Understanding youth crime...

I spent most of yesterday afternoon responding to one of those internet forum threads, which was on the subject of coming down heavy on young people who get into trouble, and ressurecting the old borstal system.

Now don't get me wrong - I'm very much of the opinion that there are currently far too few boundaries available to young people in this country, and something clearly needs to be done about that sooner rather than later. Unlike a lot of people - who seem to think that the existence of boundaries for young people will help protect their interests; I'm very much of the opinion that the existence of boundaries helps young people's interests...

The fact is, human nature has a lot to answer for. As small children, most of us will have learned the hard way why our mothers told us not to do or touch a particular thing - in one way or another, it hurt! But before we experienced hurt, we had no way of understanding why it was such a bad thing, to be avoided at all costs - or why our mothers (or whoever) didn't want us to experience hurt. There are some things in life we just have to try, to satisfy ourselves whether they really are or are not a good idea!

Of course, the first crucial point is, hurt need not be physical. Boundaries need not be physical. Taking an eye for an eye is never justified! Take something the offender values by all means and in the case of a younger person, still on his or her journey of learning what is and is not acceptable behaviour to society, take something they value for a period of time - but return it, later. Provide them with a means of learning that in order to have what they value all the time, there are certain boundaries that they must not cross, because if they do, they'll be deprived of something they value, for a while - and actually, that hurts...

The second crucial point is this: don't automatically assume that their values are the same as your own! Don't reach for a leather belt or willow cane and aim for their backsides - they might not like it very much, but it won't necessarily hurt them as much as it hurts you. And don't just lock them up either - don't assume their experiences of life are the same as your own!!

I'm going to reproduce here what I wrote yesterday, to explain why:

I was one of the last people in Scotland ever to be sentenced to borstal training in November 1981 - the system was phased out a few months later. So for the benefit of those not so much in the know, let's define exactly what the old borstal systems were. I say systems, because they differed between England & Scotland.

From what I understand, the English system was something vaguely reminiscent to what you might now call a boot camp - early rising, early to bed, cold showers, lots of PT and drilling and fairly menial work in between - it lasted six months, and you could be sentenced to it up to three times. I don't think there was any intermediate sentence between borstal and approved schools.

In my view, the Scottish system was better thought out. At that time we had what were known as 'list D schools', which were normally residential units for young teenagers who'd broken the law; but for those aged 16 or 17, there were detention centres where the approach was one of short, sharp, shock: six weeks of what most people would consider hell, basically.

The detention centres were an alternative sentence however, as not all borstal boys (and I don't think any borstal girls) went there - though it has to be said, the majority did - more of which in a minute. Borstal was a single-sentence option in Scotland, with a minimum tarriff of nine months - extendable by the prison governor up to a maximum of two years, depending on the behaviour of the inmate during his/her sentence. Any time previously spent on remand was NOT deducted...

All boys spent their first six weeks in the assessment wing at Polmont (which was officially called HMI Brightons), near Falkirk - a closed, traditional Victorian-style prison hall with a couple of dormitories on the ground floor, but mostly single cells around upper galleries, known there as 'flats'. (By the time I was in the system, the former girls' borstal at Greenock had closed, and the few female borstal trainees that existed were housed in a wing of the relatively new Cornton Vale women's prison, at Stirling). The purpose of the assessment centre was to push inmates as far as possible, to discover where their tolerance limits lay (they didn't have to push me very hard - I was being escorted to the cell block within ten minutes of my arrival; as a result of which I inadvertantly earned myself a great deal of respect amongst the other boys!!). It was as I think a lot of us would imagine borstal to be - early mornings, cold showers, PT three times a day, drill, parades, scrubbing floors on hands and knees, cleaning dirty toilets - and a great deal of rough justice and verbal abuse by staff.

At the end of the assessment period, you were interviewed by your wing governor and a panel of others (medics, social workers, officers and official prison visitors) and considered for one of three options. Probably around 40% of boys (those who'd survived the harsh conditions of the past six weeks relatively unscathed, not been on report for anything, and just accepted their lots), were sent to one of the two open borstals that existed at the time - Castle Huntly, near Dundee, or Noranside, up in the Angus glens. There they did maintenance or catering work, or agricultural or forestry labouring, to pass their days...

The lion's share of the others (including yours truly) were sent to one of the other wings at Polmont, which was a secure institution - and employed in either the joiners or welders workshops, the kitchens, or on one of the maintenance teams. A very small number - just two or three individuals every couple of months - was sent to Carrick House in the grounds of Polmont. This was what might now be known as the Muppet Wing, or something similar - a very small (capacity around 10) 'house' with a very high staff ratio including females (at that time, apart from wing Matrons, who were responsible for catering and laundry arrangements, screws were invariably male in male prisons) - and it was run on something akin to a therapeutic model, with rewards for good behaviour and so on.

Wherever you ended up in the system though, you were expected to perform a number of regular tasks, including pristine maintenance of your appearance, that of your room and its contents - all of which were strictly monitored and frequently inspected, both by wing officers and the governor. This involved regular scrubbing, washing and polishing of both floor surfaces and boots - and if you got the slightest mark on either, you had to start all over again. The items you were allowed in your room were strictly controlled, and had to be arranged in a certain way - as did your bedding and furnishings. You had to address the officers (who did not wear uniform - which I suspect was a deliberate ploy to make inmates feel even less human and individual) as 'Sir' at all times, and use only your prison number and surname to describe yourself.

Work ran from about 7.30am until 4.30pm with breaks for lunch and tea; recreation was limited to an hour and a half on weekday evenings, and on Saturday afternoons unless you had a visit (visits were once a month); and apart from Sunday morning church attendance - which wasn't compulsory, but most boys opted to go, if only to avoid the alternative - you spent the rest of your time in the solitary confinement of your room.

Everyone wore prison uniform at all times - at the start of your sentence you were issued with a pair of rough, itchy black serge trousers and matching jacket - which you kept as best, as well as a pair of work shoes and a pair of 'soft' shoes; and each week you were issued with two shirts, two vests, two pairs of underpants, a pair of homemade denim jeans and a matching jacket for work; and you got clean socks every other weekday. For the first five months, everyone wore red striped shirts, but at that stage (and every subsequent month thereafter) you were assessed for promotion to 'your shirt', which meant you wore blue stripes instead - but this could be and frequently was revoked for inappropriate behaviour. Blue shirts had more privileges, better jobs, were allowed outside (but still within the perimeter fence) to play football in summer months, and got higher wages for their work (something like £2.95 a week, instead of the £2.72 the red shirts got), which could be spent on sweets, tobacco and toiletries, or saved up for release - which was always four months after they'd been awarded their shirt - assuming they kept their noses out of trouble.

As you can probably tell, borstal made a deep impression on me. I went in an immature boy and emerged a young man on the road towards some kind of recovery - but I have to say, I was the exception. With the greatest of respect, I don't honestly believe that any of you who have not had a connection with the youth offender system at some point in your lives could possibly even begin to appreciate the extent of what I'm about to say - however much you may feel you want to...

Almost all young offenders are career-offenders. Out of the dozens of inmates I came into contact with, I was the only one who had never had dealings with any part of the penal system before. I was the only one I can recall who had attended a normal school, rather than a residential, bad-boys' institution. And what's more - I had attended it too; whereas left to their own devices, most of them had been perpetual truants!

I was also the only one with a stable family background. Not only were my parents married to each other, but neither had ever strayed outside that relationship. Both went out to work to ensure we had a comfortable style of living. They frowned upon people who squandered their money on alcoholic drink, tobacco and adult entertainments, leaving their kids wanting - they'd both had such experiences as children themselves, and were determined to ensure that I did not; and, despite everything that had happenned, they always stood by me and did their best for me. Also, I was the only member of my family ever to have been in jail!

I was also in quite a small minority of inmates that could actually read and write; and think a stage or two ahead - the vast majority were semi-illiterate, and from broken or abusive homes, mostly eeking out a meagre existence on some run-down estate in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dundee - or one of the grim, former industrial towns such as Motherwell, Wishaw, or Coatbridge. All the men folk they'd ever known spent their lives in and out of prison - while their mothers, aunts and sisters spent all their weekends visiting different husbands, fathers, brothers and sons in different jails! Prison was as much a part of those families' lives as chapel is a part of the life of monks and nuns - I kid you not - I use no form of exaggeration at all...

Employment wasn't so much a swear word, as just something that only other people seemed to have access to. None of them had ever known it - not in living memory anyway; nor had any of the others they were in regular contact with. In most of these places, even the official unemployment figures were between 15-25% at the time - so with the wrong address, any sort of record, and without any decent sort of education, they'd not a hope in hell - and they knew it. Poverty was a way of life, as was drinking, as was crime...

At breaktimes, we'd sit round in large circles, and there was just two lines of conversation (well, three when I was around actually, as I'd decided to come out - but that's another matter). Girlfriends and future plans. All told in a very macho, trying to outdo and impress each other sort of way...!

The 'what I'm going to do when I get released' conversations were very interesting. Invariably they included consuming copious amounts of alcohol, doing unspeakable things with their birds and - nine times out of ten - ending up in Glenochil (Young Offenders Institution - the next step on the prison system ladder) - usually within about a fortnight.

Honestly - that went for almost everybody there - they had ambitions lasting two weeks at best. In practice, I'd imagine the majority of them would have struggled to make it past their first drinking binge, to be perfectly honest...

Life on the outside was like a fairground ride to them - something you went on occasionally, for a quick thrill.

One or two of them even openly described how they looked forward to what seemed like the inevitability of an eventual life-sentence - because then they'd be king of their own bits of the castle, and have rights to such luxuries as tv sets in their cells.


Have you any idea just how sad that is, folks? Can you even put it into words? These were 17 and 18-year olds, whose entire experience of life suggested that the best they could expect from life was the occasional shag and drinking binge between prison sentences! Every last one of their role models had gone that way - every single one; and nobody they'd ever known lived in anything other that abject poverty - relieved only by the proceeds of crime!

Not one person in their lives had ever taken the trouble to try to get to know them as the individuals they were. Everybody related to the roles they played, or to the labels they'd received - thief, burglar, drunkard, layabout, irritating little bastard. They'd not have known love if it had hit them in the face - at best, they were an inconvenience that had once been cute kids, that their mothers visited grudgingly, out of a sense of duty. Most of them had never experienced any of the good things in life - never been outside of the city, or away on holiday. They had to conform to the standards of their families and neighbourhoods too - for any attempt to even consider alternatives resulted in bullying, beating and absolute ostracisation from the only communities they ever knew, or felt any sense of belonging to.

Is the penny dropping for you yet? Yes, you're right - the reason these guys keep offending and getting themselves locked up is because jail offers them a means of escape from this awful world! No matter how bad conditions are inside, at least they know at the end of the day there will always be somebody to talk to, who won't judge them, and who will relate to them as the individuals each of them is! There is a ready source of friends, of sporting chums and rivals - which helps a lot if the regime is tough, as they chivvy each other along by ridiculing those of their number that can't make it!

Prison is the only place in the world where they can expect to have some kind of work to occupy their days - and give them a sense of place, and belonging! They don't have to worry where their next meal is coming from, or the rent money; and they know they'll have a warm bed to sleep in! By making jail their home - they do get 'holidays' - those occasional, short periods they spend outside. It gives them something to look forward to, somthing to talk about, something to work towards...

To those of you who advocate locking up youth offenders, can I just ask - how much of this picture I've been painting, of such people's lives, were you aware of? Had you any inkling at all that the world we live in has such huge inequalities - even within our own country? Can you honestly say you knew that, for many youngsters, it is such a fucking diabolical place where all you get is hurt, fucked up, shit all over and then hurt, fucked up and shit on again and again - that actually, they'd rather spend their lives in jail where at least there are some positive certainties? And if not - do you still think as a nation, we should be punishing those individuals for what can only be their best efforts to express the inexpressible hatred and contempt for a society that constantly turns a blind eye to their awful plights - or are you thinking that the real problem - that is the root cause of it all - might just lie outside of the prison gates - and maybe we should be making a damn sight more effort to make that a better place to be?

I rest my case. Thanks for reading.


I fear there are far too many people in the world who don't have the faintest clue what they're talking about, and expousing opinions about. I just pray that by sharing a little of my story, I might persuade a few of them to think again.