PROBATION OF OFFENDERS(No. 2) BILL. (Hansard, 5 August 1907)

THE LORD STEWARD (EARL BEAU-CHAMP)

My Lords, the object of this Bill is to extend a principle which has been already admitted in other Acts, and which has been found to work with very good effect. There are precedents in the Habitual Drunkards Act, 1879, and the Youthful Offenders Act, 1901, under which a justice of the peace may, instead of sending the person before him to a retreat or to prison, commit him to the custody of some fit person to be detained for the period for which he is remanded. This principle has also been enacted under the Summary Jurisdiction Act, 1879, and the Probation of First Offenders Act, 1887. This Bill, however, goes rather further, in that it will apply to others besides those who are before the Court for the first time. The most important part of the Bill, perhaps, beyond what I have already mentioned, is the permission which is given to Courts to provide for the payments of a salary to probation officers. Your Lordships will see in Clause 3 a provision that the salary shall be paid by the authority out of the funds from which the salary of the clerk to the justices is paid. I am sure that those of your Lordships who have had experience upon petty sessional divisions or upon benches in towns, even small towns, will realise that the, provisions of this Bill are likely to be of very great benefit in a large number of cases. I myself have heard cases in connection with which 1487 I have regretted that it has been necessary to send the accused to prison. This Bill will obviate that. It is recognised by all reformers that the more you can segregate offenders the better it is for them in the future, and inasmuch as this Bill goes some way in that direction I hope your Lordships will give it a Second Reading, and allow it to pass without Amendment.

THE EARL OF MEATH

My Lords, this Bill can hardly be called a first-class measure in the ordinary sense of the term. It is not one which creates a great deal of popular excitement, or which, before it reaches your Lordships' House, is heralded by the shouts of politicians and the clash of Parliamentary steel. But all who are interested in social form must feel highly grateful to His Majesty's Government for having introduced this Bill, and I may also, in parenthesis, add the Bill which is to follow, and which is also to be proposed by the Lord Steward. I am delighted to find that His Majesty's Government have discovered that a useful measure need not necessarily be a lengthy or contentious one. I have for years felt that a great deal might be done if only the Government of the day would, instead of looking simply and solely for great party contentious Bills, see whether they could not do good by simple and non-contentious legislation. There can be no doubt whatever that this Bill will prevent crime, and to a large extent empty our jails. Therefore I. venture to say that if the Government, instead of producing lengthy and contentious programmes of shop-front legislation, of which not a tithe can pass, were to devote themselves to small and useful and non-contentious measures like this they would add greatly to the happiness of the great mass of the people.