§ LORD POLWARTH rose to call attention to the Report of the Departmental Committee on Persistent Offenders (1932), and to ask if it is the intention of His Majesty's Government to introduce legislation giving effect to the recommendations of that Report, and also to certain recommendations of the Committees on Young Offenders in England and Scotland dealing with persons over 17 years of age; and to move for Papers.
§ The noble Lord said: My Lords, I feel that I need not make any very serious apology for introducing this subject to your notice. There is at present a fairly wide-felt desire among all interested in prison reform and in the prevention of crime for some change in our methods of dealing with this difficult question. It is twenty-five years since the Prevention of Crime Act, 1908, was passed, and since then there has not been any very important change in our methods of dealing with criminals. Only this morning, reading The Times, I noticed that the Recorder of this great City referred to the need of having new power for dealing with certain particular kinds of crime and offence and expressed the hope that we might get that power some day. Speaking, about a fortnight ago, the late Chairman of the Indian Prison Commissioners, Mr. Maxwell, drew special attention to the great increase in crimes against property—shopbreaking, housebreaking and burglary. Before the War, these numbered 12,000, but the average for the last five years, he said, was 25,000, so that these crimes have more than doubled. Larcenies had increased from 70,000 to 100,000 and he further referred to the number of young persons committing crimes, a subject which I shall venture to refer to in the latter part of my remarks to-day. He drew attention to the fact that in 1931 out of 3,200 cases of shopbreaking 2,100 were by persons under twenty-one and 1,400 by persons under sixteen. Scotland also gave the highest figure since 1921 that we have had for young offenders.
§ I venture to think that that is a serious position and that careful examination is required of the methods now in force, which can hardly be considered as successful. A Committee was appointed to enquire into existing methods of dealing 148 with persistent offenders, including habitual offenders liable to preventive detention. That Departmental Committee, appointed by the Home Secretary at the beginning of 1931, reported after careful examination about a year ago. A former colleague of mine in prison administration for twenty years, and for a much longer time in the service of the Prison Commissioners, was a member of the Committee and devoted great attention to its work. I am sorry to say that his persistent effort and his frequent journeys to and from Scotland seriously undermined his health and he did not long survive the publication of the Report. I feel, this Committee having examined the matter very carefully, that it would be a great pity if we were to lose altogether the result of their labours and the conclusions at which they arrived. They reported that out of 39,000 cases of imprisonment in a year, 20,000 had been previously in prison. A considerable number of persons come to the prison once and only once, but if they come twice, they often come three and four and many more times after, and it is pretty generally admitted amongst all who have to deal with the matter that our present system is rather hopeless. It is no deterrent—no reform is possible with the short sentences which prevail.
§ The other day I was speaking to a former governor of great experience of one of the larger prisons and he emphasised what I had heard him say in evidence before a Committee, that what was really needed was the certainty that repeated crime would entail severer punishment in future. That is not what it does by any means always mean at the present time. We talk about repeated sentences of imprisonment, but I think I might make my meaning more clear if I gave your Lordships the record of one of these criminals over many years in Scottish prisons. As I read the various sentences your Lordships can think of what they really mean. To begin with there was an attempt to steal for which this person was admonished. Next there was an attempt to steal for which he got 60 days. He was then accused of an assault, getting 5 months, assault with robbery, 6 months, assault with the intent to rob, 9 months. The next sentence was fourteen days for assault and then he was convicted under the Prevention of Crimes Act and sent to 149 prison for thirty days. Then there was a charge of intent to steal. That is something which worries a professional thief very much and often gives him a plausible excuse for saying that he has been unjustly convicted and that the police run him in for being a known thief found with intent to steal.
§ I do not make any accusation against the police of doing this without just, Cause—often they have just cause—but I remember not many years ago au habitual convict coming before me with his grievance. He said: "I am here, it is very unfair, for being a known thief. Everybody knows I am a thief." I said: "Yes, but there must have been something more; you must have been found with intent to steal." With a grin, he said: "Well, I had skeleton keys in my pocket." And he quite admitted the justice of the charge brought against him. We do not want to encourage this class of people habitually to go on carrying skeleton keys in their pockets, and I said: "If you want to escape in the future you had better leave your skeleton keys behind." For that he got sixty days. He was soon charged again with the same accusation and again got sixty days. Then he was charged with assault and found guilty and got thirty days. Then he stole again and got seven days. He varied his crime and made a false statement on enlistment, for which he got three months. When he got out he stole again and received seven days, then sixty days, and then twelve months, for the same offence—always theft. Then theft again, but full of luck, he got a sentence of nine months and then another of eight months again for theft.
§ Then his luck changed and he got three years penal servitude for theft. After serving that sentence he was convicted of assault, for which he got sixty days. Then he attempted to steal and got six months, and afterwards had a bit of bad luck again, being charged with an offence for which he got five years penal servitude. When he came out he committed assault and got sixty days. He varied his crime and use of liberty once more by assaulting his wife, for which he got thirty days. His wife would have been much happier without him, I imagine. Then he committed theft and got sixty days, was found with intent to steal and 150 got forty-two days, and then broke into a house and got three months. Again he assaulted his wife and got the same sentence as before, thirty days. Then, for housebreaking, he got fifteen months, for begging, fourteen days, and for assaulting his wife, sixty days. Then, being found with intent to steal, he got sixty days, and again four months, and later sixty days.
§ I could multiply such cases again and again, but it would weary your Lordships. It will show to your Lordships, however, the truth of a statement made to me that these habitual criminals and thieves are inveterate gamblers. They gamble on the chance of not being caught, and very often they are not caught. If you say to a man of this sort: "Don't you think you had better start earning an honest living" he will answer: "Oh! I am not always caught. I get away with it very often." Then they gamble on the chance of getting a short sentence. I remember a well-known criminal in Scotland who, on being brought up for stealing and being charged before the Sheriff, who corresponds more or less to the County Court. Judge in England, pleaded "Guilty," knowing that the Sheriff could not give a long sentence. The Sheriff, however, sent him to the High Court for sentence. Then the man was very indignant, and, although he had pleaded "Guilty" before the Sheriff, he said he was not guilty before the High Court, and wrote a petition saying that he was being very unfairly dealt with.
§ They gamble, as I say, on the chance that the Judge may give them a short sentence. Not long ago I remember reading a case in which the Judge gave a long lecture to the criminal. He told him that it was a very serious offence, that the last time he had had five years and it had not done him any good, and so this time he would give him three years. No doubt the man chuckled immensely. I think it shows that sometimes our learned Judges must be puzzled what to do with people like that, and I venture to think that the Judges would welcome some such system as that recommended in this Report. All are agreed that the present system of short sentences does not work well; in fact does very little good; and that it is very hard on prison officials, who really desire 151 to make the best of their job by attempting to try to carry out a system which is practically hopeless from the first.
§ The Committee recommend a system of detention for periods of from two to four years, when it appears to the Court that by reason of the offender's criminal habits or tendencies, his detention is expedient for the prevention of crime. They also lay down very clearly that the primary object is not punishment so much as training and discipline. That sentence is only to be imposed for crimes punishable by two years imprisonment or penal servitude, and for certain sexual offences, which are not a crime by English law, but which do come in that category under the law of Scotland. It is laid down that the treatment of such prisoners is to be as far as it can be on the lines of reformation—training them to work and in habits of industry. You cannot do very much in prison towards giving people actual training which they can carry out afterwards, but I think we can do something to train them in habits of work. In dealing with such cases it is recommended that the Court is to pay special regard to the history, character and circumstances of the offender, rather than to the specific offence with which he is charged. It may be that those learned in the law, which I am not, will contend that this is a great breach of the system of our Criminal Law and that the punishment must fit the crime. To the layman I must say that it seems to me that the other system is fair. After all, a man breaks into a house, he may have good luck and get a big haul or he may only run off with a few trinkets. A man is not the less guilty because he gets very little than he would be if he carried off jewels worth thousands of pounds. The man's intention is the same—he is out to get all he can. He is just as guilty if he gets a little as if he succeeds in making a big haul.
§ After all, this principle was laid down at the last International Prison Congress held in London in 1930 under the rather cumbrous title of "Individualisation of Punishment." But that meant that what was laid down was simply that the character of the criminal must be considered, his history and his record, rather than the actual crime committed at the moment. The regular professional criminal is a real 152 danger to society, and I contend that the public deserves protection. We have heard a great deal lately about the crimes of bandits, and I have often seen it recommended that corporal punishment should be used for such offences. Personally, I am entirely against it, and I do not think that would really meet the case at all. But I do think that if you find a man is deliberately growing up from youth into a career which means repeated crime, then the should be kept for a considerable period, from two to four years, and given all possible training to make him better.
§ There is a provision in the recommendations that such a man is to be entitled to earn a remission and to be let out on licence under careful supervision, and that the supervision is to be entrusted to some of those societies which do that work at present. The Central Association and the Borstal Association in England are doing very excellent work in caring both for those who have been in Borstal institutions and those who have been in convict prisons. In Scotland we have a somewhat similar association, of which I have the honour to be chairman, for the after-care of Borstal inmates and ex-convicts. We see that by constant and careful supervision, by finding work for a man and saying where he is to live and what he is to do, a very large number have been diverted from a career of crime.
§ The Report goes on to recommend the repeal of Part II of the Prevention of Crime Act, 1908. Section 1 of that Act deals with Borstal treatment, and Part II with what is known as preventive detention of habitual criminals. That Part of the Act has become very largely a dead letter. At first a considerable number of men were sentenced, and the Prison Commissioners both in England and Scotland made elaborate preparations for their care and treatment. They were to be kept under much more lenient conditions than ordinary persons sent to penal servitude, and they were to have various privileges, of association and otherwise. Our prisoners were allowed to fry a kippered herring for themselves for their tea if they liked, and to purchase various minor luxuries with the gratuities which they earned. But in a very short time fewer and fewer came to be sentenced for preventive detention; 153 and in Scotland to-day I believe there are only four preventive detention prisoners.
§ The first reason for that, I think, was that it was found very difficult to prove that a man was an habitual criminal. An habitual criminal soon got to be up to all the dodges for evading such conviction. He would, for example, even apply for work, and let it be well known that he had made an application for a situation, which he knew he would not get, and which he had not the slightest intention of taking if it were offered to him. That was to enable him to prove that he had applied for a job. Then again, these men thought that if they were working they would not be regarded as criminals. It was often admitted that if a man was working he could not also be engaged in crime, hut, of course, that was quite untrue. I remember a very typical case, and I trust your Lordships will allow me to tell you about it, because I think it brings the facts home. A very charming and skilful criminal, an expert in blowing up safes with explosives, had had long sentences of penal servitude, and was changed over to preventive detention in order that we might liberate him before the end of his time because he was very ill—so ill that he could only lie on a bed in the prison hospital. Eventually he was liberated on licence—he had been on licence before. The first time he was on licence he worked hard on a job we found for him. Afterwards we found out that all the time he had been directly planning crimes in Glasgow. And that is what happens. These old habitual criminals are the teachers of crime.
§ That is what happened in this poor old fellow's case. When he was liberated, as we thought to die in his own home, he was got at by other criminals not as expert as he, and finally he was carted out with two other men in a motor car to attempt to blow up a safe at a colliery. The driver of the car had given the show away. They got there to find themselves surrounded by the police, some shots were interchanged, and our poor old friend, caught in the act, was brought back and awaited his trial. But when the time came for his trial—and this is the curious feature of the whole thing—he was so ill that the doctor said he could not possibly stand his trial, and accordingly, whilst his fellow criminal was 154 sentenced to penal servitude, he was allowed to go free.
§ The Committee suggest that it should not be necessary to give a man a sentence of penal servitude first. A man may be an habitual criminal, but the particular crime for which he is brought up may not seem to the Judge such as actually to require a sentence of penal servitude first. The Committee recommend that it should be possible to impose a sentence of detention from four to ten years on a man if lie has had since he was 16 three previous convictions for serious crime and his detention is necessary for the protection of the public. Recently, changes in prison administration have made it possible to treat people much more leniently. They have more concessions than they had before. A great deal is done in the way of education; they are often associated at meals, they are associated at work; certain privileges are given for conversation and so on. And the hardships have been very largely lessened. But the real hardship of all imprisonment is being confined—not being at liberty. And if we are recommending long sentences of detention it must be on the understanding that the conditions of the detention shall be less hard than the present conditions of penal servitude or hard labour.
§ Hard labour now means practically nothing. In Scotland it only means certain complications in regard to the mark system of earning a remission. In England now it only means that for the first fourteen days a man physically fit sleeps on a plank bed instead of with a mattress—not hard labour but hard sleeping. All prisoners have to work according to their ability and the work done by a hard labour man is just the same, according to his health, as that of an ordinary prisoner. I wish very much that the term "hard labour" were done away with because I think that often magistrates give that sentence thinking they are imposing something very severe indeed when, in reality, they are not, and it would be much better just to give a longer sentence of ordinary imprisonment. The Committee recommended that the term "penal servitude" should also be abolished. The Prison Commissioners for Scotland when I was Chairman recommended that many years ago. We felt that this, too, leads to misunderstanding. It gives the impression that prisoners 155 are doing something very hard. People abroad sometimes associate it with actual slavery and think it something very terrible indeed that we have penal servitude. Now it really means something very little different from ordinary imprisonment. The prisoners have more association, they can earn a longer period of remission, and they cost the State a great deal more, because they are a smaller number. We have only a very few in Scotland now, but the figures show that penal servitude men there cost £108 and the ordinary prisoners cost £64, and that I think is a difference which is quite unnecessary.
§ There is the further point which the Report mentions, that these penal servitude men regard themselves as the aristocracy of criminals; they are something "extra grand; they have not done anything very bad, many of them, they are not some of those who have committed every crime; and they consider themselves very much better than common thieves. I had an amusing experience in which an ex-convict, tracking me from the office one day, followed me on to a tramcar begging persistently, and I was hardening my heart knowing that the shilling he wanted would do him no good but only harm, when he summed up his conclusive argument in a way that attained his object. "After all," he said, "it isn't as if I have done anything bad"—(meaning "I have not been a common low-clown thief")—"only ten years for culpable homicide." The effect upon my fellow passengers was rather startling. One of them hastily descended to the lower part of the tramcar, and I was compelled reluctantly to fork out a shilling in order to get rid of him.
§ The Committee rightly recommend the abolition of the present form of convict licence and reporting and the liability to serve their "ticket." Again and again I have had to intimate to the men who came back after a short sentence of imprisonment that it entailed perhaps 180 or 280 days of what is called "serving their ticket," and I would say to them: "You have come back again—do you realise you have got all this?" But they make nothing of it; it is just part of the luck, part of the game. The Committee recommend that that system should cease, and that a man when he earns his 156 liberation should be free. It will incidentally get rid of the possibility of saying that the police persecute these men. I do not believe they do. We have investigated case after case in which ex-convicts have said they have been persecuted by the police and lost their jobs, but we have never found a case proved. I think the police are on the whole perfectly friendly, but if supervision is required it can be done under the Prevention of Crime Act, 1871, perfectly well.
§ I have said enough about the first part of the Report of the Committee on Persistent Offenders. May I just pass to the recommendations of the two Committees on Young Offenders, in England and Scotland? We are very grateful that many of the recommendations of these Committees have been given effect to in the Children's Act of last year and are being confirmed in the Consolidation Bill which I hope will pass your Lordships' House to-night. But there were certain recommendations which could not properly be dealt with in a Children's Bill, concerning persons over seventeen years of age but who are yet young enough to come within the purview of these two Committees. Both Committees are agreed on various points. Both Committees are agreed that there should be a change in the definition of persons who may be sent to Borstal institutions. The definition now is that they must have shown criminal habits and tendencies or have been associated with persons of bad character. The effect of that is that far from being innocent first offenders, as many think those sent to Borstal institutions are, they have already gone a very long way towards a career of crime, and suffered sentences of imprisonment before ever they are sent there; and there is every reason to think that many of them would benefit if they were sent there at an earlier stage in their career of crime. Accordingly, both Committees recommend that the definition should be altered, and that it should hang upon the need of training.
§ The English Committee suggest a definition showing the need of training in the responsibilities and duties of citizenship, training which can only be given in an institution. In Scotland we did not define the matter quite so closely, but we did indicate that the point on which em- 157 phasis should be laid was that these young fellows or young girls were leading such lives that if they were to become respectable citizens they needed a prolonged period of training in trade, industries, and schools. This is not the time to emphasise the fact, which has been abundantly proved, that the Borstal system is, on the whole, a success. Of course there are failures, and of course the worst criminals who go into prison are those who have made a failure of the Borstal system first; but the percentage of success is wonderfully good; well over 60 per cent. have been proved to do well. Both Committees recommend that the sentence shall be for not less than three years. Usually they are let out on licence after about two years. Both Committees have agreed upon the absurdity and the harm of sending young lads—there are very few girls—for short sentences.
§ You will say that I am now advocating something entirely different from what I advocated in an earlier part of my speech, but it is not really different; it is the other end, it is the beginning. If you do not begin with these short sentences of imprisonment, if you can avoid them, you will avoid the repeated sentences of imprisonment about which I have been speaking. You will say: "But surely boys are not now sent, to prison for short terms—there are so many other ways in which they can be dealt with—surely that does not happen?" All experienced governors agree that the first time a boy goes into prison he is often very much upset, perhaps almost hysterical, but he gets accustomed to it. The next time he does not mind, and the next time again he does not mind. I have in my hand a list given to me by the agent of a Committee on which I act for the after-care of these young criminals. These are cases admitted since the beginning of this year. They are all different cases, beginning in January and running on to this month, and it will show you that boys do come into prison.
§ The first list I shall give you quickly are sentences served in default of payment of fines; they had not the money:—Five shillings or five days for begging; 21s. or 14 days for breach of the peace—these lads had not got any money to pay these fines. If a lad is begging he could not have 5s. to pay the fine. Surely that boy 158 might have been dealt with in some other way. £2 or 14 days for poaching—that is perhaps more serious; 30s. or 7 days for trespassing; 21s. or 14 days for breach of the peace. Then I come to first offenders sent to prison without the option of a fine:—30 days for breach of the peace; 20 days for disorderly behaviour, 14 days for breach of the peace, 30 days for a similar offence; 10 days for disorderly conduct; 7 days for begging; 30 days for vagrancy. Surely it is futile sending lads to prison for short sentences like that. Some of these fellows would be much better sent to a Borstal institution and given training and taught a trade at which they could work. Probably that would be the best thing for the vagrant. It will not do the vagrant any good to be in prison for thirty days. The Committees draw attention strongly to the need for dealing with these cases, if at all possible, by other means. Both Committees recommend that when a case is sent to prison it should be obligatory to give a certificate with the sentence saying why it was given and why no other course of treatment was possible. Then they direct attention to the provisions of the Criminal Justice Administration Act, 1914, by which, when a young man under twenty-one is fined, he may be placed under the supervision of a probation officer until the fine is-paid. That ought to be mandatory in every case. There are probation officers everywhere now. The number of boys who went to prison in England in 1930 was 1,872. Of those 977 had previous convictions, and 895 had none. There again is something that earnestly requires attention and consideration.
§ There is only one other recommendation to which I need refer. Both Reports point out the futility of the present method of dealing with girls and young women for offences which are not crimes—being on the streets, loitering, etc.—and for which they are fined, and very often go to prison. Thirty-six per cent. of the cases fined who went to prison had their fines paid during the period of imprisonment. It is absolutely futile to fine. The fine is often paid by an interested person, and this just leads to a repetition of the offence. Both Committees recommend that there should be a power to send these people—it is perhaps the only hope of reformation— 159 to a voluntary home, which is inspected, under an order of detention for a definite period.
§ I have trespassed long in dealing with these various matters, but I feel it is very important, while not perhaps a popular matter, that in the interest of the public as a whole something more ought to be done. I may be told that another Committee is still sitting to report upon the best methods of employing prisoners, and on their after-care, and that this is a reason for doing nothing at present. I do not think from the terms of reference to that Committee that any legislation, or much legislation, is likely to be required. It is rather a matter of administration, and in any case I have little doubt that the Report will be forthcoming before any legislation can be introduced. I know that legislation of this kind takes time to prepare, and that is the reason why I have ventured to bring forward the matter to-day, hoping that His Majesty's Government may see their way to introduce an amending Criminal Justice Administration Bill, or whatever other name they like to give it. I hope they may see their way to introduce amending legislation in the next Session of Parliament. The need, I venture to think, is urgent. It is in the interest of the criminal quite as much as in the interest of the public. We must not be led away by false sentimentality. I do not say there are not many, alas! who have been driven to petty stealing by reason of destitution and unemployment. Unemployment has increased crime. But even those cases can be better dealt with in other ways, either by probation and aftercare, or, if they are persistent in crime, by a period of training. They can be far better dealt with in that way than by our present haphazard method, which only leads to failure and disaster. I beg to move.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYMy Lords. I had no intention when I entered the House this afternoon of intervening in this discussion, but I should be very sorry indeed that no one in this House besides my noble friend Lord Polwarth should give expression to the very great importance of the matters to which he has called attention, and express a hope that possibly a member of the Government may see fit to make some comment upon 160 the most important figures and instances which Lord Polwarth has quoted. They show that in spite of the recommendations of these Committees, and in spite of the immense interest taken in this matter of criminal reform, little really effective change appears to have been made. I only wish to assure the noble Lord who has taken so much trouble to put his case before us that I, at least, was much impressed by his summary of the evidence, and that I am only sorry that a larger number of your Lordships' House is not present to show interest in this most important matter of the welfare of society.
My interest in it is due to the fact that for a good many years I served as a prison chaplain. I am very familiar with all the circumstances of the lives and detention of criminals, and in consequence I have taken A very close interest in this part of social work ever since. Curiously enough, my first indulgence in the not very commendable habit of writing letters to The Times was to write a letter on the judicial manufacture of criminals, dealing with precisely the kind of cases to which the noble Lord has called attention and the sentence of boys to short terms of imprisonment. I hoped that that practice had almost ceased, and I was astonished to learn from the noble Lord the number of instances in which, apparently, still quite young boys are sentenced to comparatively short terms of imprisonment. I wish to emphasise in the strongest possible way that that practice, so far as it is continued by the shortsightedness of magistrates or otherwise, is entirely futile, and ought so far as possible to be brought to an end. But the question of short sentences is of a much wider character. I hope your Lordships noticed the career of a particular criminal who was sentenced to short terms of imprisonment over and over again, varied occasionally by a longer term. It was to me a most astonishing record, and seemed to show that still, in spite of the attention that has been directed to this matter, it is possible to go on in that perfectly futile multiplication of short sentences in the case of an obviously hardened criminal.
I can give your Lordships an instance in which I took very special interest. I had to deal with a perfectly—to quote the noble Lord, but in another context— 161 charming criminal, one of the most intelligent, agreeable, and, as I hoped, promising young men I ever had anything to deal with. He was born and bred in a family of crime, without any conception of doing otherwise than following the course which his whole family and environment would expect him to follow, without any trace, apparently, of what we should call conscience, but in every way most intelligent. I followed his case pretty closely afterwards. For nine years he spent seven years in prison, almost all of them in short sentences of the same character, repeated over and over again. When I asked him was it worth while to spend seven years out of nine in prison, he said exactly what the noble Lord would expect him to say: "Certainly it was worth while; I would do it again for the sake of the fun of the two years I had out." I will not give details of the way in which he spent his money.
The noble Lord was perfectly right in saying that short sentences encourage the spirit of gambling. Not only is the giving of short sentences futile but the use that is made of these short terms is, I fear—it used to be—still more futile. I take the case I have mentioned only for purposes of illustration. This young man, as I have said, was of great intelligence and a young man for whom much might have been clone, but he was unable to read or write and when he went out of prison he was incapable of doing anything—incapable even of sustaining hard manual labour. It was impossible for him to adapt himself to a life of regular industry when lie still had the chance of making large sums of money by picking pockets in the Strand or committing burglaries in Ludgate Hill. There was no attempt made to train him, and there could not be because the time was too short. That is why it is so important, as the noble Lord urges, that we should give more serious attention to longer periods of detention. Anyone who shows a possibility of becoming an habitual criminal should not have a succession of sentences futile in point of time and character, but rather should be detained for a longer period, and during that detention should have some training that might make it reasonably possible for him to become a decent citizen. I have tried to emphasise in these few words the importance of what the noble Lord urged and I wish that sonic assurance 162 may perhaps yet be given that attention will be paid to the matter he has raised.
LORD POLWARTHPerhaps in order to remove fear of misunderstanding I may be allowed to explain that when I spoke of boys in prison I was referring to boys over sixteen. Except in special circumstances they are not there at a younger age.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORMy Lords, the Government are obliged to the noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, for raising this question. The problem of the habitual criminal and the juvenile offender is one in which the country is and ought to be interested. The noble Lord, as we all know, is Chairman of the Scottish Central After-Care Council, the Scottish Central Probation Council and the Scottish Central Council of Juvenile Organisations. It is given, I suppose, to most of us to render financial assistance to those of our fellow-countrymen who come out of prison and have no prospects of getting work, but it is given to few—and the noble Lord, if he will allow me to say so, is one of them—to have the necessary knowledge, experience and sympathy to render personal service to discharged prisoners, a service which is far more valuable than that of mere financial aid. If I may be allowed to say so I have been for nearly fifteen years Chairman of one of the biggest discharged prisoners' aid societies in the country.
Although I do not propose to follow the noble Lord into all the recommendations of the Committee to which he has referred, I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to some of the facts connected with the case and some of the proposals of the Government to remedy them. The Departmental Committee on Persistent Offenders reported their dissatisfaction with the existing method of dealing with persistent offenders. That was the burden of all the evidence which they received from all the witnesses, whether they were professional witnesses connected with the Courts or those well-meaning philanthropists who do so much for men who pass through the dock. The Committee found that the present methods are unsatisfactory because they do not provide adequate protection for the public and because the comparatively short sentences now frequently passed on persistent offenders are neither reformatory nor deterrent in their effect. Of 163 the comparatively small number of persons who return to prison on a second sentence a large proportion go back repeatedly. The probability of relapse increases with the number of previous sentences, and so a substantial part of the prison population consists of a stage army of people who pass through the prisons again and again. Certain special powers have been conferred on the Courts by the Prevention of Crime Act and other Acts, to relate the sentence to the character of the offender rather than to the nature of the crime of which he stands convicted, but apart from these special provisions the power of a Court to increase a sentence because the offender has a record of previous convictions is limited by the general principle that, however had an offender's record may be, it is not open to the Court to pass upon him a sentence heavier than is warranted by the circumstances of the specific offence.
The noble Lord has given from his experience an instance. May I be permitted without wearying your Lordships also to give an instance out of my recollection? For many years before I became Lord Chancellor I was a Judge in the King's Bench Division and I tried hundreds of cases. I remember one at a Northern Assize in England. An old man, over 70 years of age, was brought up and charged with being an habitual criminal. Papers connected with his past had been put before me as Judge at the Assize, and I observed that although he was only seventy-two years of age he had a record of forty-seven years penal servitude and sixty-seven months hard labour. I was curious to see for what he had received those sentences and endeavoured to add them up from the various indictments. He was a very old gentleman who had an insatiable craving for sweets. When he was discharged from prison about eight o'clock in the morning he spent part of the day going to various public houses and when night came on his habit was to break into a lock-up sweet shop. When the policeman came round to see whether the lock-up shop was safe it was quite unnecessary for him to shine his lamp on to the key-hole. The door was wide open, the old man was lying on the floor of the sweet shop, his pockets were stuffed with sweets, he was in an incapable condition and he was usually back in the 164 police station before midnight. After a time he was charged with being, and was convicted of being, an habitual criminal. Then he got so many years penal servitude and so many years preventive detention, making a total of sixty-seven months hard labour and forty-seven years penal servitude. I added up the value of what he had taken for that series of convictions and it was just under £30.
The noble Lord says that Judges are a puzzle, but I would like to ask him what he would have done. It is quite a mistake to think that the prisoners are all of a criminal type. That old man in the dock was, I think, the most amiable-looking old gentleman I have ever seen. Of course the Courts have a wide discretion and Judges differ. Some are supposed to take a more severe view than others. I do not think it would be possible to prescribe a minimum which a Judge must inflict. Crimes on a large or a spectacular scale, such as those to which prominence is given in the newspaper, are comparatively rare and form only a fraction of the crimes committed. The persistent offender, with whom the noble Lord has been mainly concerned, is usually engaged in small-scale depredations which cause, in the aggregate, great harm and loss to the public, including many poor people. Will your Lordships forgive me if I refer to another case? A man was placed in the dock in a Court in the Midlands charged with passing counterfeit half-crowns. Evidence was given of what was found in his house. There was a great number of penny reels of cotton and penny pieces of chocolate—it is a long time ago, but if I remember rightly there were over 1,700. The man did not make the coins himself, but he would go to a small shop, put down the dad half-crown and get a piece of chocolate and a good two-shilling piece and five pence. That is the sort of person who commits great depredations on the poorer classes. These persons are, of course, criminals, but they are not of the useless criminal type, and it is to be hoped that a person like that would be put in some place of detention.
The increase during the last few years in house-breaking and larcenies has been serious and that increase is mainly due to an increase in crimes of the non-spectacular sort to which I have referred. It is estimated that thefts of property valued at over £100 form only about 165 2 per cent. of the thefts known to the police. House-breaking and shop-breaking, for example, consist largely of thefts from temporarily unoccupied premises, often small houses and small shops. For one case of house-breaking by an expert criminal who steals articles of high value there are scores of cases where the modus operandi is to ring at the door of a small house, to make some excuse if the door is answered and to break in if the house is found to be empty and to take small sums of money or articles of little monetary value, though frequently precious to the owners. I would like to give your Lordships one more personal recollection. Not long ago four men were tramping in a Midland county on their way from London to Liverpool. They stopped at a cottage on the high road and eventually they broke in. They were brought up at the Assizes and pleaded "Guilty." One of the men, when asked if he wanted to put any question or to say anything before he was sentenced, replied that he wished to see the lady into whose house he broke. He was asked why and he said he had not been treated fairly. He said it was his custom, when he and his friends came across a country house which they thought looked empty, to sing a verse of a song called "Ehren on the Rhine." If any one came out he asked for a drink of tea or some bread, but if anybody did not come out he went in. He said he had not been treated fairly because he sang this verse and nobody came out; then, being a little suspicious, he sang the second verse, and as nobody then came out he went in only to find a lady in the back kitchen who had identified him.
Statistics show that a large proportion of crimes are committed by persons under thirty years of age. If the offender is under twenty-one and is of criminal habits or tendencies, there is power to commit him to a sentence of Borstal detention for a period of three years. There is, however, no corresponding power as regards offenders of the same type who are over the age of twenty-one. The Committee recommend that in place of the existing sentence of preventive detention, which can only be supplementary to a sentence of penal servitude, Courts of Assize and Quarter Sessions in England and Wales and the High Court in Scotland should be empowered to pass 166 a sentence of prolonged detention of from five to ten years on persons who are thrice convicted of serious crime. The Committee recognised that there is objection to long sentences because the restricted conditions of prison life impair the faculties of initiative and the sense of responsibility. In order to minimise this objection, the Committee recommend that the prison authorities should try to devise for persons sentenced to detention, systems of treatment which will be less injurious in their effect on character than the traditional prison system.
With regard to the attitude of the Government to the Report, the recommendations of the Committee, which are of a far-reaching character, are receiving most careful attention by the Government. The Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Scotland have already been in communication with various authorities, including the chief constables, on the subject of the Report. The Report, however, has unfortunately aroused very little public attention up till now. We are indebted to the noble Lord for giving us the opportunity which the present debate affords, not only of stating the Government view, but of hearing comments and criticisms, which we shall welcome. The subject is one which ought to be considered from various points of view, and the Home Secretary will be glad to receive observations and suggestions from persons who have experience bearing on the problem. The question of expense will obviously need careful examination. The Committee suggest that a start could be made, at any rate, by utilising some of the existing closed prisons, but the opening of new establishments, even in existing buildings, inevitably involves considerable expenditure, though in so far as the scheme is successful such immediate expenditure would, it is hoped, be balanced in the long run by a reduction in the work imposed on the police and on the Courts, and by a reduction of the loss caused to the public by the repeated depredations of the persistent offender. The Government are not yet in a position to announce their intentions with regard to the Committee's proposals, and can only say that they deserve and are receiving close examination.
It is not necessary for me to say very much about youthful offenders after what the noble Lord has said. There 167 were two Committees, one for England and one for Scotland. Effect has been given to these recommendations so far as they relate to persons under the age of seventeen by the English and Scottish Children's Acts of last Session. Effect has also been given to the Scottish Committee's recommendations on the subject of the probation of offenders by the passage of the Probation of Offenders (Scotland) Act, 1931—a subject already covered in England by the Probation of Offenders Act, 1908, and the Criminal Justice Administration Act, 1925. There is one other point, with regard to observation centres. In order to enable a Court to decide what is the most appropriate method of treating a young offender there is general agreement that careful inquiries are desirable as to his mental and physical health, and as to his character, history and circumstances. The treatment of young offenders, whose characters are still plastic, is of the utmost importance. It is at this stage that a mistaken method of treatment is liable to do most harm, and a wise method of treatment is liable to do most rood, in preventing the offender from becoming confirmed in criminal habits.
At present it is the common practice of the Courts, in dealing with these cases, to order remand in custody, or on bail, pending inquiries. When such inquiries have been made the Court is in a much better position to decide whether a case can be most appropriately dealt with by probation, and if so, what the conditions of the probation order should be: or whether committal for a Borstal sentence is requisite. Many young offenders, however, cannot properly be remanded on bail, and there are obvious objections to remanding young people to prison, if ultimately it is the intention of the Court to deal with them by some other method than imprisonment. Might I add this? If you want to prevent a young man from coming back to prison again one of the most important things to do is to be able to look after him for three or four weeks after he comes out. Of course, it is useful to give him fourteen or fifteen shillings when he comes out, but that soon goes, and if you could get some system whereby when they come out these young people could be looked after for a month or six weeks, and during that time get a job, you would be doing probably far more 168 good than imposing any sentence when they come back a second time.
With regard to the Borstal system the Committee made a number of recommendations, and they thought that the provisions of the Borstal Act should be redrawn, so as to widen the category of persons eligible for a Borstal sentence. Prominence should be given, they said, rather to the need of training than to the existence of formed criminal habits. This point has been noted for consideration in connection with amending legislation, but cases in which it appears that a young offender would benefit by Borstal treatment, but cannot be brought within the provisions of these sections, are comparatively rare. One other point. There is the question of whether the courts of summary jurisdiction should be empowered to sentence young offenders to Borstal detention, or whether the present system of committing them to Quarter Sessions or Courts of Assize should be maintained. This point has been noted for consideration, and I hope in due course to be able to make some announcement with regard to it.
I need not give your Lordships many statistics. Substantial numbers of young people are still sentenced to imprisonment for comparatively short periods. In 1931 the total number sentenced to imprisonment in England and Wales was 1,883 boys and 119 girls, while 873 boys and 47 girls were sentenced to Borstal detention. Of the 1,883 boys sentenced to imprisonment in 1931 there were over a thousand with previous proved offences—many of them having been previously found guilty two, three, four or more times, and primarily it would seem that for many of these youths Borstal training would have been more appropriate than sentences of imprisonment. The difficulties experienced by the Courts in dealing with these cases are fully recognised. Courts are naturally reluctant to commit for Borstal training for a period of two or three years, unless it is clear that in the interest of the young offender such a course is necessary.
Finally, may I add a personal word? It is quite easy for us here to talk about what should, or should not, be done. May I give you my own personal experience? I remember when I was made 169 a Judge taking advice from a very experienced Judge as to the problems which would come before me. "With regard to criminal cases," he said, "your difficulty will begin when you have to impose the sentence." That is perfectly true. It is quite easy to say that sentences ought to be shorter or otherwise, but wait until you have the responsibility of imposing sentences. Then you will know what is the real difficulty in the case of a Judge trying criminal cases. I do not think there are any Papers to be laid, but we shall welcome any opportunity of having the experience and advice of the noble Lord upon this most important question.
§ LORD ARNOLDMy Lords, I listened with great care to the speech of the Lord Chancellor. I always do listen with very great care to anything that he says, though not always, I am sorry to say, in these days with agreement. On this occasion, summing up his speech as well as I can, I am bound to say that I find it somewhat disappointing. I am not blaming the noble and learned Viscount, because he is speaking for his colleague in another place. This is a matter under the charge of the Home Secretary, and I cannot help thinking that time is passing on and it is unfortunate that the Government is not nearer to a decision with regard to this very important matter than it appears to be. After all, this Report was published as long ago as April of last year. It does not deal with a new subject. It is now about twenty-five years since there was any legislation worth speaking of in regard to prison reform. So that the problem is known. There is nothing new to investigate, no new angles of consideration. In these circumstances I think it is somewhat unfortunate that the noble and learned Viscount could only say, as he did again and again, using that phrase which those of us who have been long in Parliament know so well and which as a rule means nothing, that the matter is receiving the most careful attention.
After all, what is the position? The Home Secretary, representing the Government in this matter—because it is a Government matter finally—has really a golden opportunity to do something for prison reform. The charge of prisoners is, I think, the most responsible duty which the Home Secretary has to perform. The Report on Persistent 170 Offenders has now been published for nearly a year. The noble and learned Viscount said that he wished that it had excited more interest. That very phrase proves it has not excited opposition to any extent. It is almost an agreed Report. It was a unanimous Report. It holds the field. The Parliamentary situation is all set for action, the Government has a majority of I do not know how many hundreds in another place, it has the House of Lords in its pocket, and there is absolutely nothing whatever to prevent its going forward. It has little or nothing to do. It brought forward hardly any Bills worth speaking of in the King's Speech this year. I can scarcely imagine a more favourable opportunity for getting something done.
If I might introduce a metaphor, it is almost as if a motor car is waiting at the door charged with petrol, the route is known, the destination is known, and all the Home Secretary has to do is to get into the car, to start it up, and to touch the accelerator. He really has an opportunity of which many of his colleagues would be envious. I am not blaming the Lord Chancellor, but I do trust that the somewhat conventional phrases which he used are not going to end, as they so often do, in nothing being done. He referred to the question of expense. This Government has got economy on the brain. Its members talk of it by day, and dream of it by night. As a matter of fact, so far as the finance of the problem is concerned, this Report, if it is carried out, will unquestionably in time save a. vast amount of money, because it will mean without doubt a considerable reduction in the prison population, and that will mean a saving of money. Moreover, as regards certain of the proposals in the Report there could not be a more favourable time for carrying them out. Take, for instance, the question of the treatment of women. It is suggested here that perhaps some country houses could be obtained. In these days country houses are almost being given away. The opportunity is as favourable as it could possibly be.
I think that the noble Lord opposite has rendered a real service in bringing this subject forward. It is true that conditions in our prisons are better than they used to be, but they are very far from ideal. The claim is frequently made that the British penal system and prison 171 system is the best in the world, but I wonder a good deal if that claim can be sustained. The whole matter is one which, as the noble and learned Viscount said, has not excited a very great deal of interest. I counted during the speech of the noble Lord opposite the number of Peers present, and during most of the time there were about twenty out of a House of 700 or 800. So that there is no burning interest in the subject as far as your Lordships' House is concerned. A point which is very important in regard to prison reform generally is that practically every amelioration of the penal laws has been followed by a decrease of crime. I think historically that is true. And that is a most important fact in its bearing upon this Report and upon what the noble Lord urges upon the Government. Prima facie there is a case for something being done. As the noble and learned Viscount has said, it is admitted that the present prison system, particularly in regard to persistent offenders, has failed. It has failed to be remedial, and it has failed to be deterrent. Therefore, there is every case for something being done. You have that proved failure, and you have unfortunately the proved failure of preventive detention under the Prevention of Crime Act, 1908. The Report on Persistent Offenders deals with the great hopes which were entertained in regard to that detention. Those hopes have not been realised.
This Report holds the field and proceeds on tried and proved lines. It proceeds on the lines of reformative and educative treatment of the prisoners. Those are the principles which have been applied on the whole successfully under the Borstal system. This Report now suggests in effect that those principles, or broadly those principles, should be Applied to older prisoners, particularly those from twenty-one to thirty years of age. It is the class from twenty-one to thirty which is so important from the prison point of view. It is from that class, speaking broadly, that the persistent offenders come. It is high time that something was done to deal with this matter on different lines, and the Persistent Offenders' Report opens the door for a new method of dealing with these offenders between twenty-one and thirty. It also has provisions for men over thirty, but, speaking broadly, it is mainly 172 concerned with men from twenty-one to thirty, and it lays down that these men in suitable cases should be sent to detention, but that the sentence should not be a specific sentence for a specific offence, but should be imposed, as I think the noble and learned Viscount indicated, in relation to the general character and probabilities of these particular cases. That, I think, is most important.
Moreover, if this Report were carried out the distinction between penal servitude and imprisonment would cease. Penal servitude as we have known it would cease to be, and personally I think that would be all for the good. As I see it, if this Report were carried out the position would be that in future criminals could be sentenced to imprisonment, as they are now, up to a maximum of two years, but, apart from that, they would be sent to detention of one kind or another. The Report in effect recommends three different classes of detention. First, for those who are suitable cases for reformative and educative treatment, where there is the most hope of redemption and of putting the criminal on to a better way of life, particularly with good after-care, so that he would not return to prison. Then there is a second class, where the prospect of a remedial success is, I am Afraid, not very encouraging, but where it cannot be ruled out—detention to some extent on the lines of the 1908 Act, but without some of the proved defects of the administration of that Act. And then, although the Persistent Offenders' Report does not quite go thus far, it goes very near to it. I should like to add that there should be a third form of detention, a third class of establishment for the dangerous, intractable, hardened criminal with whom apparently at the present time nothing can be done. The best thing we could do in this case is to eliminate them altogether in the course of time, and I hope this Report will help to do that. But I think it is a terrible thing that these men, whatever their crime, should be sent for very long terms to penal servitude. Personally, I found the appalling sentences passed following the Dartmoor mutiny very sad reading. If sentences of that kind have to be passed I think they should be served under circumstances where a little more humanity 173 can be shown. If that were carried out, penal servitude would cease; there would be no more penal servitude under that name. A man sentenced to penal servitude would be sent to one form of detention or another, and would be treated according to the particular case.
Although I support this Report, I do not wish to imply that it is perfect, and that if the Government did all that this Report recommends all would be well. That is not so. The terms of reference were limited, and the Committee could not deal with the fundamental causes of crime, as Mr. Dan Griffiths points out in his separate Report; but within the limits of the Report there are certain harrowing provisions, and I wish the Report had gone a little further. I will deal with two or three of these problems. Let me deal with the question of psychological treatment. The Committee goes some length in supporting psychological treatment in the case of young offenders but not far enough. Some of the provisions in regard to that can only be described as not satisfactory and inclined to be a little bit amateurish in one or two of their aspects. In the matter of psychological treatment, too much in this Report is being imposed on the prison medical officer. I do not wish to speak against these functionaries—many of them are good men—but they are not for the most part skilled psychologists, and I think rather more than that is wanted. Moreover, I think there should be in London one centre, and in the north somewhere, as a matter of convenience, another centre, where really skilled psychologists are available for the consideration of cases before it is decided what should be done with the criminal and to what form of detention he should be sent if he is convicted. I think that is most important. The Committee go some way when they propose that at one penal establishment there should be one skilled psychologist, but that is not going very far, and I think it is desirable that that particular part of the Report should be carried further.
Then, my Lords, there is the question of release on licence. The noble Lord referred to that. The Report lays down that in the case of men sentenced to preventive detention they should be eligible for release after one-third of their sentence has been served. I should like the 174 matter to be carried a good deal further than that. The Report does suggest, and it is very important, that in one case some attempt should be made to start a parole system, that a prisoner undergoing detention might be allowed out by day and return at night. I am bound to say that that does not sound a very promising plan. If there is to be a parole system it should go further. There is a lot to be said for a parole system on a generous scale in suitable cases where the criminal propensities appear to be checked, in letting out a man sentenced to detention at an early stage—certainly not more than one-third of his sentence—under parole officers. We have no parole officers. We have probation officers, and I do not see why we should not have parole officers. At any rate I hope the Government will consider it, and I hope the experiment will be tried. No legislation is required; it is purely an administrative matter. If it did not succeed, the plan could be changed and something else tried. Personally I think it would succeed, and prove as time goes on to be a very important part of our method of dealing with crime. We must remember that one of the chief objects of our prison system should not be to keep people in prison but to fit them to go straight and come out of prison. That is where economy would be exercised, and I think it is on the lines of this Report, probably by better psychological understanding and treatment, that a good deal could be done in that way.
It is judged by that vital test that our present prison system has been such a failure. We give them long sentences in many cases, the men are kept in prison for a very long time, and whatever they do they cannot get out until a certain considerable proportion of their sentence has been served—three-quarters in the case of penal servitude and five-sixths in the case of imprisonment. We ought to aim at reforming these people and making it possible for them to be released on licence or parole at a very much earlier stage. I will not deal with the problem of after-care. That matter is being considered, and I should like to say to the Government that the findings of this Committee will be awaited with very anxious interest. I am very relieved to find that the noble and learned Viscount did not push the whole matter on one side by saying that he was waiting for 175 the findings of this Committee. That is the common device of Governments.
The Committee are sitting, and we are hoping that in addition to dealing with after-care they will also discuss the very important question of industrial training. I would press that very earnestly. It has to do with women prisoners. It is a remarkable thing that in the whole country at any time there are only about 800 women prisoners of all sorts both in local prisons and under sentences of penal servitude. I believe the number of women under sentence of penal servitude is really under 50. I suppose that over the age of 18 there are probably 16,000,000 or 17,000,000 women, and it is very remarkable that out of that vast number less than 50 are undergoing sentences of penal servitude. As far as that goes I think it is very satisfactory. What happens to these women? Probably because the number is so small there is not proper provision for them. I believe it to be the case that some of these women are serving their sentences at Holloway. Holloway is a local prison; it is not a proper prison for women sentenced to penal servitude. It is unfair and cruel to these women to make them serve their sentences there. There are also some women at Aylesbury. I do not know why there are not more women there. The Lord Chancellor shakes his head—
§ LORD ARNOLDThere are both Borstal and women prisoners there if I am not mistaken.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORYou may be right.
§ LORD ARNOLDMy information is that there are a few women there. Why cannot some country house be bought—some of them are going for next lo nothing—and these women transferred there? It is not necessary to have the elaborate precautions to keep them within stone walls under conditions that apply to certain of the most dangerous men convicts. It is a very good time to do it now, and give a little employment to some men to get the place ready. Altogether I think there is a great deal to be said for the scheme. These women ought to be better treated. They have 176 a real grievance. It is largely because the problem has not been faced that there are so few of the kind of places which are required. This is the way to deal with it. Get some country house and take most of them there. That would be humane, and it is more likely to be remedial than the present system. I will not detain the House any longer as the time for the Royal Commission has about arrived. It is a very big subject, and a great deal more could be said upon it. I do most earnestly trust that the Government will take the opportunity which is before them now and do something. I do not want to be too controversial on this occasion, but after all this Government purports to be a National Government—
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMHear, hear.
§ LORD ARNOLDI hear the noble and learned Viscount, faithful to the last, support that sentiment. Well, let the Government try to prove in some way that it is a National Government. This is a national problem. There is no real disagreement amongst Parties about it. I have no right to speak officially, but I think I am correct in saying that so far as the Party of which I am a member is concerned there would be no opposition to this proposal, but rather welcome to legislation on the lines of the Report on Persistent Offenders. I very much hope that something may be done.
LORD POLWARTHMy Lords, I think I have been justified in bringing forward this Motion, if for no other reason, because of the statement which has been elicited from the noble and learned Lord Chancellor. That statement will receive a public attention which no words of mine could hope to receive. I hope that the Government will not wait until there is a great outcry of popular opinion before bringing in legislation to deal with these matters. My experience is that the number of those who take an interest in them is not very large in this country. The public generally has no accurate knowledge of the position in regard to these matters, and interest in them is exceedingly limited outside the criminals themselves, and they are not likely to ask for any new legislation. I venture to think it is one of the primary duties of any Government to prevent crime, so far as possible, and I hope the Government will take measures to do something, 177 quite irrespective of whether there is a popular demand for such legislation. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
§ Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.