these 2180 (or about 89%) were in regular employment; 112 (or
about 4%) were in casual employment; 21 (or about 1%) convicted
or re-committed; and 142 (or about 6%) unknown.
These results are of course wholly independent of those achieved by the juvenile-adult prison reformatory at Borstal instituted in October 1902. The record of the first year’s work of this excellent system showed that 50% of cases placed out had done well, thanks to the system and philanthropic labours of the Borstal Association.
An interesting point in regard to the reclamation of these criminally inclined juveniles is the nature of the employments to which they have been recommended, and in which, as shown, they have done so well. In 1904, 1905 and 1906, the total number of boys discharged and placed was 12,482. By far the largest number of these, nearly a sixth, joined the army, 679 of them entering the bands; 292 joined the navy; 961 the mercantile marine; 1567 went to farm service; 414 worked in factories or mills as skilled hands; but others joined as labourers, a general class the total of which was 1096. Other jobs found included miners (629), carters (352), iron or steel workers (214), mechanics (301), shoemakers (181), tailors (161), shop assistants (228), carpenters (178), bakers (131), messengers and porters, including 112 errand boys (315). The balance found employment in smaller numbers at other trades. The fate of 585 was unknown, 858 had been re-convicted, and the balance were in unrecorded or casual employment.
The outlets found by the girls from these various schools naturally follow lines appropriate to their sex and the instruction received. Out of a total of 2985 discharged in the three years mentioned, 1235 became general servants, 268 housemaids, 203 laundry-maids, 52 cooks, 98 nursemaids, 65 dressmakers, 221 were engaged in factories and mills, and the balance was made up by marriage, death or casual employment.
In Ireland the reformatory and industrial school system conforms to that of Great Britain. There were in 1905 six reformatory and 70 industrial schools in Ireland, mostly under Roman Catholic management.
A short account of the reformatory methods of dealing with juvenile offenders in certain other countries will fitly find a place here.
Austria-Hungary.—The law leaves children of less than ten years of age to domestic discipline, as also children above that age if not exactly criminal, although the latter may be sent to correctional schools. There they are detained for varying periods, but never after twenty years of age, and they may be sent out on licence to situations or employment found for them. These schools also receive children between ten and fourteen guilty of crimes which are, however, by law deemed “contraventions” only; also the destitute between the same ages and the incorrigible whose parents cannot manage them.
In Hungary the penal code prescribes that children of less than twelve cannot be charged with offences; those between twelve and sixteen may be deemed to have acted without discretion, and thus escape sentence, but are sent to a correctional school where they may be detained till they are twenty years of age. An excellent system prevails in Hungary by which the supervision of those liberated is entrusted to a “protector,” a philanthropic person in the district who visits and reports upon the conduct of the boys, much like the “probation officer” in the United States.
Belgium.—The law of November 1891 places the whole mass of juveniles—those who are likely to give trouble and those who have already done so—at the disposal of the state. The system is very elastic, realizing the infinite variety of childish natures. The purely paternal régime would be wasted upon the really vicious; a severe discipline would press too heavily on the well-disposed. Accordingly, all juveniles, male and female, are divided into six principal classes with a corresponding treatment, it being strictly ruled that there is no intermingling of the classes; the very youngest, rescued early, are never to be associated with the older, who may be already vicious and degraded and who could not fail to exercise a pernicious influence. One of the great merits of the Belgian system is that the regulations may be relaxed, and children of whose amendment good hopes are entertained may be released provisionally, either to the care of parents and guardians or to employers, artisans or agriculturists who will teach them a trade.
Denmark.—There were 61 establishments of all classes for juveniles in Denmark in 1906, holding some 2000 inmates. In 1874, by the will of Countess Danner, a large female refuge was founded at Castle Jagerspris, which holds some 360 girls. Another of the same class is the Royal Vodrofsvei Bonnehjem at Copenhagen, founded in the same year by Mlle Schneider. The régime preferred in Denmark is that of the family or the very small school. The Jagerspris system is to divide the whole number of 360 into small parties of 20 each under a nurse or official mother. Employment in Danish schools is mainly agricultural, field labour and gardening, with a certain amount of industrial training; and on discharge the inmates go to farms or to apprenticeship, while a few emigrate.
France.—There are five methods of disposing of juvenile offenders in France:—
1. The preliminary or preventative prison (maisons d’arrêt and de justice) for those arrested and accused.
2. The ordinary prison for all sentenced to less than six months, whose time of detention is too short to admit of their transfer to a provincial colony. It also receives children whom parents have found unmanageable.
3. The public or private penitentiary colony for the irresponsible children, acquitted as “without discretion,” as well as for the guilty sentenced to more than six months’ and less than two years’ detention.
4. The correctional colony, where the system is more severe, receiving all sentenced for more than two years and all who have misconducted themselves in the milder establishments.
5. Various penitentiary houses for young females, whatever their particular sentence.
Foremost among French penal reformers stands the name of F. A. Demetz (1796–1873), the founder of the famous colony of Mettray. M. Demetz was a judge who, aghast at the evils inflicted upon children whom he was compelled by law to imprison, left the bench and undertook to find some other outlet for them. At that time the French law, while it acquitted minors shown to have acted without discretion, still consigned them for safe keeping and inevitable contamination to the common gaols. M. Demetz conceived the idea of an agricultural colony, and in 1840 organized a small “société paternelle,” as it was called, of which he became vice-president. Another philanthropist, the Vicomte de Bretignières de Courteilles, a landed proprietor in Touraine, associated himself in the enterprise and endowed the institution with land at Mettray near Tours. The earliest labours at Mettray were in the development of the institution, but as this approached completion they were applied to farmwork, agricultural employment being the chief feature of the place. The motto and device of Mettray was “the moralization of youth by the cultivation of the soil”; a healthy life in the open air was to replace the enervating and demoralizing influences of the confined prisons; and this was effected in the usual farming operations, to which were added gardening, vine-dressing, the raising of stock and the breeding of silkworms. The labour was not light; on the contrary, the directors of the colony sought by constant employment to send their charges to bed tired, ready to sleep soundly and not romp and chatter in their dormitories. The excellence of its aims, and the manifestly good results that were growing out of the system, soon made Mettray a model for imitation in France and beyond it. Many establishments were planned upon it, started by the state or private enterprise; penitentiary colonies were created for boys in connexion with some of the great central prisons. The colony of Val de Yèvre has a good record. It was started by a private philanthropist, Charles J. M. Lucas, (1803–1889) but after five-and-twenty years was handed over to the state. Other cognate establishments are those of Petit Quevilly near Rouen, Petit Bourg near Paris, St Hiliar and Eysses. There are several female colonies, especially that of Darnetal at Rouen.
It is for the magistrate or juge d’instruction to select the class of establishment to which the juvenile delinquents brought before him shall be committed. The very young, those of twelve years of age and under, are placed out in the country with families, unless they can be again entrusted to their parents or committed to maisons paternels, containing very limited numbers, twenty or thirty, in charge of a large staff. After twelve, and from that age to fourteen or fifteen, the “ungrateful age” as
