PRISON REFORM

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 December 1938, Page 7

PRISON REFORM

COMPREHENSIVE BRITISH BILL SIR S. HOARE EXPLAINS PROPOSALS. MEASURE WARMLY WELCOMED. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, November 29. The Home Secretary, Sir Samuel Hoare, in the House of Commons today moved the second reading of the Criminal Justice Bill embodying the proposals for penal reform upon which he has been working since he became Home Secretary, and which, he claimed, made the measure the most comprehensive of its kind ever introduced into the British Parliament. At the moment, when the terrors of the Middle Ages were once again being dragged out of the dark corners of the past, Sir Samuel Hoare declared, it was well that they should hold fast to the humanities which had proved such an inestimable value to the nation.

After referring to the work of Howard and other famous prison reformers, including his own great-aunt, Elizabeth Fry, the Home Secretary said that they were now taking the work of those pioneers a step further, and had embarked upon a third chapter of reform in which they were attempting to provide an alternative to imprisonment. One of the main objectives of the Bill was to effect an immediate reduction in the numbers of young people received into prison, and to provide for the ultimate abolition of imprisonment for young offenders dealt with by courts of summary jurisdiction. For this purpose they were providing a series of new institutions, including two new kinds of remand homes which they were calling Compulsory Attendance Centres, and a new form of hostel to be called Howard houses. The first type of remand home for children under 14 would deal with abnormal cases needing medical treatment. Remand homes also would be provided for offenders between 17 and 23 years of age. In the Howard houses the offender would be ordered to reside for a period not exceeding six months. He would be able to go earning his living during his stay, but for the rest of the time would be subject to disciplinary training. It was also proposed, said Sir Samuel Hoare, that habitual offenders should be detained in special prisons. “I am proposing,” said the Minister, “to sweep away the remnants of former compensations, now little more than the stage properties of Victorian melodrama —penal servitude, hard labour, ticket of leave, and the name criminal lunatic.” With this change he was also proposing the abolition of corporal punishment. The Bill was warmly welcomed by the principal spokesman of the two opposition parties.