ABSTRACT
More than a century of social inquiry has revealed a topography of crime which is dominated by a number of monumental features. The most important of them can be summarized in the statement that most detected crime is committed by small groups of young urban working-class males. One way of interpreting the findings of this study would be to engage in a detailed critique of the defects of the 1969 Children and Young Persons Act in practice. A protective custody order would commit the child to the kind of secure accommodation which Regional Planning Committees have proposed as part of the residential provision required under the present Act. The sentencing of the older children in an adult jurisdiction, if it followed the current pattern to be seen in the juvenile courts, would consist principally of fines, some probation orders and a limited number of orders committing boys to detention centres or to Crown Court for Borstal sentences.
