HABITUAL DRUNKARDS. (Hansard, 5 June 1891)

§ LORD HERSCHELL,

in rising to call attention to the punishment of habitual drunkards; and to move that it is expedient that an inquiry should be instituted to ascertain whether some better method of dealing with such cases cannot be substituted, said: My Lords, somewhat more than a year ago, in calling attention to the subject of inequality of sentences, I referred incidentally to the treatment of habitual offenders convicted of drunkenness. Naturally enough the observations of my noble Friend on the Woolsack were on that occasion entirely devoted to the main topic which I then introduced to the notice of the House, and no reference was made to this subject. I think, therefore, that I need make no apology for calling attention to it now, especially in connection with the facts stated in a Petition which I have to present from the Reformatory and Refuge Union and the Central Committee of the Discharged Prisoners' Aid Societies of Great Britain and Ireland. It appears that the number of commitments every year amount in the United Kingdom to 250,000, and those commitments are distributed between the three countries in this proportion: 160,000 in England, 47,000 in Scotland, and 44,000 in Ireland. For some reason, I do not know exactly what, the proportion of commitments in the three Kingdoms differs very considerably. In England the ratio of commitments per 1,000 of the population is—males, 4.1, females, 1.5; Scotland, males, 6.8, females, 4.2; Ireland—which stands between the other two countries in number of commitments—males, 5.5, females, 3.3. In other words, that is to say, in England there is 1 commitment to 190 of the population; in Scotland 1 to 80: in Ireland 1 to 100. The 250,000 commitments are believed to represent, according to an approximate estimate, only about 145,000 individuals —viz., 112,000 men and 33,000 women. That is on account of the very numerous commitments which occur in individual cases. Of the 33,000 women, who represent 77,000 commitments, 11,000 had had 10 imprisonments and upwards recorded against them; of the 112,000 men 16,250 had a like number of imprisonments, that is more than 10 times, 1702 so that it will be seen that the proportion of the repeated convictions is much greater in the case of women than in the case of men—in fact, it is over 60 per cent. more in the case of women than it is in the case of men. Of those commitments of females your Lordships ought to know that the great majority are in respect of drunkenness. In fact, over 50 per cent. of the total commitments of women were for drunkenness alone, and 80 85 per cent. for drunkenness and closely-allied offences, such as disorderly conduct and breaches of the peace. When we turn to individual towns we find that the same results are to be seen on a survey of the commitments throughout the whole country. There are cases where, in a single year, the same person is committed to prison for drunkenness as many as 52 times. A considerable number are committed from 30 to 52 times yearly: that is to say, there are persons who are brought before the magistrates and sentenced to imprisonment—the same persons—every week in the year. During the past year in Glasgow, where the number of commitments to prison of women exceed that of any other town in the Kingdom, there were 10,500 commitments. Of those 10,500 commitments, 450 women alone were responsible for 4,000; they had been committed, many of them from six to a dozen times, and some of them as often as 34 times. So that out of that very large number of commitments, it will be seen that a very limited number of persons are responsible for a very large proportion of them, something like 40 per cent.; and it is a very common case with many of these women that they return to prison on the day they are released or the day after. At Millbank during the past year this was the experience. I have some particulars from Millbank Prison also, where it appears that during the past year there were imprisoned under short sentences 105 women, all of whom had been convicted more than 40 times, and there were 56 of them who had been convicted upwards of 50 times. Those were the numbers of women undergoing sentences in one prison alone, Millbank, in a single year. I will only trouble your Lordships with one or two 1703 other facts. The Chaplain of Millbank Prison, who gives these particulars, states that one woman had upwards of 400 convictions against her; but as her husband, a small landlord, had paid nearly £200 in the shape of fines on her behalf, she must have been taken to the Police Court more than 600 times. I give your Lordships these facts and figures, which are really of a very startling, and I may say, appalling nature, because one knows that in the case of these women they not infrequently become the mothers of children, and when your Lordships remember that, unfortunately, proclivity to alcohol is now believed to be to a considerable extent hereditary, it will be seen at once that the disaster to the country is not represented merely by the effect upon the unfortunate people immediately concerned, of whose committals I have just been speaking. The object of punishment may be either that it shall act as a deterrent or as a preventive, or for reformatory purposes; but whether the punishment inflicted be regarded as a deterrent or as a preventive, or for reformatory purposes, in whatever light it may be regarded, I do not think it can be doubted that the facts to which I have called your Lordships' attention show that the existing system has completely broken down, and is really a disastrous failure. We are continually inflicting these punishments without producing the slightest effect, without benefiting the individuals who are thus dealt with, without deterring them from repeating the conduct which has led to their imprisonment, and without in the slightest degree its acting as a deterrent to others. And I do not think it is at all wonderful that these short terms of imprisonment are not productive in the case of habitual drunkards of any beneficial result. The truth is they are not long enough. The persons committed are not long enough under any kind of control, or subjected to the necessary moral teaching. No one can expect that any sort of beneficial moral result is likely to be obtained by such short commitments, and we cannot expect that by the present system we shall ever really do any better than we are now doing. I am not, however, prepared to suggest what change is necessary. I am not going, myself, to lay down the principles 1704 upon which we ought to proceed, because I admit that a great deal of consideration would have to be given to the matter before ultimately determining upon any change in the present administration of the law, or in the law which is at present administered. But I do think that the facts to which I have been calling your Lordships' attention, justify the Petition which I have to present from the authorities I have mentioned, who have devoted themselves to questions of this description and to the welfare of persons of this class, that there may be an inquiry into the matter in order to see whether we cannot make some change in the system which will produce better results. One suggestion made is that the only chance of success in the case of habitual offenders is to have a longer period of detention, in order that time might be given for the formation of better habits and for moral influences to be brought to bear upon those persons, as to whom, in many cases, it should be recollected this evil is more a disease that a crime. That seems to be the only hope of bringing about a better state of things. Of course, one sees at once that there would be a difficulty in sentencing persons to any considerable term of imprisonment for such an offence as this, even in the case of habitual offenders, for the reason that there would perhaps be a sentiment or feeling of inadequacy, a sense of disproportion between the punishment and the offence. But I do not think the same reasoning would apply, or that there would be the same sentiment at all, if it were frankly recognized that these people were to be detained really for their own good, and in the hope of curing them of an evil habit which is disastrous to themselves as well as to society; and I do not think, therefore, that if, instead of the present short sentences of imprisonment, there were a somewhat lengthened period of detention in an institution for the cure of inebriates, or in a department of our ordinary places of confinement which might be allotted specially to the treatment of these cases, there would be the same objection. That is one of the remedies which has been proposed, and which it has been said has been found in many cases to be successful. Although it is impossible to produce any beneficial 1705 result by a short detention of two or three days or a week, it has been found that, where you can keep these persons from obtaining the means of becoming intoxicated for a longer period, and can bring moral influences to bear upon them, in very many cases the result has been eminently successful. As I have said, I am not now laying down the principles on which a change should be made, but that is one suggestion that has been put forward. All I am now urging is this: that the facts I have brought before your Lordships are sufficient to justify an inquiry whether something cannot be done to replace a system which it must be admitted has entirely broken down and proved a lamentable failure. As to the form which such an inquiry should take, I do not feel any particular concern: that I should be quite content to leave to Her Majesty's Government. What I should suggest as perhaps the simplest and least cumbrous form would be a Departmental Committee appointed by the Home Office, but I do not myself lay any stress upon the particular form which the inquiry should take. I do think it is not desirable that we should let the present state of things continue any longer, without at least making an effort to see what is best to be done, getting all the advice we can possibly get, and all the experience we can possibly get upon the subject in this and other countries, for the purpose of seeing whether some steps cannot be taken to amend the present truly lamentable state of things, which is not only disastrous and mischievous to the country, but calculated to impair respect for the law itself—a system whereby these persons can be sentenced to only short terms of imprisonment, without apparently producing the slightest advantage to themselves or anybody else. I beg to move for the inquiry stated in the Motion which stands in my name.