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DISCUSSION on MR. WATSON'S PAPER.

SIR RAWSON W. RAWSON, K.C.M.G., C.B., was sure that all present would feel thankful to Mr. Watson for having collected the amount of information which he had given in his paper. But to follow and comprehend all the results upon listening to it for the first time was exceedingly difficult, especially as there had not been time to read the whole of the paper. The two features which had particularly struck him when he received a copy of the paper on Saturday were, first, the extraordinary reduction in the numbers of juvenile offenders, and the equally extraordinary difference in the progress of criminal offences, as shown in the tables of criminal offenders, between England and Scotland. Taking Mr. Watson's figures and comparing the years 1862-64 with 1890-92, there had been in England and Wales an apparent increase in those thirty years of 28 per cent. But, as Mr. Watson pointed out, the population had increased 44 per cent. Consequently instead of a proportionate increase there had actually been a decrease; for in 1862-64 there were 59 offenders per 1,000 of the population in England and Wales, while in 1890-92 there were only 52, a decrease in proportion to population of nearly 1 per cent. One of the two extraordinary features he had referred to was that in Scotland the increase between those two periods was 157 per cent. instead of 28. Making allowance for the difference in the increase of population, which was 315 instead of 44 per cent., and taking an average of the same three years, 63 persons per 1,000 were found in Scotland to be criminal offenders at the beginning of the thirty years, and 123 at the end of that period, or nearly double the proportion. That statement was most striking, for the tables did not bear out the argument that there had been a difference in legislation or greater interference of the police, or action of justice in the two countries to account for the disparity. The sudden large increase in the number of offenders had been more frequent and greater in England and Wales than in Scotland, and during the last ten years there had been a constant decrease in the number of offenders in England, but an almost constant increase in Scotland. This showed that something was in operation in the two countries which affected their criminal population or their criminal statistics, and it was very important to ascertain what this was. Justice ought also to be done to other institutions which could not be included in the category of reformatory and industrial schools, and he thought that the Council of the Society could not choose a better subject for the Howard Medal for next year than that of ascertaining to what extent the voluntary charities of the United Kingdom had led to this most substantial change in the condition of that portion of the population out of which criminals were produced. With

regard to the juveniles, the decrease in relation to the population was extremely important. In England and Wales the actual numbers gave a decrease of 56 per cent., and in Scotland of 33 per cent. But taking account of the population, and adopting a basis of 100,000 for the sake of a convenient comparison, the number of juvenile criminals had been reduced from 41 to 13, a diminution of 68 per cent. In Scotland the number was less at the beginning, 37 in 100,000, and that had been reduced to 18, a diminution of 50 per cent. One of Mr. Watson's tables showed that from 1871 to 1873 the number of juveniles committed for the first time in England and Wales was 57 per cent.; in 1891-94 it was only 31 per cent., showing a great reduction in the numbers who were entering upon a career of crime, which must have contributed largely to the reduction in the number of the adult criminals at the present time. Those who made up the remainder of the 100 in this percentage were of that class of habitual criminals which was found in every population, but which we were gradually reducing from year to year by force of our reformatory system and industrial school teaching.

The REV. DOUGLAS MORRISON (Assistant Chaplain, Wandsworth Prison) said that all the arguments of the last speaker were based on a quite fallacious test of the increase or decrease of crime, viz., the number of persons committed to prison. This could not be taken as trustworthy evidence, principally because the practice of fining had increased, because a large number of persons were now dealt with under the First Offenders Act, and because other methods not involving imprisonment were largely used. Neither the number of persons committed on a given day nor the number committed in a year could be taken as a test. If the number of offences committed was taken, an equally unsatisfactory result would be obtained. At present no complete return was made of those offences. If the total number of offences tried is taken as a test, it will be found that offences are increasing year by year; but this also would not be an entirely satisfactory test. It would require explanation. With regard to Mr. Watson's paper, he must first thank that gentleman for the great pains he had evidently taken in preparing it, but he thought he was wrong as to the origin of the industrial school and reformatory movement. It did not originate in England but in Italy. A school for waifs and strays was started in Florence more than two hundred years ago. That was followed up in 1703 by Pope Clement XI, who established a similar school at Rome. John Howard in the course of his travels no doubt saw these schools in operation. The writer had accepted the statements made in Blue Books entirely without criticism, but they were by no means to be always accepted without reserve. For instance, in the last Blue Book it was stated that in all classes of crimes against property the actual figures showed a diminution. But in the figures of the Blue Book itself there was an actual increase from 47,900 to 50,820. It was exceedingly difficult to say whether crime was increasing or decreasing, because the answer depended on so many complex considerations; no

matter what test was taken, it was absolutely impossible to get more than an approximation. A population increasing in density would tend to increase the amount of crime, for it might be accepted as a sociological law that crime increased with the density of population. Whether crime was increasing or decreasing, it could not be said that industrial and reformatory schools were to be judged by that standard. The amount of crime in a community was determined by a variety of conditions which juvenile institutions could not affect, and those institutions might be doing good work no matter whether crime was moving up or down.

The REV. M. G. VINE (Redhill School) desired to correct a mistake which was apparently made in the paper with regard to the present system of committal to reformatories. Mr. Watson seemed to think that imprisonment was necessary before commitment, but an Act was passed about a year ago which enabled magistrates to send children straight to reformatories without sentencing them to imprisonment at all, though before that Act punishment had to precede commitment. Then as to what the writer of the paper considered the injustice of sentencing children to heavier terms than would be adjudged to older criminals, the advocates of the reformatory system entirely denied that these schools had anything to do with punishment, and maintained that if punishment was to be inflicted it ought to be inflicted before the child was sent to the reformatory. They wanted the child to forget all about the crime, and in all reformatories and industrial schools throughout the country the children were taught that they had not been sent to a place of punishment in any sense of the word. It might be interesting to the meeting to hear what the results of reformatory and industrial schools work were, when calculated on a longer term of years than was taken in the ordinary official reports, which did not extend over more than four years. Previously to being called before the departmental committee now sitting, he had looked into the records of the school for the last fifteen years, and traced for that period the history of boys who had left the Redhill Reformatory School, which was the largest in the kingdom, and contained one-twelfth of the whole number of children in such schools. He found that their percentage of successes (reckoning not being re-convicted as success), amounted for all that period to 87 per cent. The means they had of obtaining information about re-convictions were first their own inquiries, which they made as thorough as possible; secondly, the lists sent them by the Government of all who were convicted in each year, and, thirdly, a list furnished by the prison authorities of any offenders who had been in prison during the year and who had formerly been in a reformatory. The re-convictions in four years had amounted to 7 per cent., and in fifteen years to 13.2 per

cent.

He maintained, in opposition to the writer of the paper, that the anticipations of those who had founded reformatories had been more than fulfilled, for they thought that if 50 per cent. were saved it would be a great achievement. When it was remembered

that each child saved represented in the majority of cases an evil influence upon many others arrested by the long and careful training which rescued him from crime, the extent of the work of those who first established and carried on reformatory and industrial schools would be better appreciated.

Mr. EMERSON BAINBRIDGE, M.P. thought that the most important suggestion in the paper was contained in the last few lines, which indicated that very much remained to be done. It was to be regretted that the writer, who had taken so much trouble in the preparation of the paper, had not made some suggestions either in the way of altering existing legislation, or in the treatment of children for the purpose of dealing with the evils mentioned. He (Mr. Bainbridge) wished to obtain information as to the best mode of dealing with cases of children who seemed not to be reached by the existing law, and he hoped the departmental committee now sitting would deal with this. He was not referring to the habitual criminal class, but to those who, in consequence of the neglect of parents, were on the verge of crime. During the last few years he had had experience of some 30,000 or 40,000 children who came daily for meals in one of the Midland towns. Neglect, not cruelty, was the difficulty which had to be met; the parents so neglecting the children that their training was most likely to lead them to become criminals. He regretted that the writer of the paper had not inquired into the methods of dealing with children in America and Germany. In the same town that he had already referred to, the expenses of a Boys' Working Home came to 41. to 6l. per year per boy, as compared with the much higher rate referred to by the author.

Mr. W. WINNETT said that, having had eight years of work on the London School Board, he could confirm from their experience of the training ship the remarks of a previous speaker. They had rone but the riff-raff of London-street arabs and lads who had been brought before a magistrate for the commission of various crimes. It was very gratifying to know that the industrial schools could do as good work as the reformatories, and if 95 per cent. of the roughest and wildest boys were saved, they must all be convinced that even from a money aspect immense sums had been saved by taking the children in hand at an early age.

The CHAIRMAN (Sir COURTENAY BOYLE, K.C.B.) said that it was now his duty to propose a vote of thanks to the writer of the paper. One thing he would point out as a Vice-President of that Society, viz., that it was a statistical and economical mistake to attempt to found on mere figures too close a deduction as between cause and effect. It was impossible to so regard a simply arithmetical result in such a case as this; and it would be a mistake to suppose that you could add 2 and 2 together or take 3 from 6, and then assert that such and such a result had followed from any particular action, or that from certain conditions some precisely definable consequence had ensued. The other proposition he wished to

make was, that, although that was true as a general proposition, there were many instances, as in the case they had just been discussing, in which a decided correlation between cause and effect could be shown by figures. Not only had that been shown by the figures given in the paper, but Mr. Winnett, of the London School Board, had indicated that the establishment of industrial and reformatory schools had been beneficial, and had as far as possible effected their object. They had all heard that :

"The evil that men do lives after them;

The good is oft interrèd with their bones."

He thought the wise philosopher who penned those lines was in a somewhat pessimistic mood when he did so, and in this case the statement was not true; for the action of the promoters of both reformatory and industrial schools had undoubtedly had a beneficial effect. Although it might be perfectly true that it was not right to test the volume of crime by the number of convictions, yet the number of convictions was a material factor in determining the state of crime, and the figures of Mr. Watson showed that, at any rate in relation to the population, crime was not an increasing quantity. The concluding passage of the paper was in rather a gloomy vein, but he thought it might be regarded as merely for the purpose of encouraging those who had engaged in this useful work to continue their valuable labours. He begged, in conclusion, to propose a hearty vote of thanks to Mr. Watson for his interesting and important paper.

Mr. WATSON, in reply, said that he had never intended to imply that reformatories were useless; he only meant to convey that they had not entirely fulfilled the sanguine anticipations held in reference to them when founded. Probably in nothing human was perfection to be found. He sincerely thanked the meeting for the cordial and kindly manner in which they had received his paper.

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