THE CRIMINAL

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 60, 8 September 1934, Page 9

THE CRIMINAL

HOW TO TREAT HIM

PRISON DOCTOR'S REVIEW

Turn the prisons into hospitals Treat those committed to them as "patients" and regard crime entirely as a disease, with colonies for the "incurables," where they would live with their wives and families. Those are,the recommendations of Dr. Hamblin Smith, the famous prison doctor, who, after 35 years' work in British gaols at Manchester, Wandsworth, Dartmoor, Stafford, Portland, and Birmingham, condemns the penal system in a critical review, "Prisons," published recently, states the London "Daily Herald.""Persons who have been convicted of crimes," he says, "are popularly supposed to form a special class, sharply marked off from other sections of ,the population. This is a complete misconception. " He points out that the British prison system was never devised; it . has evolved, and "is the inevitable result of social and economic forces operating at various periods. The conception of what is a crime depends upon the prevalent opinion of some particular community at some particular time." Dr. Smith traces the ideas of punishr ment • back to ecclesiastical discipline, the title "penitentiary" being derived in this way. "Even today," he says, "the frightful results of committing adolescents to prison are quite insufficiently recognised. Boys and occasionally girls of not much over 16 years of age are sentenced for quite trivial offences.. A'boy's vanity may be excited by being in an institution to which persons convicted of grave offences are committed. ... In a few days he becomes as lively as a London sparrow.. All deterrent fear of prison has disappeared for ever." Dr. Smith attacks prison as "retribution." "Punishment is inflicted because a crime has been committed. The commssion of the crime is the ground for the punishment; we look to the past rather than the future; we deal with the offence rather than with the offender. At the present time the retributive theory is;out of date. He discusses imprisonment as a 'deterrent.' Out of 39,000 sentences of imprisonment in a year 28,000 were imposed upon persons who had previously been convicted of offences. "Of those who. return to prison on a second sentence, a large percentage continue to return on later occasions, and the chance of return increases in direct proportion to the number of previous sentences." Dr. Smith condemns the ineffectiveness .of the present prison system as a reformative agency. "I would point out that the fact that a released man is not again convicted may be simply due to the lesson of imprisonment having taught him to be more cunning in future," he says. Among the reforms which he proposes, he suggests that: If a Court decides that imprisonment is the only way of dealing with a case, it should not be allowed to pass summary sentence, but should refer the Case for psychological investigation. Better education, including child guidance and vocational clinics, would eliminate many potential offenders. '