BORSTAL TREATMENT

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 78, 2 April 1931, Page 7

BORSTAL TREATMENT

OBJECT OF THE SYSTEM

SENTENCES OF ESCAPEES

AVhether the Court ho> "power to declara a sentence of impi-isonment with hard labour cumulative on detention in a Borstal- institution was the question dealt with in a reserved judgment of the Court of Appeal delivered yesterday afternooft" by the Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers) in the case of the King v. Bryant arid Broughton. The' Court held that,although there might be exceptional case.-? requiring other punishment, and while it did not doubt that in the circumstances of the present case the Court had power to impose a sentence of imprisonment, it was undesirable, generally speaking, to impose a sentence of imprisonment to take effect at the expiration of Borstal treatment. The facts in the ease of Bryant and Broughton were^that while undergoing a. period of three years' detention in'a Borstal institution they escaped and while at large committed three offences of breaking and entering and theft, for which they, were sentenced by Mr. Justice Ostler at Napier to two years' imprisonment with, hard labour on each charge, such sentences to be concurrent with each:other but cumulative on the period of detention: in a Borstal institution. NO HARD AND FAST RULE. "We do not doubt . .... that_ the Court in such ■ circumstances as exist in this case has the power to do what was done by Mr. Justice Ostler," stated tha judgment. "Nevertheless, without attempting to lay down a rule applicable toi all cases, we have no doubt that, speaking generally, it is undesirable to impose upon an offender who is detained in a. Borstal institution a sentence of imprisonment to follow upon the determination of; the order of. detention. Such a possibility could~nbt have been contemplated by those who were responsible for tha establishment of the scheme of Borstal' institutions, because to send a youth to prison on the completion of a term oE detention in a Borstal institution might well be calculated to undo all the good that the offender has received from his instruction and discipline in the Borstal institution. . THE EXCEPTIONAL CASE. "We have said that no general rula should be laid down because there is always the possibility of an exceptional case arising. But if such an exceptional case did arise, that is to say a case where an escapee from a Borstal institution. commits serious offences for which he is again brought before the Court, it migb.4 be advisable to sentence him to a straightout term of imprisonment, but only r6 the term, to be imposed is longer than the unexpired residue of the term of the original order of detention. In that event the question as to whether he should be kegt in prison or sent back to the Borstal institution would be in the hands of tha authorities administering the statutes re* lating to*"prisons and Borstal institutions,The alternative, we think—and the proper, course, generally speaking—is to increase his period, of detention in the Borstal institution." " : In the circumstances of the ease of Bryant and Broughton the Court ordered the accused to be committed to a Borstal institution for an additional term of two' years in lieu of the sentence of two years'' imprisonment with hard labour. The last* mentioned sentence was set aside.