Borstal Scandal Unmasks Tory Policy (Labour and trade union inquiry demanded)

HOME OFFICE officials, professional parliamentarians, property-owners and maiden aunts—who believe with equal fervour in the benefits of both God and the 'cat'—can feel safe again.

The attempt of eighty-one youths to draw attention to their treatment and conditions in the Home Office approved school at Carlton, near Bedford, has been brought to heel. With the aid of twenty squad cars, forty men and their fierce tracker dogs, and dozens of extra police reinforcements, 'law and order' once more prevails.

Those boys considered by deputy headmaster Mr Whitefield Dickenson to be the ringleaders and 'inciters' of last weekend's mutiny have been despatched to jail by the order of convenient and specially authorized night courts. Authorization for the courts was promptly granted by Home Secretary Butler.

Amongst the unfortunate youths thrown into jail is 18-year-old William Haines. It was the sobbing Haines who told the court: 'Anyone would think I was a hardened criminal. I am only here for a threepenny bar of chocolate.'

Sop of an inquiry

To deal with the boys and their alleged ringleaders, there is the combination of police dogs, law courts and jail. For the public there is the sop of a promised Home Office inquiry—an inquiry which has all the appearances of an officially doled-out tranquillizer intended to soothe any anger or disquiet that has arisen.

Mrs Williams, wife of American author Talcot Williams, who lives 200 yards from the approved school told me: 'When the incident first started two of the boys approached us to tell us what was going on.

'They complained of swearing by the masters, ill-treatment, and that they are never permitted to wear any of their own clothes—not even at the weekends.

'We invited them into the garden and I typed the list of complaints out for them which has been passed on to the Board of Management.'

Complaining was no use

I asked Mrs Williams why it was that the boys had gone to them and not taken their complaints to the masters.

'The boys took this action,' she said, 'because they wanted to draw attention to their complaints. They probably felt they had no other way. They consider that complaining to the masters is no use.'

Mrs Williams said that in her opinion they were 'a very good bunch of boys'.

'We live very near the school,' she added, 'and often leave our cottage, but never once has any of the boys broken into it or taken anything from it.'

According to Mrs Williams, feeling amongst the boys ran high over the length of time that they were kept at the school for what often are the most minor offences.

'The only bit of personal property they have is their belts. One boy hit another with his belt. A master then burned all the boys' belts.

'Trouble has been brewing for some time. Nothing has been done about it.'

The riot at Carlton is an exposure of the fraudulent electoral propaganda of the Tories when they talk about opportunities for youth.

Over the last ten years the population of the approved schools has almost doubled. 'Get tough' policies of magistrates has become the solution of capitalist society for dealing with youth confronted with dead-end jobs, low-paid apprenticeships, and the prospects of brutalization through military service.

Profit-hungry film makers and publishers joined by commercial television feeds young people on a diet of violence and super-men theories.

The old men of Transport House can offer nothing better. The only youth they know are the shiny-faced young men and women who, with eyes cast in the direction of a parliamentary seat or a job in the 'machine' are a million miles away from the youngsters in the factories, dance halls and coffee bars.

No confidence in Tories

The working-class movement must demand an inquiry into Carlton and all the other approved schools and remand homes. But it must be an inquiry conducted by representatives from the Labour and trade-union movement and one on which sits some working-class young people. We can have no confidence in inquiries run by Tory-minded Home Office officials.

Labour must demand that the youngsters imprisoned be released immediately. Their action arose because they had no other way to bring attention to their grievances and, like workers on strike, they should have the support of the trade unions and the Labour movement.

More than that however is required. A socialist policy which will attract youth to Labour's ranks is urgently needed. A policy that will inspire young people and teach them how to fight capitalism in a collective, class way and not in an individualistic way is necessary if socialists are to learn the real lesson of Carlton Approved School.