“Way To Borstal Starts In Loveless Homes”

Press, Issue 30997, 1 March 1966, Page 15

“Way To Borstal Starts In Loveless Homes”

A Borstal trainee was almost invariably the product of a home where love and affection were lacking, an Invercargill Stipendiary magistrate (Mr W. M. Willis) told the Rotary conference in Christchurch on Saturdav.

“There may be a home good in material standards or it may be a home lacking everything that a home should provide.

“But the one thing common to the homes of all Borstal trainees is the lack of affection.” said Mr Willis. The lack of affection was the reason for a good deal erf sexual misbehaviour of youths. "Many Borstal trainees are sexually promiscuous and this is the seeking of love and affection which they have never had. Their behaviour is «the result of their envorinment because they feel they have not been wanted. “I fully realise that there are cases where affection has ’ amounted to over-indulgence, sometimes with dire result “This lack of affection may ar.se where parents are separated, where there is a liquor problem, parental instability or where mother and father may be too much involved in their own affairs, either business or social.” Mr Willis said there seemed to be an idea that Borstal

trainees were just ordinary boys who had had bad luck. “Nothing could be further from the truth for they are not ordinary boys. There are 400 youths under detention in Borstal Institutions and detention centres and it would be fair to say that they are the most difficult young men in the community. “They are not normal bays, they do not have the reactions of normal boys and their reaction to events is different and their attitude to authority is, to say the least, curious.” From general observations the Borstal trainee could be pictured as an unwanted youth without a stable environment, ambition or respect for authority and quite apathetic about it all.

This apathy to personal and social responsibility might be the most common factor in youthful offenders.

Mr Willis said newspaper correspondence columns could lead one to believe that Borstal training was something akin to the playway system of teaching.

“It has been suggested to me that the only real way to treat trainees is the Army way, rough, with everything at the double. “This has been tried with a singular lack of success and over the last few years the methods have changed so that reformation is the keynote not retribution.” The Borstal Institution did not lack discipline in spite of an atmosphere more relaxed than in prison, he Said. “It is a place of training and the emphasis is on training. The older methods of keeping persons behind high walls and thinking little of their future have gone. Mr Willis spoke of the pressures a boy sent to Borstal underwent “His life is controlled and will be something unusual because his life outside will in many cases have consisted of loafing around the streets particularly at night, a succession of late hours, sexual misbehaviour, excessive drinking and the like. “He will have regulated

hours, do a hard day's work and receive adequate and regular meals. By various devices an attempt is made to teach a sense of values to prepare the trainee for his ultimate return to the community. Mr Willis said he wondered if the public overlooked the fact that eventually nearly every prisoner must return to the community. “It must surely be the aim of the penal system to ensure if it can that in some degree

the prisoner will have hope for the future. “It is when the trainee is released that he will need all the help he can get “So many of the youths who have been sentenced to Borstal find that when the time for their release comes they have nothing or no-one, and the substitute will as like as not be the same poor friends of the pre-sentence days. “I have no doubt probation officers and those interested in youth work could give you many examples of trainees seeking employment only to be knocked back because of their record. “Curiously enough It is not the captains of industry who offend most but the lower ranks. “It is not uncommon for a former trainee to find himself suddenly without a job because a foreman or fellow employee objects to his presence. Employers on the whole are sympathetic, but they are sometimes in difficulties when a valued employee makes threats of this nature. “These things should not happen except on rare occasions, but they do, and the good work of probation officers, Borstal officers, and

others is thrown away. “What hope is there for ultimate reformation if thoughtlessness or ignorance should in a few brief moments undo months of good work.

“A great deal of understanding and tolerance is essential, and a tremendous amount of good will on the part of the employer and employee alike. “We like to think that the debt to society has been satisfied upon completion of a sentence imposed by the courts, but if the things I mention continue the failure rate must remain high,’’ said Mr Willis.