I
fl

[,i
'J

Sinners or Sinned Against?: Historical
Aspects of Female Juvenile Delinquency
in British Columbia
INDIANA MATTERS

Canada

of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was
undergoing massive changes. Community leaders were concerned with the
problems of rural decline coupled with rapid urban and industrial growth.
Family life seemed to be in a crisis; massive immigration from Slavic and
Southern European countries was threatening traditional Anglo-Saxon
customs and values; and the new international economic imperialism meant
that countries that were unable to keep pace with new developments would be
lost. 1
More than ever before, true "scientific" thought was playing a role, both
in helping to identify problems and in suggesting appropriate mechanisms for
dealing with them. Through the ideas of "Social Darwinism" citizens and ·
policy-makers learned that whole societies were either part of an "upward
march of humanity" or were heading towards "race suicide". Following on
this, the principles of"Scientific Management"identified "social inefficiency"
as the major factor that would determine whether or not a race would survive
and prosper. Social efficiency became one of the main obsessions of the
period.
Lack of it was held responsible for most of the world's ills. For
example,writing about the public school system, one adherent of scientific
management described modem problems for the readers of the Ladies Home
Journal:
[the system] has indeed become a positive detriment
and is producing a type of character which is not fit to
meet virtuously the temptations and the exigencies of
modem life.
The crime which stalks almost
unblushingly through the land; the want of
responsibility which defames our social honour; the
appalling frequency of divorce; the utter lack of selfBarbara K. Latham and Roberta J. Pazdro, Ed., Not Just Pin Money
Victoria: Camosun College, 1984

266

Juvenile Delinquency

control; the abundant use of illicit means to gain
political positions; all are traceable to its one great and
crying defect - inefficiency.2
Since all areas of political, economic and social life had to be brought to
their highest levels of efficiency, the reform impetus moved simultaneously in
many different areas: labour legislation; public health measures; municipal
reform; the temperance movement; and others. But whatever their primary
focus, reformers agreed that the child was the keystone and had to be saved if
their efforts were not to be lost. A steady stream of legislation, institutions
and other measures directed at children and their worlds were set in place. 3 As
one Vancouver reformer observed, "Each age has its own characteristic
philanthropy. Surely ours should be known as child-saving."4
When it imposed compulsory public schooling in 1872, British Columbia
had taken a major step towards ensuring that its children would become
proper citizens. Other legislation during the next decades imposed additional
restraints specific to young people. 5 But it was only in 1908, with passage of
the federal Juvenile Delinquents Act, 6 that the child-savers were really given
the opportunity to develop a new world and to try to impose their vision on
others.
This law established a new system of social control, comprising juvenile
courts, probation officers, detention centres and industrial, or reform
schools, to deal with children judged "delinquent", that is, those who violated
any federal or provincial statutes, or even any municipal bylaws. Since under
British Columbia's 1901 Children's Protection Act7, neglected and dependent
children were put in the same category as delinquents, this meant that the
force of the new system could be applied equally against thieves; orphans;
abused children; and those riding bicycles on sidewalks; in short, against any
child who came into contact with either the state's judicial or social service
networks.
The main thrust of the legislation was that children were most influenced
by their environment. If they came into contact with one of the above
agencies, then their environment must be lacking in something and the state
had a responsibility, both to those children and to itself, to remedy the defects.
The regular adult legal process would result in the children being brought
into contact with hardened criminals, and in any event, the sentences were
usually too short to provide for "true" reclamation. Under the new law,
children falling under its provisions became wards of the court, usually until
their twenty-first birthdays, no matter what age they were when they first
came under its control. That control, generally exercised by a court
probation officer, extended to all aspects of the child's life, including where
and with whom she lived; whether or not she went to school; where she
worked; what she did with her wages; how she spent her spare time; whether
and whom she married; what de~ling she had with her family and friends; the
tone of voice she used in speaking to the probation officer; and on and on.
The initial reason for attracting the court's attention may have been theft or
prostitution, but was far, far more likely to have been a case of curfew
violation or quarrels with her parents. The only significance of the' original
charge was that it gave officials the opportunity to intervene.

MATTERS

267

Girls or parents who actively objected to, or tried to resist, the probation
officer's enormous intrusion into their lives, ran into provisions of the
Juvenile Delinquents Act. Under one section, parents could be found guilty
of having contributed to their child's delinquency, simply by not having
prevented it in the first place. 8 The penalty could be a $500 fine and one year
in jail. They were also guilty if they actually did anything that would tend to
encourage the development of delinquency. This clause was used to
successfully break up common-law marriage among parents, since such were
immoral by definition. Girls who resisted were likely to find themselves
committed to an institution, usually a juvenile jail called an industrial school,
for a minimum of two years each time. The sweeping nature of the Act's
provisions makes it evident that they were expected to have a substantial
impact.
But on whom would that impact fall? It is a truism that all laws apply to
all citizens, but certainly some apply more to some groups than to others. The
legislators who set the Juvenile Delinquents Act in place had no doubt and
made no secret about which element of society was expected to feel its effects,
or as they saw it, to benefit most from its terms. Speaking in the Canadian
Senate, in the debate on the Act's passage, one senator made the point very
clearly when he said:
In our time we are making any amount of sacrifice for
all kinds of improvements. We see ... that donations of
millions and millions are given to the universities and
to institutions of all kinds ... lf it is advisable to come to
the help of such classes as attend institutions of higher
education, such as universities, still more desirable is it
to spare no efforts in coming to the rescue of the poor,
and especially of children. 9
So, the juvenile court was established in Canada to serve as the university of
the poor, giving them "aid, encouragement, help and assistance"10 to "check
their evil tendencies and to strengthen their better instincts. " 11
If the juvenile court system played the role of university, then the
industrial school was its graduate program. Its inmates had usually already
experienced the court process at lower levels. They were also those subjected
to the greatest pressures designed to reform and fit them to take their proper
places in society. Their experiences were concentrated versions of the
pressures brought to bear on all children who came into contact with the
juvenile court system.
In British Columbia, other components of the system varied widely in the
first half of this century, ranging from a fully-funded, professionally-staffed
court with its own detention centre in Vancouver, to the situation in outlying
communities where ordinary police did most of the juvenile work as part of
their regular duties and juvenile court judges were appointed on a case-bycase basis. The Industrial Home for Girls, however, was a common
experience for female juvenile delinquents from all parts of the province.
Since its superintendent was always in close touch with the Deputy Attorney
General and the Superintendent of Neglected Children, the Home's policies
can also be seen as official government positions. For these reasons, the

268

Juvenile Delinquency

remainder of this essay will concentrate on those girls and young women who
were committed to the Industrial Home for Girls. Consideration will be
limited to the period between its opening in March, 1914, and late 1936, when
major changes in provincial policy regarding delinquents were being
considered.
·
The Provincial Industrial Home for Girls opened in Vancouver in 1914
in a building on Cassiar Street, in what was then a semi-rural area. Its first
superintendent was Thomas Collier, a brother of Herbert Collier, the Chief
Probation Officer of the Vancouver Juvenile Court. Collier's only written
instructions appear to have been the legislation itself. 12 Under the 1912 Act
establishing the Home, it was required to provide "custody and detention,
with a view to [the] education, industrial training and moral reclamation"13 of
females under the age of sixteen, who were committed to it for any reason
whatsoever. The age limit for committal was soon raised to eighteen years.
By the end of the first nine months, the Home had twenty-two inmates from
all parts of the province. They ranged in age from twelve to sixteen years and
most had been sentenced to an undefined period of not less than two years,
although one had a clear seven year sentence. 14
From Collier's own reports and correspondence, very little can be
learned about what he thought of his charges or what he considered his and
the Home's roles to be. More information about his period is garnered by
examining the changes made by Margaret Bayne, who succeeded Collier as
superintendent on January 1, 1918. She described the changes in her first
annual report:
The prison style of wearing the hair was abolished the
very first day. Bright ribbons and pretty modes of
hairdressing are encouraged.
The unbecoming
uniform has been replaced by one more girlish and
pleasing... As far as possible the honour system has
been introduced ... Instead of meals being eaten in
silence under rigid surveillance, conversation in
moderate tones is permitted ... a staff has been engaged
who are not only efficient, but whose manners,
temperament, and high ideals make them examples
worthy o( emulation.
A harmenious home
atmosphere has been effected. 15
It seems evident that Collier had regarded the Home simply as a prison and
had been applying the provincial "Gaol Rules and Regulations" to its
operation. 16 His tenure was so brief, however, that only thirty inmates spent
their entire incarceration under his supervision.
Bayne, a former school teacher who had worked extensively in the
,., women's suffrage movement, most latterly as a publicist with the Washington
State Suffrage Association, came to the work with a definite philosophy. 17 As
she wrote: "The policy pursued is to have the girls realize that this is not so
much a place of punishment, but rather that here they are given another
chance to make good. Believing that girls would prefer to be good girls and to
be held in esteem by good people ... " 18
She rephrased this position years later and elaborated on the Home's

MATTERS

' ,.

269

function, in the process, describing the sort of virtues that a "good" home
should possess:
The Industrial School is the recognition that the child
has the paramount right to be properly reared and
trained. Also where the parents fail to do this duty that
the courts have the paramount right over the parent to
care for the child.
This school gives a training in home efficiency, in
the preparation and value of plain, wholesome food, in
personal and household cleanliness, in household
thrift and economy, in the cultivation of the pleasures
of simple tastes, the value of moral and spiritual
behaviour. In spite of the adverse criticisms of
institutional life there is no doubt that training as
outlined here is of greater value, not only to the child,
but to the nation, than are the habits acquired in an
inefficient and unsympathetic and often vicious
home. 19
Annie Westman, who succeeded Bayne in June, 1929, shared her
predecessor's general positions. She spoke of trying "to bring good influences
into the lives of the girls, and send them out of the Home better prepared to
meet the difficulties of everyday life", 20 in short, to be better citizens. She
went on to explain that "a life full to the brim of new interests and activities
will help crowd out the old life with its low ideals, wrong thoughts and
mistaken viewpoints. "21
·
And of what did those old lives, that were being so rigorously obliterated,
actually consist? Between 1914 and 1937, there were approximately 600
separate admissions to the Industrial Home for Girls. 22 This figure does not
include the 108 Doukhobor girls who were admitted in 1932 as part of the
provincial government's struggle with that community, because they were not
classed as delinquents. 23 Aside from these, there were 600 cases ranging in age
from seven to twenty years. The overwhelming majority were in the fourteen
to seventeen year age group, with forty per cent of all inmates falling in the
fourteen to fifteen year category and an additional 42.5 per cent in the sixteen
to seventeen year division. Only 2.2 per cent were in the seven to eleven year
age group.
Of these admissions, fully 84.5 per cent were committed for
incorrigibility and morals offences. An additional 3.5 per cent were
committed for breach of probation, where the original charge was not noted.
From the case files, it appears that such charges also usually originated with
incorrigibility and morals charges. This means that fully eighty-eight per cent
of the female juvenile delinquents were committed for offences in thi,~
category. As Vancouver Probation Officer Herbert Collier said of those who
came before his court, "With the girls, it is usually a matter of morals. ''24
There was a variety of specific charges covered by this group of offences,
but they were not applied with any consistency and most seemed to be
interchangeable. The single most common charge was that of incorrigibility,
and yet it was nowhere defined any further than indicating that the girl or
young woman "is beyond the control" of her parents or guardians. 25 Other

270

Juvenile Delinquency

violations in this category included vagrancy, wandering abroad, curfew
infractions, truancy, immorality, vicious conduct, indecency and being a
runaway or a neglected child. As an indication of how these charges were
applied, the case of Kathleen, a fourteen year old charged with "wandering
abroad" is an example. 26 The specifics of her case indicate that she was taken
into custody in 1914 because "she took off her skirt and played around in her
bloomers" at a park. She said that they were proper gym bloomers, but the
man who reported her said that they were not. Kathleen survived the
probation process without being committed to the Industrial School for
Girls, probably in part because she lived in South Vancouver where there was
less daily supervision than in Vancouver, but her case indicates how charges
were applied.
This is not to suggest that all offences in this category dealt with
behaviour such as Kathleen's, although undoubtedly many did. Charges of
being an inmate in a bawdy house or keeping a house of ill-fame are also in
this category, although they applied to very few young women. It is also
apparent that the majority of those committed to the Home were, or had
been, sexually active. Tests for venereal diseases were routinely given to all
new admissions and in any given year; between one and two-thirds of the
population were found to be suffering from either syphilis or gonorrhea. A
small number were also pregnant when they entered the Home. But the
common fact of their having been sexually active masks great differences in
their personal situations.
The files show, for example, that fourteen year old Vera was committed
in 1929 as incorrigible "for prostituting herself with Hindus and
admitted ... that she had been in the habit of doing this for some time ... ''2 7
Compare this with the case of Hilda, who was committed at her father's
request on the same charge as Vera because "apparently she would not do
what her father told her and was too fond of going out to dances, etc. ''2 8 The
files indicate that many of those charged with incorrigibility and sexual
immorality were sexually active only with a single partner and several had
asked permission to marry the men with whom they were involved. Several
other inmates were already married at the time of committal. 29 When the
married women were paroled, they were usually released into the legal
custody of their husbands. 30
Aside from the eighty-eight per cent committed for morals offences and
incorrigibility, 2.6 per cent were committed for significant offences such as
arson and assault. A further 9.6 per cent were committed on minor charges
such as theft. As with practically all court dealings with young women,
however, the real reason for committal had more to do with morals than with
crimes against property. This is demonstrated by the case of Maud, who
underwent two periods of imprisonment in the Industrial Home. As the judge
wrote: "The girl has done no good since she has been in Canada ... and while
the offence is nominally theft, in reality it was the worse condition into which
she was getting that caused her uncle to so charge her. "31 Florence, who first
came to the Home when she was eight and who stayed for three years, was also
charged with theft, although as the superintendent wrote, "She was
committed more to get her out of the home situation than anything else. "32 It

MATTERS

271

is quite evident that actual crime had little or nothing to do with the reasons
why most female juvenile delinquents were imprisoned during this period.
Aside from sharing adolescent sexuality, most of the inmates also shared
the experience of coming from families with little or no economic resources.
Time and again, case files described home conditions of absolute poverty.
For example, in Vera's case, whose prostitution has already been described,
her file went on to explain that her condition "at the time of arrest showed that
she was undernourished, indicating that she was not eating regularly. This
was substantiated by the dilapidated condition of her home ... she always
looked hungry and dirty."33
Authorities were also concerned that a large percentage of the inmates
were mentally handicapped, and were thus unable to fully benefit from their
training period. As Miss Bayne wrote, "The inability to resist temptation
owing to subnormal mentality is the cause of most failures in the work of
moral reclamation. "34 Tests administered by the provincial Child Guidance
Clinic indicated that many of the inmates had such limited mental abilities
that they were actually classed as untrainable. In one year, only four of the
thirty-one inmates were classed as being of average intelligence. This
situation was the source of comments in each annual report.
Other than this, how did authorities at the Industrial Home view their
charges? Mrs. Westman described them at some length in 1931 when she
wrote:
The wonder of it is, not that so many slip back after a
period of trying, but that any so born and reared
should ever develop the stamina and courage to
maintain life on a higher level...there is such a variety
of types. There are the girls who have been given many
warnings and much good advice, have not profitted by
either, and who are sent to us as a last resort. There are
those who have marked wayward tendencies, or guilty
of petty thieving, and having no proper guardianship
must learn their lesson here. Then we have the
responsive appreciative group who are so well
behaved, that if it were not for the occasional lapse, we
might well wonder why they are here. A few have
come from comfortable homes with the advantages of
education, but the majority are from unattractive
homes and undesirable neighborhoods. They are the
victims of neglect, faulty supervision and bad
environment.. .Almost all of our girls have left school
too early, have takenjobs at anything that offered, and
they are neither old enough or experienced enough to
meet up with the attending temptations. 35
The training program designed to correct these deficits was intended to
teach the inmates skills that would be of use to them when they entered or reentered the labour market. Both Westman and Bayne were always very aware
that most of their charges would have to make their own way in the world. As
the latter wrote, "Economic independence will do much towards sustaining a
girl's moral reclamation.''36 Explaining that most of the inmates were

272

Juvenile Delinquency

"muscular-minded rather than academically-minded", 37 she made annual
requests for establishment of a proper trade school for them.
Her requests fell on deaf ears, however, and during the period 1914-1937,
practically all training provided was of a sort to fit a girl or young woman to
go into domestic service. The Home's poultry and dairy work meant that she
could readily assume such a position in a rural as well as urban area. The
usual description of training received, as noted on an inmate's release form,
read as in the following example: "Theresa has been well trained in all
branches of housework, sewing and gardening. "38 A limited Commercial
Course was provided in the academic portion of the classroom program, but
those who took it were seldom considered adequately trained to assume a
clerical position without further study. A hairdressing course ran for one
year, but it was suspended pending a regulation of the trade that would allow
apprentices to make a living in it. 39 Those inmates from wealthier
circumstances than most were allowed to take additional training, such as
business college, at the family's expense.
The overwhelming majority of inmates, however, were trained at the
Home and then placed as domestics. Shortly before her removal, Miss Bayne
pointedly complained about this, sayirrg:
Since this building has been erected, the whole
industrial life of the province has undergone a change.
Time was when a thorough training in housekeeping
was deemed sufficient for the majority of the girls here.
This is no longer good enough. Industries must be
carried on that will enable the girls to go to positions
other than those of a housekeeping nature. A trade
school should be established with skilled teachers
employed so that the major training of a girl will fit her
for an industrial position while that of housekeeping,
although very necessary, will be subsidiary. 40
Mrs. Westman, whose appointment practically coincided with the onset of
the Great Depression, did not continue to press the point. Domestic skills
continued to be the major training given throughout the 1930s.
In this regard, a comment made in 1944 by the Deputy Provincial
Secretary is instructive. Writing confidentially about a private children's
home, Mr. Paschal Walker complained: "They teach the boys nothing but
farming and the girls domestic service, the latter being as you know, the most
hazardous of the occupations from the moral standpoint for a young girl. "41
This same official was one who had been turning a deaf ear to pleas from the
Provincial Home for almost twenty years.
Appraising the role of the British Columbia Provincial Home for Girls
during this period is not an easy task. It is evident that both the child-savers,
responsible for its establishment, and staff officials, in the Home itself and in
the government departments that controlled it, had benevolent intentions.
Bayne stressed that its program and staff conformed to the spirit of the
Declaration of Geneva known as the "Children's Charter". As she explained:
... the men and women of all nations recognizing that
mankind owes to the child the best that it has to give,

MATTERS

273

declare and accept it as their duty that regardless of all
considerations of race, nationality and creed that the
child must be given the means requisite for its normal
development both materially and spiritually, that the
delinquent child must be reclaimed and put in a
position to earn a livelihood; that the child must be
brought up in the consciousness that its talents must be
devoted to the service of its fellow men. 42
The child-savers felt that they had a mission and that their mission was right.
But, as they freely acknowledged, successfully carrying out their mission
required a major assault on working and sub-working class culture. The
ethics and lifestyles that they sought to impose on the poor had little to do
with the world in which the poor lived. The children's curfew is an example.
Being indoors had a substantially different meaning for a middle-class child
than it did for one who lived in a one or two-room household crammed with
several other members of the family, and possibly boarders as well. The same
was true of the maidenly modesty that the child-savers expected of girls.
However, as Beatrice and Sidney Webb noted in 1912, referring to the impact
of overcrowded housing of the English poor:
[There is]. .. the existence of a stratum of society, of no
inconsiderable magnitude, in which children part with
their innocence long before puberty, in which personal
chastity is virtually unknown, and in which 'to have a
baby by your father' is laughed at as a comic mishap. 43
From their comfortable vantage points, most child-savers took the
position that the poor had proven their inferiority by living as they did.
Apprehending the children was obviously the only way to break the cycle of
degradation. It can be argued now, as it was then, that committal to the
Industrial Home did, in fact, provide a "way out" for many girls and young
women. They received medical and physical care in the Home; they were
given some education and taught ways to care for themselves and their
households; and they were usually placed in a work situation that met the
reformers' standards. But what was the price that they and their families paid
for this?
The price to the family was often very high. There was frequently a real
financial dependence on the daughter's wages; in other instances, families
were dependent on her for running the household or assisting with child care.
Many families requested release of their daughters for these reasons, but
officials seldom acquiesced. This is not to say that all poor families dreaded or
fought against the juvenile court system- many actively approached it for
help with children the parents considered unmanageable. But a great many
did resist, sometimes only to the extent of begging the probation officer to
leave the family in peace, but often by actively subverting the probation
process. As Isabelle's mother complained during her daughter's committal
hearing: "Somebody must have squealed that Isabelle is not living at
home. "44 The usual range of family ties was also a factor in the price that
families paid, particularly since the child's future contacts with them were
often limited by the court.

274

Juvenile Delinquency

It is more difficult to assess the price paid by individual girls and young
women. It is quite likely that several were very happy to have any route out of
intolerable family situations. For most, however, it was less clear. No matter
what else was involved, the fact is that they were imprisoned for lengthy
periods of time. Since the Home's purpose was redemptive rather than
punitive, the child-savers did not consider that it was really a prison. In 1870,
however, an American judge, when ruling on a petition for release of one of
the inmates, commented on a similar situation. He said:
Why should minors be imprisoned for misfortune?
Destitution of proper parental care, ignorance,
idleness and vice are misfortunes, not crimes ... Why
should children, only guilty of misfortune, be deprived
of liberty ... It cannot be said, that in this case, there is
no imprisonment. This boy is deprived of a father's
care; bereft of home influences; has no freedom of
action; is committed for an uncertain time; is branded
as a prisoner; made subject to the will of others, and
thus feels that he is a slave. 45
But the actual period of imprisonment may have been only the down payment
on the price these girls and young women had to pay.
Upon release, most were placed as domestics in circumstances where
they were under constant supervision, had almost no personal freedom,
worked long hours for low pay, and more importantly, were in situations
where they would never be considered on an equal footing with their
employers. At the same time, they were often kept from their families and
childhood friends and had been taught to reject their origins. In effect, they
became psychic orphans; not belonging in either world. That was a
tremendous price for an individual to pay, particularly when she had little or
no choice in the matter.
Furthermore, in most instances, it was a form of Robson's choice, since
many of these girls and youngwomen moved from one type of exploitation to
another. It is true that they were likely cleaner, better housed and fed in their
new lives, but they were probably a lot lonelier too. Caught up in the class war
over the perceived inefficiency of the poor, they were made examples because
of their dual offences of being born both poor and female. Their sentences,
however, were for life.

MATTERS

Footnotes
For a very general introduction to Canada in this period, see Robert Craig
Brown and Ramsay Cook, Canada, 1896-1921, A Nation Transformed, (Toronto:
McClelland and Stewart Ltd., The Canadian Centenary Series, 1974).
2. H. Martyn Hart, Nov., 1912, p.9, quoted in Raymond Callahan, Education and
the Cult of Efficiency, A Study of the Social Forces that have Shaped the
Administration of the Public Schools, ( Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962).
3. For an overview of this process in Canada, see Neil Sutherland, Children in
English-Canadian Society: Framing the Twentieth Century Consensus, (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1976); and Patricia T. Rooke and R.L. Schnell, eds.,
Studies in Childhood History, A Canadian Perspective, (Calgary:
Detselig
Enterprises Ltd., 1982).
4. Member of Juvenile Court Advisory Committee, quoted in Vancouver Daily
News Advertiser (hereafter VDNA), Oct. 30, 1910: 32.
5. For example, the following legislation:
Guardian's Appointment Act,
RSBC, 1897, Ch. 96; Infants' Contracts Act, RSBC, 1897, Ch. 95; Youths' Protection
Act, CA, 1888, Ch. 86; Apprentices and Minors Act, RSBC, 1897, Ch. 8; Shops
Regulation Act, SBC, 1900, Ch. 34; and Curfew Act, 1907, SBC, 1907, Ch. 13.
6. Canada Statutes, 1908, Ch. 40.
7. SBC, 1901, Ch. 9.
8. Op. Cit., Sec. 29.
9. Canada. Senate. Debates, May 21, 1908: 975.
10. Op. Cit., Sec. 31.
11. Ibid., Preamble.
12. Provincial Industrial Home for Girls Act, SBC, 1912, Ch. 11.
13. Ibid., Sec. 4.
14. British Columbia. First Annual Report of the Provincial Industrial Home for
Girls, (Victoria: King's Printer, 1915), passim. Subsequent annual reports were
sometimes published and other times available only in typescript. Hereafter,
references to annual reports will appear as AR.
15. AR, 1918: 1.
16. Attorney General Correspondence, GR 1323, File 291/08, pp. 8-17.
17. Obituary, Vancouver Province, Sept. 19, 1946: 7.
18. AR, 1918: l.
19. AR, 1926-27: 5-6.
20. AR, 1930-31: 1.
21. Ibid.: 4.
22. All statistics used in this paper have been compiled from information in Annual
Reports of the Provincial Industrial Home for Girls.
23. For information regarding the Doukhobor inmates, see Ronald C. Hooper,
"Custodial Care of Doukhobor Children in British Columbia, 1929 to 1933", MSW
Thesis (University of British Columbia), 1947.
24. VDNA, Feb. 20, 1916: 2.
25. SBC, 1912, Ch. 11, Sec. 6.
26. Kathleen M., Vancouver Juvenile Court, 1914.
27. Vera U., 1929. Unlessotherwiseindicated,allcasematerialsrefertomyownfiles
developed for inmates of the Provincial Industrial Home for Girls. Information
relating to cases was assembled from a wide range of sources, including records of the
provincial Attorney General and Provincial Secretary and the Vancouver Juvenile
Court.
28. Hilda P., 1918.
1.

i

275

276 Juvenile Delinquency

29. In my research involving male juvenile delinquents, I have not yet found a single
instance in which married males were committed to the British Columbia Boys'
Industrial School.
30. The faith that officials placed in the institutions of marriage as a socializing and
settling force was illustrated in the 1930 case of Margaret R., a seventeen-year old
woman facing committal to the Industrial Home for Girls following her conviction for
bigamy. The Superintendent of Neglected Children suggested that the judge might be
able to give her a suspended sentence if efforts to reconcile with her husband proved
successful. His alternative was a two-year sentence to the Home. The correspondence
did not indicate which husband she would be required to reconcile with in order to
avoid the prison term.
31. Maud C., 1918.
32. Florence E., 1918.
33. Vera U., Op. Cit., 1929.
34. AR, 1918: M49.
35. AR, 1930-31: 2-3.
36. AR, 1918: M48.
37. AR, 1920: 4.
38. Theresa M., 1933.
39. AR, 1925-26: 2.
40. AR, 1928-29: 1-2.
41. P. Walker to Hon. H.G.T. Perry, July 6, 1944, in GR 497, Box 2, file: Child
Welfare, PABC.
42. AR, 1925-26: I.
43. The Prevention of Destitution, (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1912): 306.
44. Isabelle W., 1921.
45. Mr. Justice Thornton, The People v. Turner, 55 Ill. 280, quoted in Robert H.
Bremner, ed., Children and Youth in America, A Documentary History, Vol. II:
1866-1932, Parts One through Six, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University
Press, 1971): 487.
Bibliography
The history of juvenile delinquency has attracted considerable research attention.
For a descriptive guide to most general sources, see the references in D.L. Matters,"
'A Chance to Make Good': Juvenile Males and the Law in Vancouver, BC, 19101915", MA Thesis (University of British Columbia), 1978.
In addition to the above thesis, see the following specifically Canadian sources:
Jeffrey S. Leon, "New and Old Themes in Canadian Juvenile Justice: The Origins Of
Delinquency Legislation and the Prospects for Recognition of Children's Rights" in
Heather Berkeley et. al., eds., Children's Rights, Legal and Educational Issues,
(Toronto: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/ Symposium Series 9, 1978): 3558; D.L. Matters, "The Boys' Industrial School: Education for Juvenile Offenders"in
J. Donald Wilson et. al., eds., Schooling and Society in Twentieth Century British
Columbia, (Calgary: Detselig Enterprises Ltd., 1980), pp. 53-70; and Rebecca
Coulter, " 'Not to Punish But to Reform': Juvenile Delinquency and Children's
Protection Act in Alberta, 1909-1929" in Patricia T. Rooke et. al., eds., Studies in
Childhood History, A Canadian Perspective, (Calgary: Detselig Enterprises Ltd.,
1982): 167-184.
Historical aspects of women in conflict with the law are considered in the
following: Elissa D. Gelfand, Imagination in Confinement, Women's Writings from

MATTERS

277

French Prisons, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983); Ann Jones, Women Who
Kill, (New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1981); Estelle B. Freedman, "Their Sisters'
Keepers: An Historical Perspective on Female Correctional Institutions in the United
States: 1870-1900", Feminist Studies, Vol. 2, No. l (1974): 77-95; and Barbara
Brenzel, "Lancaster Industrial School for Girls: A Social Portrait of a Nineteenth
Century Reform School for Girls", Feminist Studies, Vol. 3, No. 1/ 2 (Fall, 1975): 4053.
Contemporary sources are very rich for the historical study of female juvenile
delinquency. See the following for the general intellectual framework of the period:
George Stanley Hall, Adolescence, Its Psychology, and Its Relations to Physiqlogy,
Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion and Education, (New York: D.
Appleton and Co., 1904), 2 vols.; William I. Thomas, The Unadjusted Girl, With
Cases and Standpoint for Behaviour Analysis, (New York: Harper and Row, 1967
[1923]); and Caesar Lombroso and William Ferrero, The Female Offender, (New
York: D. Appleton and Co., 1903 [1895]). For juvenile courts and other institutions,
see publications from the Russell Sage Foundation and their references, for example:
Margaret Reeves, Training Schools for Delinquent Girls, (New York: Russell Sage
Foundation, 1929). The Survey, An American periodical that circulated widely in
Canada, is an excellent source for research on any social welfare topic.
For general information regarding social conditions in Canada and British
Columbia, see the following materials: J.H. Putnam and G.M. Weir, Survey of the
School System, (Victoria, BC: King's Printer, 1925); Canada, Board of Inquiry into
the Cost of Living, Report of the Board, Vol. 1, (Ottawa: King's Printer, 1915); and
Canada, Royal Commission on Industrial Training and Technical Education, Report,
(Ottawa: King's Printer, 1913). The Canadian Annual Review is a general source for
information about Canada on an annual basis. For juvenile delinquency in particular,
see the following: W.L. Scott, The Juvenile Court in Law and the Juvenile Court in
Action, (Ottawa: The Canadian Council on Child Welfare, 1927), and British
Columbia, Report of the Advisory Committee on Juvenile Delinquency, 1936,
(Victoria: King's Printer, 1937).
The major primary source for the study of female juvenile delinquency in
twentieth century British Columbia are records of the departments of Attorney
General and Provincial Secretary. These are held in the Provincial Archives of British
Columbia. The records of the Vancouver Juvenile Court are held in the Vancouver
City Archives. Also of value are the records of the Vancouver Local Council of
Women, held in Special Collections at the University of British Columbia.
The most important overall source for any research remains Mary Daly,
Gyn/ecology, The Metaethics of Radical Feminism, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1978).
Daly's insightful work is especially criticial for those of us who have undergone formal
academic training and must learn or re-learn to trust and accept our analytical
instincts as women first, and only after that, as academics.