COERCED INTO MORALITY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 193, 4 January 1913, Page 5

COERCED INTO MORALITY.

BORSTAL SYSTEM SUCCESSFUL. YOUNG HELPED FROM CRIME. ' (Sydney Sun Special Cable). London, December *23. The report on the system adopted at the Borstal Institution shows tliat only 9 per cent, of the discharged boys have been reconvicted.

Of the total that have been through the place 84 per cent, are now in regular employment. The system takes its name from the Borstal Prison, at Rochester, in Kent—now the Borstal Institution—where it has been carried on for some years with very gratifying results. The Prevention of Crimes Act passed by the British Parliament in l!)0N provides fair the reformation of ynnng offenders, and empowers the Secretary of State to establish Borstal Institutions, in which young ucip'e. of either sex, between the ages of 1(> and '2l, who may be convicted of an offence rendering them liable to imprisonment or penal servitude, may receive such industrial and other instruction, and be subjected to such disciplinary and moral influences as will conduce to their .reformation and the prevention of crime. On a boy's or girl's discharge, he or she is handed over to the Borstal Association, which was founded by Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise, and so long as good behaviour is shown support is given until work is obtained. The system 18 not 'a namby-pamby one. Only those who accept its strong incentive and reformative methods find it tolerable. Those who do not, entreat for removal to other prisons, "where less development and improvement of their latentl capacities are demanded!"