About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

20 How. J. Penology & Crime Prevention 1 (1981)

handle is hein.journals/hjcj20 and id is 1 raw text is: The Howard Journal Volume XX 1981, pp. 1-5 League Leader (A column of individual comments on current issues contributed by the Director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, by members of the Council of the League, or by the Editors of the Howard Journal.) Pulling Children in Two Directions The White Paper Young Offenders (Home Office and others 1980) is like a troika, skidding behind three horses which are pulling in different directions. The Home Office and Magistrates' Association apparently believe that something is achieved by removing young people from home. At intervals the third horse, the Department of Health and Social Security (D.H.S.S.), gives a tug in the other direction by affirming the Government's commitment to non-custodial penalties (para. 7). On the cover the Welsh Office is mentioned as co-author, but there is no hint that it has any independent ideas for dealing with young offenders in the Principality. For young adults (aged from 17 to 20) the White Paper proposes free market principles to govern sentencing, in place of section 3 of the Criminal Justice Act 1961 which required courts to send young offenders to borstal in almost all cases where an adult would have received a sentence of between six months and three years imprisonment. The concept of borstal training is abolished, to be replaced by youth custody. Training will be guaranteed only for those serving less than 18 months, and even this may be reduced if the courts imprison too many young people. Most young adults sentenced to between three weeks and four months would have to go to detention centres - which some might have regarded as a restriction of the powers of the courts. The effect would probably be to increase numbers in custody, but the scale is uncertain: of those at present serving about eight months in borstal, some would serve longer, but for others sentences down to four months will be possible, minus one-third remission, minus any time spent remanded in custody. The White Paper is certainly not, however, a plan to reduce the use of custody. In an attempt to forestall criticism it claims that: The Government is doing as much as possible to encourage the development of non-custodial facilities (para. 3), but there is no sign of any new thinking in that direction. Home Office ministers do not appear to have read the Swedish report Supervision Orders (Sweden 1977) nor to have inquired how it is working since its proposals were introduced on 1 January 1980; nor have they made any move towards reallocating funds to probation on condition that the prison population was reduced below the predicted level, as has been done for some time in California (Smith 1971). 1

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most