This is a very short and very simple Bill entirely for the purpose of dealing with one particular matter. Children under certain circumstances can be committed to a reformatory and in certain circumstances can be committed to an industrial school. It did happen in the case of children committed to a reformatory and subsequently in connection with children committed to an industrial school that there were cases of girls where there had been sexual contamination of one kind or another or a danger of that and in some cases the authorities of the schools refused to receive them and in other cases declined to retain them in the schools when the general circumstances became known. In these circumstances a special school was set up which is mentioned in this Bill. The purpose of the Bill is that, particularly in respect of children who are committed to an industrial school, it will be possible for these children to be sent to the special school referred to in this Bill. The ages at which children can be sent to a reformatory run from 12 to 17. There is a certain provision for supervision after the age of 17. Under the original Act of 1908, they are under the supervision of the managers of the school to which they have been committed until they are 19 years of age. Supervision consists of this, that they are released at 17 into some kind of employment; they are under supervision in that employment and, if circumstances arise that, in the opinion of the management, they still require to be directly looked after they can be brought back to the reformatory for a period not greater than three months. Then they are put out under supervision again and, under the 1908 Act, they could be kept under that type of supervision and that liability to be brought back to the reformatory until the age of 19. An amendment to the 1908 Act is respect of that age was made in the 1941 Act and now it is possible to retain supervision and, therefore, to retain power of returning them to the reformatory for a period of three months up to the age of 21.
The maximum age for retention in an industrial school is 16. This Bill provides that that age will be raised to 17 and, again under the 1908 Act, it was possible to maintain supervision over an industrial school child until the age of 18. That was raised to 21 under the 1941 Act. So, the main provision of this Bill is that, completely retaining untouched and unextended, the main basis on which children can be sent either to a reformatory or industrial school—the basis being, for reformatory schools, Section 57 of the 1908 Act and, for industrial schools, Section 58 of the School Attendance Act—a special school is provided here and, with the approval of the managers of that school, certain children that have certain contamination may be sent to this particular school rather than to one of the old reformatories or industrial schools where they might be refused or rejected.
The provision is maintained that there will be the same control by a local authority. A child is not committed to an industrial school at the present time unless the local authority has been given an opportunity of appearing at a court or wherever the decision is taken that the child will go to an industrial school and under sub-section 18 of Section 133 of the Act of 1908, there is complete safeguarding of religious rights. The whole of that fabric is maintained and the only change that is taking place is that 16 years of age, which is the maximum age for keeping a child in an industrial school at the present time, is, in respect of conditions of this kind, raised to 17. In case it is argued, as, no doubt it can easily be, that 17 is not an age at which children of that particular kind can be regarded as completely free from danger, the supervisory and controlling powers of that Act of 1908 and 1941 remain there until such time as the child is 21 years of age.
