THE CHILD AND THE COURT
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
Sra,—Mr. Gedge's letter in your issue of January 22nd on the danger of corrupting innocent children by mixing them with guilty children on remand in custody is, I think, likely to give your readers a misleading impression of what normally happens when a London child is charged in a Juvenile Court with an offence against the law. It would take too much space to explain the usual procedure and to show what great pains are taken by the Juvenile Courts in London to secure full information before deciding on the method of treatment to be applied to a boy or girl who has been found guilty. But you will, I hope, allow me to make the following comments on Mr. Gedge's letter.
I. The Remand Home at Ponton Road, of which he com- plains, is no longer in use. The new Remand Home at Stamford House was opened rather more than a year ago, and it is used as " a place of safety " not for children charged with an offence, but for boys and girls " in need of care or protec- tion." Many of this group of children have committed no offence. They are children who come from homes where proper care and guardianship are non-existent or defective, and who are exposed to moral danger or falling into evil associations or beyond control ; in other words, children likely to drift into wrong-doing and trouble unless they are looked after. In the much better building at Stamford House it is much easier for the staff to reduce the risk of contamina- tion.
2. In the case taken by Mr. Gedge as his text—that of a boy of twelve who assists at or in a housebreaking committed by a young relative who cannot have been more than sixteen —the " corruption," so far as it happened at all, cannot all have been on one side.
8. In cases of boys charged with offences, remands for proper enquiries after guilt is proved are usually essential in all but trivial cases. The Juvenile Court remands on bail in suitable cases, but where the Court needs additional informa- tion to enable it to decide on the best course to adopt for the welfare of the child, a remand in custody is often more helpful as medical and psychological reports can thus be obtained. - 4. Separation from home, involved by remand in custody, generally amounts in itself to a punishment for the normal child, and this is no doubt what the Juvenile Court took into consideration in the case cited by Mr. Gedge. The punishment is incidental rather than designed, but sometimes proves salutary in cases where home discipline is lax.—Yours
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