CURING CRIME

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 20103, 9 May 1935, Page 2

CURING CRIME

AIDS OF SCIENCE Important developments are being planned by the Institute for the Scientific Treatment of Delinquency which aims at treating delinquents by other means than imprisonment. I was told by the secretary that suitable premises are now being considered for the opening of an in-patients’ clinic says a writer in the -Daily Telegraph.” The people it is aimed at helping are those who have come repeatedly before Courts for offences the commission of which has been due to some reaction other than self-interest and gain, and as such, it is considered, are more likely to benefit by medical attention. But it is slow treatment and may occupy two years before a cure is effected. It is necessary to change the habit of mind, when the patient may have been afflicted for years with the wrong outlook. The value of the in-patients’ department will be that help may be given to offenders who at present cannot be allowed free by magistrates, and who must therefore be imprisoned. Even where a magistrate may agree that imprisonment is not the right treatment, there are at present no facilities giving him any alternative. The staff of doctors at the institute, which at present numbers 21, is constantly being increased, as the treatment given is becoming better known among magisterial benches, and the number of patients increases. The institute’s ideal is to have a town and country hostel—the latter where people who are more seriously ill can stay. Considerable success has already attended the work of the institute, which is entirely voluntary, and it is now spreading to the provinces.