Fifty Years Ago
| Published date | 01 September 1966 |
| Date | 01 September 1966 |
| DOI | 10.1177/026455056601200307 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
101
consequently
hardly
ever
workccl
at
all.
He
frequented
West
End
clubs
and
drifted
into
what
were
probably
homosexual
circles,
approaching
older
men
in
conscious
search
fo¡&dquo;
his
father.
His
adoptive
mother
spoiled
him,
colluding
with
his
laziness,
and
the
adoptive
father
was
under
his
wife’s
thumb.
Two
years
have
passed
since
the
probation
order
was
completed
&dquo;satisfactorily&dquo;
but
Rohert
is
known
to
be
still
unsettled.
There
are
exceptions,
howevcr,
when
it
is
helpful
for
women
to
work
with
boys
in
middle
adolescence.
Eric
and
Gerald
are
examples.
Both
had
recently
lost
their
mothers
and
had
satisfactory
fathers.
LXlIIl1ple
8.
ERIC,
aged
16,
is
on
approved
school
after-care.
His
mother
died
when
he
was
about
12
and
he
detested
his
married
sister.
He
lives
alone
with
his
father
who
is
actively
concerned
about
Eric.
He
works
well
and
steadily,
but
is
a
solitary
boy.
His
relationship
with
his
woman
ofncer
is
not
deep
but
may
bc
helping
a
little
to
modify
his
deep
distrust
of
women.
E.wll1[Jle
9.
GERALD,
aged
14,
was
on
probation
having
committed
several
offences
of
indecent
exposure.
These
coincided
with
a
series
of
desertions
by
his
mother
beginning
at
about
the
time
of
Gerald’s
puberty.
Eventually
his
mother
left
and
did
not
come
back.
His
father
was
out
of
his
depth,
but
co-operative.
Gerald
was
brilliant
academically,
but
in
personal
relationships
painfully
unable
to
communicate.
Some
improvement
was
achieved
slowly
by
a
combination
of
group
therapy
at
a
clinic
and
supervision
by
a
woman
probation
officer.
Jt
will
not
have
escaped
notice
that
among
the
cases
which
were
thought
properly
allocated
to
women
officers,
some
were
failures
in
the technical
sense
that
further
offences
were
committed.
One
cannot,
of
course,
attribute
either
success
or
failure
to
the
one
factor
of
supervision
by
a
woman,
any
more
than
in
the
total
run
of
probation
work
one
can
measure
the
effect
of
an
officer
upon
his
client’s
behaviour.
The
probation
officer
can
only
try
to
evaluate
the
case-work
relationship
and
any
growth
in
the
offender,
without
being
able
to
infer
any
precise
connection
between
the
two.
This
is
how
these
cases
have
been
assessed.
FIFTY
YEARS
AGO
From
the
Journal
of
the
National
Association
of
Probation
Officers
No. 7,
July
1916
[The
following
extracts
are
from
a
paper
on
Places
of
Detention,
by
Mrs.
Cadbury,
which
had
been
read
at
the
Birmingham
Conference
in
November
1915]
&dquo;AFTER
THE
PASSING
of
the
Children’s
Act
in
1908
it
became
necessary
for
the
Police
Authority
to
provide
such
places
of
detention
as
may
~be
required
for
the
purposes
of
this
Act ....
The
place
chosen
in
Birmingham
was
the
Workhouse,
and
children
were
kept
there
with
the
pauper
inmates.
I
visited
several
little
girls,
and
well
remember
two
who
were
terrified
one
night
by
an
old
lady
who
had
been
out
and
who
had
taken
more
than
was
good
for
her,
and
kept
them
awake
with
her
screams.
It
would
have
been
possible
to
arrange
with
some
existing
institution
to
take
in
the
children,
but
it
seemed
much
better
in
a
large
city
to
have
our
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