Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Expanded Table of Contents
- Table of Cases
- Table of Statutes
- Table of Statutory Instruments
- Foreword by The Hon. Lady Wise
- Introduction
- 1 The Statutory Framework before 1968
- 2 The Statutory Framework after 1968
- 3 Child Protection through the Criminal Law
- 4 The Legal Process before 1968: The Juvenile Court
- 5 The Legal Process in the Modern Era: Scotland’s Children’s Hearing System
- 6 Home Supervision
- 7 Boarding-out and Fostering by Public Authorities
- 8 Institutional Care
- 9 Emergency and Interim Protection
- 10 Aftercare
- 11 Emigration of Children
- 12 Adoption of Children
- Index
5 - The Legal Process in the Modern Era: Scotland’s Children’s Hearing System
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Expanded Table of Contents
- Table of Cases
- Table of Statutes
- Table of Statutory Instruments
- Foreword by The Hon. Lady Wise
- Introduction
- 1 The Statutory Framework before 1968
- 2 The Statutory Framework after 1968
- 3 Child Protection through the Criminal Law
- 4 The Legal Process before 1968: The Juvenile Court
- 5 The Legal Process in the Modern Era: Scotland’s Children’s Hearing System
- 6 Home Supervision
- 7 Boarding-out and Fostering by Public Authorities
- 8 Institutional Care
- 9 Emergency and Interim Protection
- 10 Aftercare
- 11 Emigration of Children
- 12 Adoption of Children
- Index
Summary
THE KILBRANDON REPORT
The significance of the Kilbrandon Report will be clear throughout this book. It built upon the notion, which had earlier underpinned the parliamentary debates on the Children and Young Persons Bill in 1932, that the distinction that really mattered between children was not in terms of whether they were delinquents or offenders, or not, but the nature of their needs in terms of help to become productive members of society. Writing after the publication of the Report, Lord Kilbrandon said this:
Of the four classes of children which we are now considering, only one class exhibits delinquency, yet all have this in common – that they are in trouble, something has gone wrong in the ordering of their lives, they have been deprived or they are depriving themselves – and the distinction is of no importance – of the opportunity to grow up in happiness and security. They are developing, so far as they are developing at all, along the wrong lines, and this feature they have in common is much more striking than any features which distinguish them.
The Kilbrandon Report's crucial finding was that there was an identity of needs among various categories of children and young persons, with the result that that very categorisation was unhelpful in furthering the fundamental aim of prevention – either of harm to the child or young person or to others, and whether that harm was a result of offending behaviour or of circumstances inhibiting the child's proper development.
[I]n terms of the child's actual needs, the legal distinction between juvenile offenders and children in need of care or protection was – looking to the underlying realities – very often of little practical significance… . From the standpoint of preventive measures, children in both groups could equally be said to be in need of special measures of education and training – “education” being taken in its widest sense. The emphasis in these training measures might vary according to the circumstances of the individual case; in some the protection of the child would be of prime importance, in others the training regime might place more emphasis on discipline.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- A History of Scottish Child Protection Law , pp. 145 - 175Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2020