§ 69. Mr. Holtasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the weekly attendance centres for young offenders run by the Salford police; how many similar schools there are in the country; what evidence there is as to their effectiveness as an instrument for turning young offenders from continuing on a path of crime; and what steps he is taking to encourage the opening of more such centres.
§ Mr. R. A. ButlerAttendance centres are provided by the Secretary of State under powers conferred by the Criminal Justice Act, 1948, and are managed on his behalf by local agents, usually the police. They are attended on Saturdays, normally for two hours at a time, by boys not less 49W than twelve and not more that seventeen years of age who have been ordered by the courts to attend for an aggregate of up to twelve hours under each order. The Cambridge University Department of Criminal Science has been making a study of the results of attendance centre treatment, but the research is not yet completed. Thirty-seven attendance centres have so far been provided and I am ready to consider sympathetically requests to set up others wherever offenders are likely to be ordered to attend in sufficient numbers.