Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-dnltx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T11:24:14.527Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Criminal children: childhood and the law since 1865

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2016

Gail Reekie  and
Paul Wilson
Get access

Extract

The child of the law, like the man of the law, is a particular kind of legal young person who bears no necessary relationship to a “real” young person. Children are, nevertheless, very much present in the law. This chapter examines the ways in which the language of the law, expressed in statutes relating to child welfare and juvenile justice, has articulated particular notions of the criminal child and deviant childhood. The object, using the words of King and Piper, is to find out how the law has “thought about” children.

Type
Representations of the Child
Information
Queensland Review , Volume 3 , Issue 2: Volume 3 Special Issue 02 (Young in a Warm Climate) - July 1996 Editor: Lynetter Finch , July 1996 , pp. 76 - 85
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Endnotes

1. Naffine, Ngaire, Law and the Sexes. Explorations in Feminist Jurisptudence (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1990).Google Scholar

2. King, Michael and Piper, Christine, How the Law Thinks About Children (Aldershot: Gower, 1990).Google Scholar

3. See, for example, Anthony Carty and Jane Mair, “Some Post-Modern Perspectives on Law and Society”, Journal of Law and Society 17, 4 (1990): 395–410.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. Teubner, Gunther, “How the Law Thinks: Toward A Constructivist Epistemology of Law”, Law & Society Review 23, 5 (1989): 740.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5. van Krieken, Robert, “Towards ‘good and useful men and women’: the State and Childhood in Sydney, 1840–1890”, Australian Historical Studies 23, 93 (1989): 408–410.Google Scholar

6. van Krieken, Robert, “Children and the State: Child Welfare in New South Wales 1890–1915”, Labour History 51 (1986): 35.Google Scholar

7. Shevels, Cec, “Reforms in Juvenile Justice”, Youth Studies 9, 3 (1990): 20.Google Scholar

8. Hahn, Paul, The Juvenile Offender and the Law, 3rd ed. (Cincinnati: Anderson Publishing Co., 1988), p. 6. See also Spyros A. Doxiadis, “Children, Society and Ethics”, Child Abuse and Neglect 13, 1 (1989): 13; Coramae Richey Mann, Female Crime and Delinquency (Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1984), pp. 115–118.Google Scholar

9. Industrial and Reformatory Schools Act 1865, s. 2.Google Scholar

10. Industrial and Reformatory Schools Act, s. 6.Google Scholar

11. Schofield, G.M., “An Overview of the Methods of State Child Care in Queensland 1864–1965”, Bachelor of Social Work, Honours Thesis, University of Queensland, 1971, pp. 78–81; Van Krieken, “Children and the State”, p. 41. On the treatment of young prostitutes in this period see Judith Allen, Sex and Secrets. Crimes Involving Australian Women Since 1880 (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 23; and Terence Sullivan, “Juvenile Prostitution: a Critical Perspective”, Marriage and the Family Review 12, 1–2 (1987): 116–117.Google Scholar

12. Criminal Law Amendment Act 1887 (an Act to Make Better Provision for the Protection of Women and Girls and for the Suppression of Brothels and for Other Purposes). See also carnal knowledge sections of Criminal Law Amendment Act 1891.Google Scholar

13. Krieken, Van, “Children and the State”, p. 41.Google Scholar

14. Cashen, Phil, “The Truant as Delinquent: the Psychological Perspective, South Australia, 1920–1940, Journal of Australian Studies 16 (1985): 72; Van Krieken, “Children and the State”, p. 39.Google Scholar

15. State Children Act 1911, s. 4; State Children Acts Amendment Act 1928.Google Scholar

16. Criminal Code Act 1899, s. 280.Google Scholar

17. Criminal Code Act 1899., s. 678.Google Scholar

18. John Braithwaite, Crime, Shame and Reintegration (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 55.Google Scholar

19. Offenders Probation Act 1886; Schofield, “An Overview of the Methods of Child Care in Queensland”, pp. 83,129. For Victoria see Donella Jaggs, Neglected and Criminal. Foundations of Child Welfare Legislation in Victoria (Melbourne: Centre for Youth and Community Studies, Phillip Institute of Technology, 1986), p.69.Google Scholar

20. Platt, Anthony M., The Child Savers. The Invention of Delinquency, 2nd ed. (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1977), pp. 43–45.Google Scholar

21. Reiger, Kerreen M., The Disenchantment of the Home. Modernizing the Australian Family 1880–1940 (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1985), pp. 167–168; Cashen, “The Truant as Delinquent”, pp. 71–83; Robert Van Krieken, “State Bureaucracy and Social Science: Child Welfare in New South Wales, 1915–1940”, Labour History 58 (1990): 17–35.Google Scholar

22. Garton, Stephen, “Sir Charles Mackellar: Psychiatry, Eugenics and Child Welfare in New South Wales, 1900–1914”, Historical Studies 22 (1986): 21–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23. Criminal Code Act 1899, s. 480.Google Scholar

24. Constance M. Davey, Children and Their Law-Makers. A Social-Historical Survey of the Growth and Development from 1836 to 1950 of South Australian Laws Relating to Children (Adelaide: Griffin Press, 1956), p. 44.Google Scholar

25. Theodore N. Ferdinand, “History Overtakes the Juvenile Justice System”, Crime and Delinquency 37, 2 (1991): 209; Judith Allen, “Breaking into the Public Sphere: the Struggle for Women's Citizenship in New South Wales 1890–1920” in In Pursuit of Justice. Australian Women and the Law, eds Judy Mackinolty and Heather Radi (Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1979), p. 109; Susan Magarey, Unbridling the Tongues of Women. A Biography of Catherine Helen Spence (Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1985), p. 101; van Krieken, “Children and the State”, p. 37.Google Scholar

26. Kittrie, Nicholas N., The Right to be Different. Deviance and Enforced Therapy (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971), pp. 110–111.Google Scholar

27. Children's Court Act Amendment Act 1930. On the appointment of therapeutically oriented magistrates in South Australia, see Cashen, “The Truant as Delinquent”, p.80.Google Scholar

28. Sherington, Geoffrey and Irving, Terry, “Youth Policies in Twentieth Century Australia”, Bulletin of the National Clearinghouse for Youth Studies 8, 3 (1989): 12.Google Scholar

29. Davison, Graeme, “The City-Bred Child and Urban Reform in Melbourne 19001940” in Social Process and the City, Urban Studies Yearbook 1, ed. Williams, Peter (Sydney: George Allen & Unwin, 1983), p. 154.Google Scholar

30. Juvenile Smoking Suppression Act 1905, s. 3.Google Scholar

31. Fireanns Act 1905, s. 2.Google Scholar

32. Odem and Schlossman, “Guardians of Virtue”, pp. 187–188; Meda ChesneyLind, “Girls' Crime and Woman's Place: Toward a Feminist Model of Female Delinquency”, Crime and Delinquency 35, 1 (1989): 15.Google Scholar

33. State Children Act of 1911, s. 4.Google Scholar

34. Krieken, Van, “Children and the State”, p. 41.Google Scholar

35. State Children Act 1911, s. 23.Google Scholar

36. Regulations relating to the Westbrook Reformatory for Boys, Regulations Under the State Children Act 1911, s. 35, s. 52.Google Scholar

37. Regulations relating to the Westbrook Reformatory for Boys, Regulations Under the State Children Act 1911, s. 22.Google Scholar

38. Regulations under the State Children Act 1911, s. 12, 20. On docile bodies see Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish. The Birth of the Prison (Ringwood: Penguin, 1991), pp. 135–169.Google Scholar

39. Sherington and Irving, “Youth Policies in Twentieth Century Australia”, p. 12; Schofield, “An Overview of the Methods of Child Care”, pp. 133, 174.Google Scholar

40. Bessant, Judith, “Described, Measured and Labelled: Eugenics, Youth Policy and Moral Panic in Victoria in the 1950s”, Journal of Australian Studies 31 (1991): 16.Google Scholar

41. Bessant, “Described, Measured and Labelled”, p. 8; Mark Finnane, “Censorship and the Child: Explaining the Comics Campaign”, Australian Historical Studies 23, 92 (1989): 237.Google Scholar

42. Braithwaite, John, “Australian Delinquency: Research and Practical Considerations” in Delinquency in Australia, ed. Wilson, Paul R. (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1977), p. 15.Google Scholar

43. Jon Stratton, The Young Ones (perth: Black Swan Press, 1992).Google Scholar

44. Krieken, Van, “State Bureaucracy and Social Science”, p. 31.Google Scholar

45. Vagrants, Gaming and Other Offences Act 1931–1971, s. 37B inserted by Amendment Act 1946.Google Scholar

46. Schofield, “An Overview of the Methods of State Child Care”, pp. 175–180.Google Scholar

54. Irving, Terence H., “Youth Policy as Politics: the Dewar Committee and Juvenile Delinquency in Queensland in the 1950s”, Journal of Australian Studies 31 (1991): 44–47.Google Scholar

48. Children's Services Act 1965, s. 18, s. 23.Google Scholar

49. Children's Services Act 1965, s. 60, s. 62.Google Scholar

50. Hahn, The Juvenile Offender and the Law, pp. 7–10; Ian O'Connor, “Juvenile Justice. New Queensland Legislation”, Legal Service Bulletin 10, 2 (1985): 76.Google Scholar

51. Shevels, “Reforms in Juvenile Justice”, p. 19. There has since the 1970s been a growing interest in the differential treatment of young women within the criminal justice system. On Queensland see June Fielding, “Female Delinquency”, in Delinquency in Australia. A Critical Appraisal, ed. Paul R. Wilson (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1977).Google Scholar

52. Shevels, “Reforms in Juvenile Justice”, pp. 18–19. James Crawford, Australian Courts of Law, 2nd ed. (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 206; Levine, Ewing and Hager, “Juvenile and Family Mental Health Law”, p. 103; Rebecca J. Bailey, “A Change in Ideology in the Treatment of Young Offenders in South Australia: the Children's Protection and Young Offenders Act 19791982”, Adelaide Law Review 9, 3 (1984): 325–334.Google Scholar

53. For details of the procedures relating to juvenile offenders under this act and its equivalent in New South Wales, see N. Wallace-Bruce, “The Juvenile Offender in New South Wales and Queensland”, Law Society Journal 27, 7 (1989): 57–64.Google Scholar

54. Criminal Code Act 1899, s. 63, s. 29, s. 62.Google Scholar

55. Children's Services Act 1965–1989, s.26.Google Scholar

56. Reginald Francis Carter, Criminal Law of Queensland (Sydney: Butterworths, 1988, with amendments to 1992), s. 215.1.Google Scholar

57. Criminal Code Act 1899 [1992], s. 215.10.Google Scholar

58. Queensland Criminal Code Review Committee, First Interim Report (Brisbane, 1991), p. 39.Google Scholar

59. See, for example, Jackie Huggins and Thom Blake, “Protection or Persecution? Gender Relations in the Era of Racial Segregation”, in Gender Relations in Australia. Domination and Negotiation, eds Saunders, Kay and Evans, Raymond (Sydney: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992), pp. 43–49.Google Scholar

60. Scutt, Jocelynne, Women and the Law (North Ryde: Law Book Co., 1991), p. 426.Google ScholarPubMed

61. Criminal Code Act 1899, s. 29. The Criminal Code Review Committee has explicitly recommended retaining this section.Google Scholar

62. Cottrell, Roger, “Law and Sociology: Notes on the Constitution and Confrontations of Disciplines”, Journal of Law and Society 13, 1, Spring (1986): 15.Google Scholar