Borstals were prison schools for young offenders in the United Kingdom from 1902 until 1983. The word borstal comes from the name of a village in Kent where the first prison school of this kind was set up.
Borstals were abolished under the Criminal Justice Act of 1982, which came into force in 1983. Under the new system, boys and girls who would have gone for borstal training may be sentenced to youth custody. Local magistrates have the power to pass youth custody sentences. Offenders serve sentences lasting four months or longer at youth custody centers. These centers are called young offenders’ institutes in Scotland. The new centers offer approximately the same system of training as the borstals did, and many of them are housed in former borstal establishments.
