134 Industrial schools, 40-43 establishment of, 40 Lushington committee, 48-49 Malony report, 52 number of inmates, 51 Shirley, Massachusetts, 67-68, 71 see also: Approved schools Ingleby committee, 56-57, 63 Initiatives, DHSS, by, 18, 21, 24, 27 national policy, 16 practitioners, by, 19-27 LAC 83, 21, 24, 142 local, 19-27 London IT Association, by, 22, 26, monitoring, of, 138 serious offenders, for, 143 Inner London Education Authority use of special units by, 102 use of suspensions by, 101-102 Institute of Juvenile Guidance, 70 Inter-agency collaboration, 24 Intermediate treatment, 18, 20, 21, 23,59,65,108,112-113,119, 136-137 Irwin, Jo, 34 Jarvis, Go, 17 Jay, Po, 63 Jenkins, Ro, 58, 61 Johnston, Po, 87 Jones, M., 67, 69, 92 Joseph, Sir Ko, 61 Junger-Tas, Jo, 36 Justice Resource Institute, 75 Juvenile bindover, 83-84 Juvenile court, establishment of, 50 Ingleby committee, 56 jurisdiction of, 82-83 Labour Party review, 57 Malony committee, 52-53 powers of, 62 replaced by youth court, 13, 141

159

retention of, 59

see also: Youth court Juvenile Justice, Association for: seeAssociation for Juvenile Justice Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act 1974 (US), 86 Kagan, J., 28, 34 Keane, B., 110 Kilbrandon report (1964), 57-58, 134 Kilroy-Silk, R., 17 King, E., 74, 76, 87, 92 Knight, Philip, 142, 147 Krisberg, B., 82, 91, 93, 123 LAC (Local Authority Circular) 83, 18, 21, 142 Laing, R. D., 67,92 Lancaster Girls' Training School, Massachusetts, 67-68, 72 Lancaster group, 24, 122 Landau, S., 108 Laugharne, A., 103, 107 Lawrence, I., 63 Laycock, G., 109 Leavey, J., 73 Legge, J. G., 48 Lemert, E., 122 Lerman, P., 33, 123 Levi, C., 128 London IT Association, 22, 26 London schools, differences in, 99-100 Longford, Lord, 57 Loughran, E., 75, 80, 81 'Lushington, Sir G., 42-47, 48, 51, 55 Lushington report (1896), 43, 4850,55 Lyward, G., 67, 92 McGillis, D., 91 Magistrates, recruitment of, for youth court, 141 Magistrates' Association (column opposite)

160

Children and Young Persons Act 1969, 60-61 Criminal Justice Bill (1938), 54 detention centres, 56-57, 6061, 137 Expenditure Committee, evidence to, 61-62 juvenile courts, 59 Malony committee, 52-53, 55 Magistrates' courts, use of, 40, 56 Maher, P., 104, 106 Malony report (1927), 53, 56 Manton, J., 40, 41 Martell, M., 31-32 Massachusetts Advocacy Center, 77, 82 juvenile decarceration policy, 66-92 Juvenile Offender Act 1978, 82 Massachusetts Halfway Houses Inc, 84 Mental health care, private, in Britain, 130-132 Mental health institutions, marketing of, 123, 126, 134-135 Miller, A. D., 72, 85-86, 135 Miller, J., 21,37,66-73,90-92, 134, 137 Millham, S., 28 Minnesota adolescent psychiatric hospitals, 123-125 Metropolitan Health Board, 125 seductive pressure on parents, 135 State regulatory agencies, 130 treatment approach's resilience, 131 Monck, E., 102 Morrell, D., 58 Morrison, H., 55 de Muro, P., 71 Murphy, E., 74-81, 85, 89-90 NACRO (National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders), 17, 18, 22-23, 62, 63, 104, 138 Nathan, G., 108

National Advisory Council on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals, 86 National Center on Institutions and Alternatives, 93 National Congress on Penitentiaries and Reformatory Discipline (1870),47 National CurriculuDl, 121 National policy initiatives, 16 Netherlands, developmental approach in, 36 New York, Board of State Charities, 47 NITFED (Nationa! Intermediate Treatment Federation), 22 Northeastern Family Institute, Massachusetts, 84 Offenders, classification of, 78-79 Office of Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention, 86 Ohlin, Lo Eo, 72, 81, 86, 92, 135 Owen, Po, 118, 120 Parents, responsibility of, 94-95, 146 Parham Vo Jo Ro, (1979, US Supreme Court), 129 Parker, Ho, 17, 106 Parkhurst Prison, 40, 64 Parliamentary Penal Affairs Group, 16, 17, 122 Parole, 71-72 Pask, Ro, 103-104, 105 Pater!)on, A., 51-52, 55, 56, 64 Penal Practice in a Changing Society (1959), 57 Penalties, reduced, 14 Pennsylvania, 91 Philanthropic Society, 41 Pitts, Jo, 22, 27 Policy initiatives, 16 see also: Initiatives Power, Mo, 99-100 Prevention of Crime Act 1908, 50 Prison Bedford, 48 Bridgewater correctional institution, 70

capacity, 28 decline in usage, 14 increase in population of, 2841, 49, 136 minimum age for, 52 Parkhurst, 40, 64 purpose of, 43, 44 Swansea, 142 suicides, in, 142, 147 system, 14, 28-29, 63-64 Prison Commission, 48, 49 Privy Council, Committee on Education, 42 Probation, hostels, 56 officers, 51, 57, 63, 110 orders, 52 service, 50, 63, 87-88 subsidy scheme, 88, 123 see also: Supervision order Probation of Offenders Act 1907,50 Process, focus upon, 23-24 Prosecution, avoiding, 141 .Psychiatric hospitals, juvenile admissions to, 124-137, Racial discrimination, 144 Radan, Mo, 68, 84 'Radical non-intervention', 30 Radzinowicz, Lo, 53 Rainer Foundation, 112 Recidivism, 34, 36 Redhill reformatory,. 41 Reform, impetus for, 19 Reformatories, 40-42, 44-50, 50, 52 Regnery, Ao, 86 Remand, 81-82, 137, 141142,147 Remand centres, 52, 54, 56 Remand homes, 50, 53 Residential care, 31-32, 34 Resources, 21 Reynolds, Do, 100-101 Riley, Do, 120 Rose, Go, 56 Rose. Jo, 60 Rose, So Mo, 124

161

Roslingdale Detention Center, Massachusetts, 80-81 Royal College of Psychiatrists, 34 Royal Commission on Reformatories and Industrial Schools (1883), 43 Ruggles-Brise, E., 47-48 Rutherford, A., 86, 109 Rutter, M., 100, 121 Sargent, Fo, 67, 70 Sargent, J 0' 70 Sarnecki, Jo, 95 Schools court reports by, 104-105 in London, 1~102 in South Wales, 101-102 offences in, 103 role of, 99-102, 105-107, (pastoral) 139 special units in, 102 suspensions from, 101-102 Schur, Eo, 30 Schwartz, 1o, 82, 91, 93, 123-124, 130-132 Scotland, 58, 65, 133-134 see also: Kilbrandon report Secure beds, 65, 73,76-77,92, 132, 135 Select Committee on Social Services (1984),31-32, 34 Sentencing, reduced severity, 14 Shapp, M., 91 Shaw, M., 120 Shirley industrial school, Massachusetts, 67-68, 71 Short sharp shock punishment, 11, 55-56,64 Silken, So, 17 Sims, Ro, 65 Smith, Do, 21 Society for Reformation of Prison Discipline, 54 South Wales, research on schools in, 99-100 Spangenberg, Ro, 91 Sparks, R. F., 60 Status offenders, 91 see also: CHINS

162

Steer, Do, 108 Stewart, Go, 132 Stranger, R. Co, 60, 62 Sullivan, M., 101 Sumner, Mo, 17 Supervision order, 59 Sutton, Go, 16, 19, 142 Sweden affluence criminality, 95 role of family in, 99 Targetting, of intervention, 20 Tarling, Ro, 108 Task force on juvenile crime (Massachusetts, 1981), 75, 84, 92 Tempkin, Jo, 99 Thorpe, D., 21, 25, 122 Toby, Jo, 36 Training schools, 39, 66, 67-68, 71-72,91 Transportation, 39, 40 Troup, Sir E., 51 Truancy, 100, 101 Turner, So, 43 Tu tt, No, 21, 27, 106, 122, 132 Unemployment, effect of, 106-107 Unified Delinquency Intervention Services (UDIS),91 United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child, 121 'Unruly certificates', 137-138 Utah, 93 Wade, S., 16, 20, 22-25, 142-143 Waller, Sir M., 52 Wansell, Go, 61 Warren, Co, 95, 123, 127-132 Watson, Jo, 53, 55 Wayne, So, 75 Welfare, 65, 146, 147 West, Sir Ao, 46 West, Do, 34, 36, 94 WhiffeD, Ao Ko, 111 White, P., bill of, 75, 84 Whitehead, Ao No, 85 Whitelaw, Wo, 64 Whyte, Lo, 16, 19, 20-21, 22, 25, 26,144-146

Wilce, H., 121 Wilson, H., 95 Wiseman, F., 70, 92 Wolfgang, M., 33-34, 36 Woodlands Centre, Basingstoke, 24, 107, 112-120, 122 Young Offenders (1981), 16,63 Young, W., 18 Younger, 63 Youth court, 141-142 powers of, 144-145, 146 Youth custody, 64, 109 see also: Borstals Youth in trouble matrix, 33 Youth training scheme, 121 Youth treatment centres, 60, 65 Zimring, F., 36-37

163

Also at www.watersidepress.co.uk

Extracts from the

WATERSIDE PRESS

Catafogue Opening Up a Closed World Crime, Punishment, Policing, Criminology Courts, Sentencing, Criminal Policy Citizenship, Human Rights Youth Justice Restorative Justice, Mediation, Conflict Resolution Prison Writing The Waterside Press Prison List Child Law, Family Law, Domestic Violence Capital Punishment: Britain and the World Drugs Electronic Monitoring Guides for Newcomers

Also at www.watersidepress.co.uk

Criminal Policy Series Series Editor Professor Andrew Rutherford Towards better solutions to the complex problems of crime and criminal justice

Prison on Trial Thomas Mathiesen Mathiesen's classic work in a SECOND ENGLISH EDITION with additional material by the author and a new Foreword by Andrew Rutherford. Prison on Trial has appeared in Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, German and Spanish, and is being translated into Italian. In this, the first English edition since 1990 the author adds a fresh Preface and Postscript - and argues for an 'alternative public space' where discussion of penal affairs can rise above a primary goal of the media, which is to 'entertain'. 2000 ISBN 1 872 870 85 6. £19.50

Criminal Justice 2000: Strategies for a New Century Michael Cavadino, lain Crow and James Dignan This first-rate analysis of the competing strategies by three of the UK's leading commentators - which favours a restorative approach - has attracted considerable interest and attention as a key text for criminal justice. and criminal policy courses. Contains valuable insights into criminal policy-making in Britain - a process typified in modern times by politicking, irreconcilable· sentencing aims, a lack of coherence and divisive attitudes - including, so the authors argue, attempts at reform being thwarted by 'judicial independence'. Since 1997 New Labour has been taking the criminal justice system in new directions. But what is the nature of New Labour criminal justice policy? What strategic options does the government really have for dealing with the problems of crime and punishment-and where is it likely to take us in future? This timely book analyses past and present policies in British criminal justice and distills a set of three broad options for the future. Strategy A is the futile, expensive and doomed quest to control crime by ever-increasing levels of harsh punishment. Strategy B is the managerial, bureaucratic approach which tries to achieve maximum efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Strategy C is the principled approach which seeks to protect the human rights of both offenders and victims by means such as rehabilitation, reintegration and restorative justice. Criminal Justice 2000 is a 'landmark' - attracting widespread attention from lawyers, practitioners and academics - making it key reading for thinking practitioners and stUdents. 1999 ISBN 1 872 870 77 5 £20

Crime and Banishment Nuisance and Exclusion in Social Housing Elizabeth Burney A thought-provoking work that looks at the use of civil and administrative powers by social landlords as a means of preventing crime and disorder. Elizabeth Burney's book examines the 'phenomena' of 'nuisance neighbours' and anti-social behaviour. The work also analyses the social, historical, economic and political context which has given rise to these matters as causes of public anxiety. The author warns that central and local government may be set on a path which will increase rather than reduce social exclusion - and argues for a focus on supportive and reintegrative ways of reducing bad behaviour. 1999 ISBN 1 872 870 79 1. £16

Drugs, Trafficking and Criminal Policy The Scapegoat Solution Penny Green A survey of drugs policy which explores the actual nature of events by focusing on drug trafficking and drug traffickers. Penny Green demonstrates that the vast majority of people arrested, convicted and imprisoned for drug trafficking offences are low-level players - causing her to argue that scapegoating has played a central role in shaping the criminal justice drugs war. It is people at the bottom end of the drugs trade who give substance to its ideology and reality. She argues that unless drug control moves beyond its present emphasis - and beyond criminal policy and law enforcement into the arena of geo-political analysis, international poverty, Third World debt and domestic welfare - there can be no resolution to the human tragedy which the war on drugs has come to embody. 1998 ISBN 1 872 870 33 3. £18

Waterside Press Catalogue 2002

Criminal Justice and the Pursuit of Decency Andrew Rutherford Andrew Rutherford's 'journey beneath the surface' where he encounters criminal justice practitioners whose priorities encompass upholding basic values - often at the risk of being marginalised by more managementoriented, target-driven or working culture prone colleagues - who put ends, results or personal ambition ahead of fundamental principles and safeguards which need to be defended. 'Without people committed to humanising penal practice, criminal justice can so easily sink into apathy and pointless repression' Sunday Telegraph 'A highly readable and illuminating work' Times Higher Education Supplement 'One of those rare books that deserves a wide readership across the disciplines of criminal justice' Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health 'A pot-pourri of useful information about the criminal justice system •.• a fascinating insight into the lives and thoughts of some key players on the criminal justice stage' Law Quarterly Review 'At a time when humanity in criminal justice Is commonly ranked below efficiency and value for money, and when deliberate efforts are being made to motivate public servants not by a sense of professional integrity and public duty but by performance pay, short-term contracts of employment, and competition for their own jobs, the need for vigilance is greater than ever. Andrew Rutherford's book deserves careful and thoughtful reading' British Journal of Criminology 1994 ISBN 1 872 870 21 X. £16

Transforming Criminal Policy Spheres of Influence in the USA, The Netherlands and England and Wales During the 1980s Andrew Rutherford Focusing on the activities of three strategically placed individuals - James Q Wilson, Dato Steenhuis and David Faulkner (see now the Waterside Press publication Crime, State and Citizen, 2001) - this book explores criminal policy-making. In a central argument the author insists on the need for an integrated criminal policy as a means of protecting those values which are fundamental to a liberal democracy. A way forward is outlined which seeks to overcome 'narrow and compartmentalised ways of thinking about crime and what to do about it'. 'Excellent and highly readable' Vista. 1996 ISBN 1 87287031 7. £16

Capital Punishment: Global Issues and Prospects Edited by Peter Hodgkinson and Andrew Rutherford This powerful book includes original chapters by leading authorities on the death penalty in the USA, Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States, The People's Republic of China, Europe and the United Kingdom, Africa and the Caribbean. It contains a wealth of historical and contemporary information, and deals with the death penalty as an instrument of public policy, international law and human rights, and the politics of abolition versus retention. One chapter focuses on the involvement of physicians in capital punishment, including lethal injection, the trade in human organs and other considerations for medical ethics. Of interest to all people concerned about the continuance of a practice which remains a resilient feature in many parts of the world. A global survey with contributions from leading commentators from many parts of the world. 'Deserves to be widely read'· Law Quarterly Review. ISBN 1 872870325. £20

Criminal Polie Series Editor Professor Andrew Rutherford Further Criminal Policy Series titles will be announced in 2002

Waterside Press Catalogue 2002 ~

'Simply the best book I have ever read on criminal justice' As featured in The Times and Daily Telegraph

Crime, State and Citizen A FIELD FULL OF FOLK David Faulkner Crime, State and Citizen is a wide-ranging and authoritative appraisal of the factors which sustain the fragile balance between effective government and individual rights and obligations in modern-day Britain. It is about: how Britain governs itself today; the rights and responsibilities of its citizens; the character of its public services and their relations with the state.

From the reviews: Highly recommended . . . This is an extraordinary book and could not have been published at a better time: Criminal Practitioners Newsletter A masterly analysis of the relationships between state and people ... Throughout this excellent volume our beliefs and prejudices about crime are tried and tested: The Justices' Clerk This is simply the best book I have ever read on criminal justice; it is quite possibly the best one ever written. It is wide-ranging, comprehensive, detailed, analytical and authoritative. It is also bang up to· date ... It. is a book that should be read and kept by anyone and everyone who has a finger in the criminal justice pie. It will be a long time before it is excelled: Justice of the Peace Faulkner has done a great service by reminding us that- investment in new legislation, management systems and technology will be of small. worth unless civic· values of society are reflected in such developments: Scolag Legal Journal

Writing at a time when issues such as the Rule of Law, human rights and cultural and human diversity are to the fore, David Faulkner examines these and similar questions by focusing on the politics and policies, and the professional standards and day-to-day arrangements, for dealing with crime and criminal justice - thereby touching on issues of immediate concern to Parliament, the Government, the courts, the criminal justice services and individuals. He also explores the underlying aims and principles of justice, social inclusion, public safety (including matters of concern to victims of crime), accountability and legitimacy before suggesting how they should be applied and inescapable conflicts resolved.

With a Foreword by Lord Windlesham A work of great import ISBN 1 872 870 98 8 £22.50

Waterside Press Catalogue 2002

Introduction to the Scottish Children's Panel Alistair Kelly An outline of the Scottish system of justice for children by the former senior Scottish Children's Reporter. 'Very interesting reading' The Law. 1996 ISBN 1 872 870 38 4. £13.50

ALSO NOW REPRINTED: A further classic work

Children Who Kill Edited by Paul Cavadino Britain is not unique in having children who kill other people, nor is this the rare event we might like to believe it is. From the tragic Mary Bell and Jamie Bulger cases to events world-wide, Children Who Kill is a unique and expert analysis. 'Highly recommended' The Law. 'A rich source of information' British Journal of Social Work. Published in association with the British Juvenile and Family Courts Society (Now Childrenlaw UK). Includes a chapter by the well-known author Gitta Sereny - among other expert contributions. 1996 ISBN 1 872 870 29 5. £16

There could not be a better reference book Martin Narey, Director General HM Prison Service (January 2002)

Highly recommended Criminal Practitioners Newsletter (Review of 2001 Edn.)

The Prisons Handbook 2002 Edited by MARK LEECH and DEBORAH CHENEY This definitive annual work always attracts outstanding reviews for its scale, comprehensiveness, accuracy, clarity and reliability. It has the support of the director general of HM Prison Service and many serving governors, officers and prisoners contribute to it with current information. The handbook is quite simply the best day-to-day work that there is on prisons in Engl~nd and Wales. Contains in Section 1 a detailed A to Z of the Prisons of England and Wales (one to two pages per entry and including this year, for the first time, 'governor profiles' where supplied) and nine further substantial sections dealing with virtually every aspect of imprisonment: law; human rights; prison regimes; minority rights and a host of other topics - including, new this year, a section on Prison Officers and Prison Governors.

NEW SIXTH EDITION: BIGGER AND BETTER THAN EVER AT WELL OVER 700 PAGES ISBN 1 872870 163 Price £57.50 (NB to add £5 p&p) Prisoners, Families, Friends and HM Prison Service £44.50 (plus £5 p&p)

Going Straight Angela Devlin and Bob Turney Foreword Jack Straw, Former Home Secretary Based on first-hand accounts, Going Straight seeks to identify turning points and key influences in the lives of criminals (some well-known) who- often against all odds - turned their lives around. Includes contributions by His Honour Sir Stephen Tumim and broadcaster Roger Graef 1998 Reprinted 2001 ISBN 1 872 870 66 X £18

Prison(er) Education: Stories of Change and Transformation David Wilson and Anne Reuss An unswerving challenge to penal policy-makers to accept the value of education - beyond 'basic skills'. With contributions Dr Ray Pawson, Stephen Duguid and Emma Hughes. The first major collection of

writings about the transforming power of education in British prisons. As featured by Jeremy Paxman on BBC 'Start the Week'. 2000 ISBN 1 872 870 90 2. £18

Also at www.watersidepress.co.uk 'A breathless personal slide through her year talking to some of Britain's most dangerous prisoners': Community Care 'A work of intimacy and frankness ... Concrete evidence that therapy does help expose the failures of the past whilst offering hope for the future': Prison Service News 'As readable as a novel ... I could not put it down until finished': The Magistrate 'The tales are recounted in a style which allows the reader to read in colour ... A tale well told and worth reading': RPGA Newsletter 'Indispensible reading ... for practitioners and policy-makers alike': Scolag Legal Journal 'Several books have already been published about [HM Prison Grendon] but none with the depth of understanding that this author brings to Grendon Tales ... Uplifting ... A book that deserves a wide readership': New Law Journal

Foreword Lord Avebury ISBN 1 872870961 £18

PLUS A KEY WORK FOR 2002 as HM Prison Service looks to greater partnership with the community:

Prisons and the Voluntary Sector A Bridge into the Community Edited by Shane Bryans, Clive Martin and Roma Walker From 2002 there will be a major initiative to engage the voluntary sector and wider community in the work of prisons, part of a general trend in Government policy. This key work edited by three experts and containing contributions by a range of informed commentators will set the standard - and is likely to be in demand for the details it contains to enable both parties to understand what is involved, the history of voluntary work in prisons - which dates back several hundred years - and how to set about devising a scheme or promoting an idea. It gives practical advice and points to the pitfalls and likely difficulties - and contains in an appendix a directory of existing voluntary organizations with experience of working in or alongside prisons. With a Foreword by Terry Walte CBE. 2002 ISBN 1 872 870 95 3. £15.50

Further details of all these books (and more) appear at

www.watersidepress.co.uk Telephone 01962 855567

Criminal Classes: Offenders at School Angela Devlin Angela Devlin's highly acclaimed first work - which identifies areas at the schooling stage which influence and predict future offending behaviour. 'If you are in any doubt about the links between poor education, crime and recidivism, read it': Marcel Berlins The Guardian. 1996 Reprinted 1997, 2000. ISBN 1 872 870 30 9 £16.

Waterside Press Catalogue 2002

STOP PRESS: Innovative and Excitin New Titles for 2002 Prisons and the V.oluntary Sector A Bridge Into the Community Shane Bryans, Clive Martin and Roma Walker. Foreword by Terry Waite CBE The Geese Theatre Handbook Drama with Offenders and People at Risk Edited by Clark Baim, Sally Brookes and Alun Mountford Police Leadership in the Twenty-first Century Rob Adlam and Peter Villiers (Date and further details to be announced) Introduction to the Criminal Justice Process NEW SECOND EDITION Bryan Gibson and Paul Cavadino (Date to be announced) The Waterside A to Z of Criminal Justice Bryan Gibson and Paul Cavadino (Date to be announced) Prison Writing 2002 Edited by Julian Broadhead and Laura Kerr SIXTEENTH EDITION (Date to be announced) No Truth, No Justice Audrey and Paul Edwards (Date and details to be announced) Penal Change in Britain Mick Ryan (Date and Details to be announced) Nine Trials that Changed the Law Brian Block and John Hostettler (Date tba) Inside Art Creativity and Crime Mary Brown (Date to be announced) Plus a new work by Angela Devlin about partnerships forged across the prison divide. With a Foreword by Clare Rayner (Details and date to be announced)

The Family Bench Handbook Elaine Laken and others (Details shortly) Plus the enhanced 2002 edition of The Prisons Handbook (700 pages plus!)

Reprints are also currently being issued of Growing Out Of Crime Andrew Rutherford, Justice for Victims and Offenders Martin Wright, Invisible Women Angela Devlin Children Who Kill Edited by Paul Cavadino and Introduction to Prisons and Imprisonment Nick Flynn. Further titles to be announced For latest news visit www.watersidepress.co.uk or telephone 01962 855567

TPS (148mm x 210mm)

ISBN: 1-87287049-X A5 (148mm x 210mm) (210)