| AdminHistory | Organisations involved: Barrow Cadbury Trust, Barrow Cadbury Fund Ltd., Barrow and Geraldine S. Cadbury Trust, Paul S. Cadbury Trust, Southfield Trust.
Previous titles and/or title variations: young adults and criminal justice; offending and early interventions; penal affairs; penal affairs and research; penal.
Related grant categories: n/a.
Dates of use: 1961/1962 to current.
Cadbury Trusts grant subject filing reference number(s): 5.
Geraldine and Barrow's concern for young people in the criminal justice system and the welfare of prisoners led the Barrow and Geraldine S. Cadbury Trust to become involved in penal affairs from its earliest days. Geraldine advocated the creation of the Birmingham Children's Court where Barrow and Geraldine both served as magistrates. The importance of criminal justice work has not dissipated since 1920 and the Barrow Cadbury Trust continues to devote significant levels of resource to this programme area.
The use of criminal justice as a formal grant category first dates to the 1961/1962 annual accounts of the Barrow and Geraldine S. Cadbury Trust. At this time the category was termed 'penal affairs', a title used for much of its existence. While the Paul S. Cadbury Trust had some involvement in penal affairs grants, the vast majority were administered by the Barrow and Geraldine S. Cadbury Trust with the support of the Barrow Cadbury Fund Ltd.
The Howard League for Penal Reform was the primary recipient of Trust support from 1920 to 1960. Though subscriptions were made to a number of other ex-prisoners aid organisations through the Trust and Fund, these were relatively modest in number and financial outlay. In 1959 Paul S. Cadbury entered into discussions with the Home Office and the Borstal After-Care Association about the possibility of opening a home for ex-borstal boys in London. The approval of this project led to the purchase of property in North Finchley, London for the home and to the creation of the Southfield Trust to administer the project. The Southfield Trust was made up of the younger Trustees of the Barrow and Geraldine S. Cadbury Trust all of whom shared a keen interest in penal affairs.
The Southfield Trust was funded by the Barrow and Geraldine S. Cadbury Trust and the Barrow Cadbury Fund Ltd. Once the Southfield Experiment was successfully established the hostel was turned over to the Middlesex Probation and Aftercare Service. Following the transfer Southfield Trustees provided advice and recommendations on Cadbury Trusts penal affairs grant applications, acting as a de facto penal affairs sub-committee. This advisory role became the prime function of the Southfield Trust until its dissolution in 1994. Many pre-1994 criminal justice grant files contain relevant copy minutes from the Southfield Trust in addition to relevant minutes from the Barrow and Geraldine S. Cadbury Trust or the Fund.
The success of the Southfield Experiment and the formation of the Southfield Trust significantly increased the profile of criminal affairs issues within the Cadbury Trusts. By the late 1970s expenditure on penal affairs grants had increased markedly from £27,407 for the financial year 1973/1974 to £88,522 for the financial year 1979/1980. Unlike other grant categories, much of the Trust's commitment to penal affairs was made at the national level to organisations including the Howard League for Penal Reform, National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders (NACRO) and The Frank Foster Fund. The consolidated annual reports for 1977 to 1980 of the trusts and Fund cite nine broad penal affairs themes to include, services to prisoners, offenders in the community, help to offenders' families, support for the victims of crime, accommodation for ex-offenders, crime prevention, assistance to agencies, research and enquiry and penal policy.
Penal affairs grant files first appear in the late 1960s and were subsequently assigned the number five as a category filing reference in accordance with Anthony Wilson's classification scheme for grant subjects. The preponderance of penal affairs grants were administered by Anthony Wilson or Eric Adams though some grants were later transferred to Joe Montgomery. A representative grant file label for the 1970s-1980s might read '5/19/1' to denote penal affairs/Centre for Youth Crime and Community/file 1. The initials of the administrator may also appear as a prefix though there is considerable variation in file references. Montgomery's files were frequently labelled in the following pattern: 'JM/I/1' to denote Joe Montgomery/the letter 'I'/the first of Montgomery's files from an organisation with a name beginning in 'I'. After 1994 most newly created grant files did not carry any sort of reference number and only bore the name of the grantee organisation.
Spending on penal affairs grants throughout the 1980s remained relatively consistent in relation to other grant categories, often ranking third or fourth in terms of total expenditure. During this period commitments at the national level tended to exceed those made at the regional level. When the merger of the Paul S. Cadbury Trust with the Barrow and Geraldine S. Cadbury Trust occurred in 1994 penal affairs remained the only grant category to be carried over directly into the new series of programme groups.
With the winding up of the Southfield Trust in 1994 the review of penal affairs grant applications was transferred to the three Relevant Trustees of the Penal Affairs Programme. Initial expenditure on penal affairs grants was modest, totalling £79,100 for the 1993/1994 financial year compared to £297,676 for the Racial Justice Programme, £247,600 for the Civil Rights Programme and £192,000 for the Disability Programme. Grantees at this time include the Howard League for Penal Reform, the Prison Reform Trust, the Institute of Criminology, Cambridge and the Parliamentary All Party Group on Penal Affairs, all longstanding recipients of Trust support. This pattern of grant making to established organisations continued throughout the 1990s and into the early 2000s.
Over 2003/2004 the Trust reorganised its programme groups into three new categories. While other programmes were amalgamated or wound up, penal affairs grants were carried directly into the new 'offending and early interventions' category with a particular focus on young adults and the criminal justice system. The title of this programme was changed again in 2005/2006 to 'young adults and criminal justice' and simply to 'criminal justice' in 2009/2010.
In 2005 the Trust published a report 'Commission on Young Adults in the Criminal Justice System' advocating radical changes to how young adults are dealt with in the criminal justice system. This report led to the creation of the Transition to Adulthood Alliance (T2A), a coalition of twelve leading criminal justice, health and youth organisations plus the Barrow Cadbury Trust dedicated to promoting the systemic changes advocated by the report. T2A and its linked pilot projects account for a sizable proportion of the criminal justice budget. For the financial year 2009/2010 £589,011 was allocated for T2A from a total criminal justice expenditure of £1,386,503. By 2012/2013 this total amounted to £311,000 out of £951,370. The balance of criminal justice expenditure is allocated to research and partnerships, grants, projects and campaigns. Criminal justice grants (as of 2014) are administered by Programme Manager Max Rutherford. |