MENTALLY UNFIT
OPERATION OF NEW ACT HOW MINISTER WILL ACT POLICY OF GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT One of tlie outstanding legislative enactments of the late Government, the Mental Defectives Amendment Act, will come into operation on Tuesday next. In view of the somewhat advanced character of some of the proposals, interest has been aroused as to what stand the new Minister in charge of the Mental Hospitals Department (Hon. A. J. Stallworthy) will take towards the administration of the Act. “The Dominion” understands from the Minister that his policy will be one of caution and gradual development. One of the main provisions of the Bill when it was before Parliament related to sterilisation, but . under pressure the proposal was abandoned, as was also that relative to the marriage and inter-marriage of the mentally unfit. The registration, classification, and segregation proposals were, however, retained, together with the provisions for an alternative procedure for the admission of patients to mental hospitals, for the creation of a new class of mentally defective persons to be known as the socially defective, and for ■ penalties for offences against mentally defective persons.
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Bibliographic details
Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 81, 29 December 1928, Page 6
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184MENTALLY UNFIT Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 81, 29 December 1928, Page 6
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