The Hawkspur Experiment
- Author:
David Wills.
George Allen & Unwin, Ltd. pp. 193. bs.
The author of this book has long been interested in the training of delinquent youths and has worked in various institutions, including Borstal. He has been a Y.M.C.A. Secretary, a Boys’ Club Leader, and Warden of an Educational Settlement in South Wales.
Hawkspur Camp was started by the Q Camps Committee in May 1936, and the author was appointed Camp Chief, but in January 1940 the war made it impossible to continue the experi- ment. The book is an account of the work done in this period and expounds the principles upon which it was carried out.
The aim of the Q Camps Committee was the training in a free environment on sympathetic and individual lines of young people who, mainly through environmental causes, presented difficulties in social adjustment, or had been in unfortunate circumstances, whether or not they had been actual law-breakers.
The main object of the camp was to encourage the most effective form of discipline, namely self-discipline, on sound scientific and religious principles, and the Camp Chief and the staff were assisted in their purpose by a Selection and Treatment Committee which was mainly com- posed of medical psychologists. The day to day problems of camp management were considered by the Camp Council which was more a vehicle for the expression of camp opinion than a governing body. Its authority was limited to the domestic affairs of the camp, and was concerned primarily with the personal relations of the members and the day to day conduct of family life. The members shared with the staff the business of running the camp, and the staff accepted the jurisdiction of the Camp Council on those matters with which the Council was concerned. No punishments were inflicted by the Council except for bullying, and the Camp Chief acted as counsel for the defendant in all cases except where he was one of the principals. The author does not attempt to give a com- plete clinical picture of any case, and in one or two instances purposely combines two or more histories in his presentation. This offers difficulties to the reader, and although a series of cross-sections serve to illustrate particular points, horizontal views are necessary for the reader who wishes to focus a case accurately and form an independent judgment of the situation.
It seems that the number of young people who passed through the camp was small, and it would have been interesting to know their length of residence. It is to be hoped that the Q Camps Committee will be able to follow up their after-careers and publish the results. The the author does not suggest that all our State institutions for the treatment of adolescent offenders can be managed on precisely the same lines as Hawkspur Camp, but he modestly suggests that this pioneering adventure contained the germ of an idea.
The book should be read by all those who are interested in the welfare of socially maladjusted adolescents and many will regret that the experiment was unavoidably terminated. W. IN OR WOOD iiAST.
Disclaimer
The historical material in this project falls into one of three categories for clearances and permissions:
Material currently under copyright, made available with a Creative Commons license chosen by the publisher.
Material that is in the public domain
Material identified by the Welcome Trust as an Orphan Work, made available with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
While we are in the process of adding metadata to the articles, please check the article at its original source for specific copyrights.