ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 will examine the development of the youth justice system through the major part of the twentieth century, up to 1969. Chapter 3 will examine the period from 1969 to the present. Chapter 2 will examine the conflict between legalism and welfarism. This chapter will establish that the principle that children and young people should be protected from the full weight of adult criminal justice systems underpins the concept of ‘welfare’ in youth justice, and can be traced back to the invention of juvenile delinquency in the early nineteenth century and the subsequent inception of specific legislation, court structures, policies, procedures and practices for the processing of young offenders at the beginning of the twentieth century.
The Youthful Offenders Act 1901 extended the use of alternatives to prison for young people and also made parents liable for the behaviour of their children. Section 4 of the 1901 Act allowed magistrates to remand young people accused of a crime to a workhouse or the custody of any fit person who was willing to receive him instead of prison. The 1901 Act also allowed the courts to order parents of young offenders (under 16 years of age) to pay whatever costs or compensation as the court considered reasonable. The Probation Act 1907 extended the use of alternatives to prison. The 1907 Act put probation on a statutory footing which allowed courts to appoint probation officers and children’s probation officers for cases involving young people below 16 years of age (section 3, Probation Act 1907). The 1907 Act introduced the probation order which required probation officers to ‘advise, assist and befriend’ the young person towards rehabilitation. The effect of the 1901 Act and the 1907 Act was to develop supervised probation as a widely used penalty.
