CRIME IN ENGLAND.

Franklin Times, Volume 14, Issue 193, 19 October 1925, Page 3

CRIME IN ENGLAND.

FEWER PEOPLE IN PRISON. At the ninth International Prison Congress which opened in the Imperial Institute, South Kensington, recently. Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brisc. in delivering his presidential address, found considerable difficulty in reading his typescript, but struggled on for some minuses. Then it dawned upon him that he must be wearing the.wrong glasses. He searched the table and discovered that he had picked up the glasses of the Home Secretary, Sir William Joyn-son-Hicks, who had just, addressed the congress.

Sir William delved into his pockets, and producing his case found that it contained the president’s glasses. The necessary exchange was made and Sir Evelyn was able to go on with his speech. In his address Sir William .Toyn-son-Hicks, president of the National Reception Committee of the congress, said: —

In the last few years there has been a striking diminution in the number of persons in prison, notwithstanding that there has been an increase of population in the same period. Fifty years ago there were 20,000 people in local prisons: to-day there are only 8000. Fifty years ago there were 10,000 in penal servitude: to-day there are 1600. To that must be added 1100 young persons in Borstal institutions.* There were 118 local prisons, and 13 penal servitude prisons in this country 50 years ago: to-day there are 31 local prisons and four penal servitude institutions. The reasons for this decrease are to be found in better education, in improved sobriety, and improvement of the standard and condition of living, and also in the care taken by judges and magistrates to make the greatest possible use of the alternative to detention.

Two Experiments. Two experiments were being conducted in regard to prisons. Wormwood Scrubs were set- aside entirely, about two or three months ago. for men committed from the London area who have neyer been in prison before, with the object of training them in an environment free from the prison atmosphere. At Wakefield the prison has been kept for those with sentences long enough to enable them to take advantage of the opportunity of industrial training afforded. No one is admitted to this prison with a sentence of less than six months, and an 11-hour day—nine hours work and two hours education —is enforced. Separate confinement has been almost entirely abolished in our English prisons. Systems of voluntary education, in which a voluntary education assistant to the prison governor guided the work of his fellow-prison-ers had been inaugurated. At one prison a party of public school teachers took a train journey of 25 miles each way voluntarily to give instruction to the. prisoners in the evening.

“There is a change of spirit in our prisons to-day,” remarked Sir William. “The atmosphere is one of hope rather than despair, and among the prisoners \horo is co-operation with the prison regime rather than opposition to it.” He was convinced . that the short sentence was absolutely useless, and preventive detention had not been so successful as had been hoped.