§ Viscount HELMSLEYasked how many prisoners have been discharged from any of His Majesty's prisons, since 1st December, 1910, before completion of their sentences, or earlier than they would have been under the ordinary rules of earning 445 remission of sentence, other than those prisoners discharged on grounds of health; whether the prisoners so discharged on other grounds than those of health have been discharged on licence; if so, whether the latest reports of those prisoners show their conduct up to the present time to be satisfactory; and how many of the prisoners so discharged were undergoing sentences of preventive detention under The Prevention of Crime Act, 1908.
§ Mr. CHURCHILLSince the date mentioned, twenty-two prisoners have been released outside the ordinary course on grounds other than those of health, namely, twelve by remission of sentence, and ten on licences under the Penal Servitude Acts. Most of the latter were life sentences or long terms of years reduced in pursuance of decisions taken at some previous time. None of them were undergoing sentences of Preventive Detention, but one of those released on licence had a term of Preventive Detention to follow his term of penal servitude. In eight of the twelve remission cases, release was granted for administrative or other reasons quite unconnected with the merits of the case, for instance, a few days remitted to facilitate the expulsion of an alien, or to enable a soldier to join a draft for foreign service, or remission to a woman upon her entering a home. I have not heard of any of the prisoners so released having been reconvicted.