10).
In London, Sir John Fielding recognized and began a model of what had to become a group home called a House of Refuge for Orphan Girls. The purpose of this home was to rescue nomadic girls from almost certain lives of prostitution. Public asylums for the children of convicts and other destitute or neglected children, such as that founded by the Philanthropic Society in London were proposed in 1786. Records from the report of the Select Committee Appointed by the House of Commons, were concerned with establishing a new police in the metropolis, show that between 1787 and 1797, 93 delinquent children were transported for crimes from England to Australia. During transportation, the children were kept in confinement upon various decrepit ships that took them from their native land (Simonsen, 1991, p. 11).
According to Simonsen (1991), transportation for life was recommended for growing number of juvenile delinquents. However, imprisonment for children, while frowned upon by early social reformers, did exist, although the social reformers had a hand in changing some of the more deplorable conditions of the time, including the treatment and confinement of young criminals. The Warwick County Asylum was instituted in 1818, was the result of the united endeavors and generous contributions of concerned, benevolent citizens. This asylum was available to criminal boys whom were placed where they can't escape the ways of vice and corruption (Ibid). .
During the 18th and 19th century, the age at which a child should be held responsible for his or her actions was debated for centuries. "No child under the age of discretion should be punished for any crime- (Blackstone, 1899, p. 1230). .
The period of childhood, was divided further into two categories: aetas pueritia proxima, which were ages 7 to 10 ½ and aetas pubertati proxima, which were ages 10 ½ to 14. Children in the first stage of life and the first half of the second stage were not punishable for any crime.
