§ 74. Sir WILLIAM BYLESasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that during the last four years a total of 5,819 boy prisoners were received at Pentonville, 2296 and during the years 1909 and 1910 as many as 1,791 were sent to Wandsworth Prison; whether their imprisonments were nearly all for trivial offences or the non-payment of fines; and whether, seeing that the Probation of Offenders Act was intended to check the imprisonment of juvenile offenders, he will say how far that Act is being operated in the Metropolitan Police Courts?
§ Mr. McKENNAThe number of boys under sixteen who were committed to Pentonville in the years 1909 and 1910 was thirteen; to Wandsworth, twelve. The figures given by my hon. Friend are nearly accurate if he means them to relate to youths and men up to the age of twenty one. Though the numbers appear large, they form a very small proportion of the total number of offenders with whom the Metropolitan Courts have to deal. I cannot give the offences, or say how many were committed in default of payment of fine. There are, unfortunately, a large number of cases of dishonesty, violence and disorderly conduct in which the fact that the offender is under the age of twenty-one is no sufficient reason for allowing him to escape punishment, and in many cases imprisonment is the only punishment that can be enforced; but I can assure my hon. Friend that the Probation of Offenders Act is extensively used by the Metropolitan magistrates. During the years 1909 and 1910 the number of persons in the Metropolian Police district proved guilty of offences who were dealt with under that Act by dismissal, recognisances, or probation order, was more than 34,000.
§ Mr. WATTCan the right hon. Gentleman circularise magistrates advising them to give time for the payment of fines?
§ Mr. McKENNAYes, I have done so frequently.