Florence NIGHTINGALE
Juvenile Offenders Letter from Miss Florence NIGHTINGALE
Mils Florence Nightingale, writing Mr. Alex Devine of the Gordon Boys’ Home »nd the Foiloecourt Mission to Lads, Manchester, on the subject of the treatment of juvenile offenders, says; The work you are doing at Manchester rescuing boya ’had up lor their first offence, is one of the overwhelming importance, and yours is, far as I know, the first and the only one Its kind. Forty years ago, Sir John Hetschel, in his review of • Quetelet on Probabilities,’propounded that the results of punishments was subject we ought study with careful statistics before legislating. It is astounding that apractical nation like the English should have done this so little We have vague idea that 75 per cent, of the boys committed to Reformatories (for a first offence is it ?) are reformed, and do well. We have a vague idea that (say) per cent, of those wmmlttedto gaol return there again and again. But, as far a know, yours the only Engand wh.ch profiting by the •First Offenders’ Act, attends the police courts, the fountain trates the means of carrying out the Act wccMSfu ly. I nointed out in postscript, I think, to article of mto to (I forget how many yew. ago), that was a complete non sequiter that, because . boy stole your watch, should be supported on your rates gaol, perhaps for life, and suggested that he might be made to work out the price what be stole. This was answered, not pointing out the too obvious practical difficulties, but by saying that the punishment would bear unevenly different esses. That the punishment of gaol is not deterrent experience too sadly proves; but punishment ’ is, perhaps, not word In God’s vocabulary all, and, so, ought not to in outs. It would be of immense importance if again, and yet again, the public had kept before them the statistics, well worked out (not the ordinary superficial ones) of the Influence of punishment, on crime, or of reformatories and Industrial schoois on juvenile offenders. It has been truly said that ctime ology ’ much less studied than ‘insectology,’ and that the age, the change, the sentence all our convict, at their first conviction are not easy of access (criminal statistics could only of use supplemented wb*t might be called criminal •Social Physics * and their practical application). Another subject of statistical research is—Do paupers and the children of paupers return again and again the workhouse; and what proportion do the same names appear generation after generation on the books, even from the excellent (separated) union schools ? It is to feared that the girls especially arc so little prepared tor good domestic service that they do not keep their places, but tall into sin, and often return to the workhouse, ruined by first fail! I could write much more, but I have no power of following up thla subject, though has interested me all my life. For the 40 years I have been immersed in two objects, and have undertaken what might well occupy 20 vigorous young people, and I am an old and overworked invalid. God bless you, and bless your work, and multiply th jasandfold.—Your faithful servant, Flobe.ncf Niohtikoalb.’’
Exmouth Journal – Saturday 13 September 1890
