Thesis Title: The Development of the English Borstal System Between 1900 and 1908
Supervisors: Professor Heather Shore and Dr Stuart Aveyard
In 1908, the Prevention of Crime Act established a Borstal sentence as a recognised component of the English Penal System for young offenders aged between 16 and 21. My research seeks to understand how, in a period of less than fifteen years, the accepted approach to the management of these young men shifted from incarceration to reformation; resulting in the establishment of specialist institutions whose regimes focused on improving the physical, mental and moral well-being of younger prisoners, and returning them to society with the means to lead a more socially acceptable life.
While there is a significant body of research on the reformatory and industrial schools of the late nineteenth century, and on the Borstal System in the period after the First World War, there is little published research on the creation and early development of the Borstal System. My research seeks to contribute to closing this gap by looking in detail at the reasons why such a radical change in the approach to the management of younger offenders was considered, and how the Borstal System was designed and established to meet the perceived need.
Image caption: Warwick Modern Records Centre, Records of Howard League for Penal Reform, Rochester Borstal in 1902 1788-2021.