unemployed the number of spare hours in which to fall into mischief is simply appalling. The fact that nearly all young prisoners received are found to be out of work shows the need for the after-care interpretation of probation. Every Probation Officer should be a liaison officer in touch with all the organizations for dealing with young people within his area, e.g. Boys' and Girls' Clubs, Boys' and Church Lads' Brigades, Scouts, etc. Unemployment, i.e. the lack of steady daily occupation, is the cause of so many of these lads drifting into crime. It is sad to see half of the Sessions Calendar made up of lads under or about 21 years of age. Their outlook on life is so hopeless, too. Anything but "the daily round, the common task," is what they want-odd jobs, hawking newspapers, etc.

Leicester Prison (Governor).

Special Class.-Including transfers, 153 prisoners have passed into this class. They are kept hard at work all day and in the evening attend classes up to 7.30 or 8 p.m. Almost every case has had work to go to or has been found employment on discharge and large numbers are doing well. Some of these young men have spent their youth in institutions of various kinds and have had no occasion to think for themselves of food, shelter or clothing, with the result that when discharged they find it very hard indeed to adapt themselves to the changed conditions of life in the outside world, lacking self reliance. When faced with difficulties they look round for some institution to get into, and, finding it requires the least effort on their part to get into prison, where the life with short periods of liberty between sentences suits them better than any other, they become indifferent as to their future and make no real effort to improve.

Lincoln Prison (Governor).

It is with this vagrancy class of Young Prisoner that a good deal more use might be made of the Remand Home. These youngsters come for farm work, and because they are away from home they are sent to prison for these very trivial offences, thus giving them that taste of just a few days in prison, which practice is so universally condemned, whereas, if a lad is near his home, no matter how serious the offence, he is almost invariably either bound over or placed on probation. True, they give "no fixed" address to the police, and the same on their arrival at prison, but in many instances this is because they have left home for various causes and don't like to let their people know they have got into trouble. In some instances we have been successful in finding out their relatives and sending the lads back. In the remainder of these cases we have been able to find work for them. All this could have been done if they had only been remanded to the Home for a week.

Lincoln Prison (Medical Officer).

The Borderline Mental Department has been of small dimensions and has presented insuperable difficulties of classification. If the number were greater it would be possible, but division into categories must of necessity involve a demand for more assistance. Under existing conditions there are almost as many classes as there are prisoners in this department. An old senile and a young mental defective do not go well together. At first all were placed under an officer and employed in company at such work as their capacity would warrant. This gave rise to some dissension. One inclined to

monkey tricks" would tease another, and in addition the highest grade mental defective would be on his dignity and disposed to resent segregation with those of a lower category or seniles. In fact they got on one another's nerves, and, being more or less deficient in moral and mental control, the effect was an indulgence in amusing puerilities and therefore undesirable. One had to cope with a good deal of irritability and lack of reasonable discipline. It has to be remembered that this department usually includes one or two men of intelligence but of unstable mentality, and blessed too with easily provoked and ungovernable tempers. By degrees I came definitely to the conclusion that actual segregation for work and exercise was producing the reverse of one's object.

It is interesting to record the opinion of the medical superintendent of a mental hospital with nearly a thousand patients and known to me. He is quite emphatic that the segregation, even of certified lunatics, is not the best method of treatment, often retarding recovery and in some cases aggravating the trouble. This has long been my own view, but as I am not a specialist I have waited for a lead. It is a psychological platitude that one should seize upon any element of management or treatment making for self-respect, selfreliance and the rekindling of any slumbering embers of ambition. To make borderline mental cases conscious that they are a class apart, with low potentials of mental and moral efficiency, does not help in these respects even in senile cases. And it has received practical demonstration at Lincoln. Petty aversions, unreasoning animosities, personal grievances were all to be found, and these appeared to be clearly due to the reactions of the individuals one upon another. I consequently failed to see any use in continuing the policy of segregation and adopted the principle of treating the borderlines much in the same way as ordinary prisoners so far as occupation is concerned. The good effect was immediately apparent-good in every way. Their self-esteem was flattered, discipline improved and irritability came near to vanishing point. My view is that if a man is not fit for such conditions and treatment it is becoming time to consider the question of certification either as a lunatic or a mental deficient.

In matters of discipline one has had to feel one's way. It is a mistake to overlook obvious and intentional faults. The men understand quite well the nature of the grosser offences, and it is not difficult to separate them from the more venial and perhaps unconscious aberrations of conduct. For the former I consider the more ordinary methods of punishment have been found suitable and deterrent. For the latter medical measures are called for. Here again, if one comes to the conclusion that a man is not fit for punishment on the ground that he is not aware of the nature of his offence, or does not realize the meaning of discipline, it seems logical to consider that he has passed the borderline.

The estimation of the degree of responsibility in each case is a nice point, and of course goes to the root of the whole question. There is abundant room for differences of opinion, which, however, are largely narrowed down in the case of mental defectives by the application of the specialised educational tests now familiar to most of us. I cannot help thinking, nevertheless, that little attempt has yet been made in the prisons of this area to weed out those prisoners who might well be categorised as borderline subjects. There must occasionally be such cases in every prison, and those of us who are asked to shoulder the responsibility of taking charge of them can make little headway, if any, in the absence of sufficient material to work upon. For a like reason statistical records are of little worth.

Individual results have in most cases been encouraging, progressup to a point can be reported. In some the defect has turned out to be more apparent than real, the condition being due not so much to arrested development as to faulty environment, or, in other words, to the absence of the circumstances in life permitting and encouraging mental progress and expansion. This is a matter for the sociologist rather than the psychologist, and so mainly extra-mural, for the associations and surroundings of prison life are little conducive to the integration of high standards of outlook and objective. The volitional standard is particularly difficult to raise. Men are so

apt in prison to seek the line of least resistance, think in a selfcentred way all the time, and adopt a purely laissez faire policy in relation to their future.

Apart altogether from borderline mental cases, the problem of the Young Prisoner calls insistently for greater care on the part of those committing them to prison. The mere fact of committal to prison brings about, as I have noticed again and again, a complete revolution in orientation morally bad. Every effort is made I believe to obviate this, and by segregation from other prisoners, as well as by suitable instruction and special exercise, to steer them clear of the moral obliquities of the more hardened criminals. But in the case of first offenders the establishment of a Remand Home in Lincoln should do much to protect the young from that mental and moral sickness which tends to invade the denizens of our prisons.

Liverpool Prison (Governor).

It is disturbing to find that there are so many young men about who have never really settled down to anything in the nature of permanent employment. It is, I am sorry to say, not always the fault of the labour market, for many of these young men appear to throw up their work because they do not like it, or because it is not enough money, or they lose their jobs because they stay away or are insolent to their employers.

Liverpool Prison (Medical Officer).

Since this prison was made a centre for the collection of uncertifiable weak-minded prisoners from other prisons (July, 1924) only four such cases have been received-a figure which ill accords with the usual representations of their number. Perhaps a reason for this discrepancy may be found in the more tempered and less exacting discipline of recent years which does not so readily single out those of subnormal mentality as being in conflict with it. Apart from this, however, the continued operation of the Mental Deficiency Act will, as I suggested in last year's report, tend gradually to reduce the number of such prisoners to comparatively small proportions as most of those reported in the past and now being reported would have come within its purview had it been in force in their young days, but are now excluded owing to the absence of all history of their early age. The present limitation of the usefulness of the Act by this requirement will thus to this extent become a less objectionable restriction to its scope. Prisoners whose mental enfeeblement has arisen subsequent to adolescence will be mostly confined to those who have a history of authenticated mental disease or show senile decay.

All patients in hospital are given light untasked employment if their condition permits of it. To find suitable employment for male prisoners under observation has always been a difficulty, especially if they are awaiting trial, and yet in the case of no prisoner is it

more desirable to have his mind occupied and free as far as possible from brooding over the uncertainties of his position. This difficulty does not arise in the case of the women, they can knit or sew, but the men, as a rule, have no such quiet occupations, nor are they given to much reading. Suitable occupation can only be found within certain restrictions. It must be clean, interesting, and easily learned and require no tools which might be used as dangerous weapons either against self or others. Interest and industry will not be sufficiently aroused unless they feel that they are profitably engaged and earning money. Work for work's sake will not be diligently pursued. I have recently suggested that such an occupa tion might be found in wool spinning and weaving by hand. It is, I believe, free from all the objections I have mentioned. Certain of its branches need no technical skill, and a little practice makes an efficient spinner. I understand that the finished article commands a ready and profitable market. The Lancashire Association for Mental Welfare, in conjunction with the Handloom Weavers' Society, have kindly undertaken to make an experimental introduction of this work, and I hope that a start will shortly be made.

Manchester Prison (Governor).

Young prisoners here, as far as possible, are all placed on out-ofdoor work. The lads show great keenness at their work, on the building parties in particular, and behave remarkably well. Each foreman of works that I have had under me here prefers the young prisoner labour to that of adult prisoners. The influence of work is wonderful, and one cannot help feeling pangs of regret when one sees lads doing splendid work, and interesting themselves in it, at the same time knowing full well that when the day of release arrives and supervision is lifted there is always a grave chance of reaction and relapse into idleness, and probably mischief. It is my firm conviction that lads need constant and continual supervision, until such day as the power and wish to work overcomes their weakness for loafing and idleness, very often inherent in their minds.

The recidivist population amongst women is very high here. To my mind, there is no prison problem which is so difficult to tackle as that of the woman prisoner. The personnel of the women prisoners here is dreadful to behold. It is nothing to see women prisoners with 50, or even more, convictions. There are many women who literally make a home of this prison, and many who come from six to ten times in a year.

Norwich Prison (Governor).

The one disturbing feature of the Probation Act is that many youthful delinquents appear to be under the impression that they are entitled to be dealt with under the Act, irrespective of the nature of their offence: indeed, one youth calmly informed the Reception Board that he had always understood that first offenders were invariably placed on probation. Such views are dangerous but not uncommon.

Norwich Prison (Medical Officer).

The facilities for giving the majority of men work out of doors, and the physical training of all fit men under the age of 40, have materially contributed to the high standard of health among the prisoners.

There has been difficulty in providing occupation for men who are under observation awaiting trial, or for men who by reason of some physical disability are unable to sew. It is of importance that men who are depressed or mentally unstable should be kept occupied with work in which they can take some interest. If these men are confined and unemployed they deteriorate rapidly.

Pentonville Prison (Chaplain).

The needs of the Special Class have been specially met; they are visited in cell regularly by myself and the Church Army Evangelist, and the members of the St. Pancras Rotary visitors are taking a keen interest in them. These Rotarians, to my knowledge, follow up their prison visiting after the man's discharge in many cases, and having secured work, are keeping in constant touch with their charges. This is real solid work of the right type.

Preston Prison (Governor).

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I think another alternative to binding over and probation might be given to Courts, and that is the suspended sentence." The offender could then be definitely sentenced for his offence, but as long as he behaved himself it would remain inoperative. If he offended again, he should then be given a second sentence consecutive to the first and be made to serve both terms.

Much of the crime committed by youths is attributable to unemployment combined with a total lack of supervision by parents. Frequently it happens that both father and mother are employed all day, and the children roam about uncontrolled. It is scarcely to be wondered at that they drift into criminal habits. Many lads are employed in the mills at work that can only be done by them, and often at the critical age of 17, are thrown out of work. When in work, they are allowed to spend all their spare time and cash in billiard saloons, cinemas, dance halls and cigarettes, and when unemployed, steal in order to satisfy their craving for these amusements.

Wakefield Prison (Governor).

Discharges from February, 1923, to March, 1926, showing number of Reconvicted.