In the 1970’s, ideas of punishment and the rehabilitation of young offenders revolved around an old school concept of National Service as originally brought in by Clement Attlee’s Labour government in 1949 after the war.
Well, that was always the way I’d framed those thoughts but in researching that perceived prior to creating this
post, I discovered that both National Service AND the Criminal Justice Act introduced at the same time by the same government brought in the concept of detention centres for young offenders to create a brisk regime of hard work and strict discipline as a counterweight to existing longer stay borstal institutions and by the 1970’s, certainly at Haslar, discipline, physical hardship and structured routine was certainly the model of discipline I was met with that sunny August 18th evening back in 1976 as partner in crime Pinnington and I rolled out of the rear of the black maria police limousine and stared at the formidable entrance to HM Detention Centre Haslar. (HMDC Haslar).
and the idea of being forced to learn discipline and comply with a regime. A very violent regime in this instant. And for those of you familiar with the reception Alex DeLarge received on being processed in prison in the classic dystopian movie version of Antony Burgess’s A Clockwork orange, this account of a genuine real facility like as experienced by yours truly will echo exactly the same kind of disturbing violence and menace as portrayed in the film. In fact, the opening scenes of Alex’s journey of being processes was near identical to to my later real life experience and it is no coincidence that the fictional DeLarge story and my own, not only merge into some near identical narrative but, importantly, fundamentally, I find myself having to live with exactly the same tiered layers of philosophical, moral, societal and troubling personal psychological events that Burgess had woven into the Clockwork Orange story either subliminally or just under the surface of the distracting superficial sex, drugs and violence aspect of the movie (and book), that many critics, journalists, politicians, movie goers or hand wringing religious groups all (wrongly)
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