English juvenile reformatory system intended for young people ages 16 to 21. In Kent's village of Borstal, close to Rochester, the first Borstal was established in 1902. The Borstal system was designed to keep youthful offenders away from the influence of more experienced habitual offenders and to give education and training in the hopes that doing so would reduce the likelihood that prisoners would commit crimes again after being released. Under the 1982 Criminal Justice Act
, borstals were formally abolished and replaced with facilities known as youth custody centres. Although the system was first used in 1902, Sir Alexander Paterson, who was appointed prison commissioner in 1922, gave it its fundamental structure. Each institution consists of houses with a housemaster or housemistress, house staff, and ideally no more than 50 young offenders. Exacting training is built on a full day of challenging and engaging work. The Borstal or nearby technical colleges offer six hours a week of nighttime instruction for vocational training courses.
The training period, which is determined by the inmate's advancement through a grading system, lasts, on average, 15 months. After being released, the prisoner is put under the care of the Central Aftercare Association and could be brought back for additional training if required. The
1958 film Borstal Boy by Brendan Behan paints a comical yet depressing portrait of life there. A Borstal was a specific kind of child detention facility that was used in the United Kingdom, a number of Commonwealth member states, and the Republic of Ireland.
The creation of five different types of juvenile institutions is allowed by Pakistani law: borstals, remand homes, industrial and approved schools, and reform schools. The Reformatory Schools Act of 1897, the only federal statute that is primarily designed to protect children, governs the first of them. In accordance with this Act, judges have the option of sending juvenile offenders who are under the age of fifteen at the time of their conviction to a reform school for terms ranging from three to seven years. A reform school is not permitted to hold anyone older than the age of eighteen. Minors held in the schools must be able to get vocational training, although children over fourteen may also be "licenced" to an employer for periods that are renewable for up to three months. There are currently no reform schools in Pakistan, therefore the act has little practical impact there.
Industrial schools may be established to house both young criminals and needy or abandoned children who have not broken any laws, according to the Punjab Youthful Offenders Ordinance of 1983 and the Sindh Children Act of 1955. In either case, the duration of the commitment cannot exceed the child's eighteenth birthday. The laws also give the provincial governments the power to accredit other educational facilities as being capable of housing juveniles. These facilities are subject to inspection by a Chief Inspector of Certified Schools and are always subject to the possibility of having their accreditation revoked. The Sindh Children Act and the Punjab Youthful Offenders Ordinance have been weakened by the government's failure to build or accredit schools for juveniles, just as the Reform School Act, which they replace everywhere they have been enforced. In Karachi, there is only one place that has been formally recognised as an industrial school, and it is run as part of the prison system in violation of the Sindh Children Act.
The Sindh Children Act and the Punjab Youthful Offenders Ordinance additionally provide for the designation of remand homes. Remand homes are construed under these laws as "places of safety," where children may be held pending their appearance before a magistrate. There is at present one remand home in Karachi that houses children under the age of fourteen who are awaiting trial or in the process of being tried. The remand home also holds a few convicted children who were below the age of fourteen at the time of their arrest.
Both Punjab and Sindh also have laws governing borstal institutions. Borstals are defined under these laws as places where juveniles may be detained and provided with "industrial training and other instruction" as well as "disciplinary and moral influences" that will encourage their reformation.
Under the Punjab Borstal Act of 1926, male convicts under the age of twenty-one, who have exhausted their appeals, may be detained in a borstal for periods ranging from two to seven years. The Punjab Borstal Rules of 1932 contain rules for the administration of borstals. They provide for the appointment of a borstal director with powers and duties equivalent to that of the inspector-general of prisons, set a ceiling of five hundred on the population of each borstal, and require the detention of adolescent and post-adolescent offenders in separate enclosures. In practice, the inspector-general of prisons has authority over Punjab's only borstal, at Bahawalpur, and the institution is administered in accordance with the Pakistan Prison Rules. The Prison Rules deviate from the Borstal Act in two important respects: they require the transfer to the borstal of all juvenile convicts sentenced to terms of three months or more, and the transfer to adult prisons of all borstal inmates who have reached the age of twenty-one.
The Sindh Borstal Schools Act of 1955 allows courts to detain youthful offenders between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one in borstals, for periods ranging from three to five years. Juveniles may not be held in a borstal beyond the age of twenty-three, or in exceptional cases, twentyfive. In contrast to the requirements of the Punjab Borstal Rules, institutions established under the Sindh Borstal Schools Act fall under the purview of the inspector-general of prisons. To date, no borstals have been constructed in Sindh.
Medical Care
Under the Borstal Rules, each institute must have an "infirmary, hospital, or proper place for the treatment of prisoners," and an infectious diseases ward. The Prisons Act and the Prison Rules, additionally require the appointment of a medical officer, a junior medical officer, and a dispenser.
Education
Under the Prison Rules, as noted, juvenile convicts sentenced to a prison term of one year or more "shall be brought under a course of Instruction, in reading, writing, and arithmetic for two hours daily." Religious education is compulsory both for convicts and inmates who are under trial.
Vocational Training and Labor
The Borstal Rules state that "[e]very institution will ordinarily have in addition to classes for general education, special industrial classes and workshops for teaching trades and other means of livelihood." The Prison Rules state that prison industries should be established with a view to "[i]mparting vocational training to the prisoners to enable them to earn a respectable livelihood after their release." The U.N. Rules for the Protection of Juveniles include a similar formulation of these objectives, stating, "Every juvenile should have the right to receive vocational training in occupations likely to prepare him or her for future employment."
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