#preventitive detention

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“Reform Plans Gathering Dust,” The Globe and Mail. September 16, 1941.Page 6. ---- An address before the Canadian Bar Association has drawn attention anew to the failure of the Government to carry out one of the principal recommendations of the Royal Commission to Investigate the Penal System of Canada. This recommendation was the appointment of a permanent commission to administer the country’s prisons. Some proposals made by the Royal Commission have been adopted, but on the whole there is little improvement over the conditions which led to the appointment of this body.

The address which revives this question of a permanent commission was delivered by His Honor Judge J. A. Lackson of Lethbridge, Alta. a member of the Bar Association’s subcommittee on criminal law. His Honor covered in a brief talk the whole field of the administration of justice in the sphere of criminal law. He urged lawyers to take steps to bring the administration of justice up to date. If they waited until the war was over, he warned, it would be too late; others would take control. The new order would, he said, include lawyers either as instruments to bring it about or as its victims.

Judge Jackson covered the advanced thinking on the subject of the reclamation of criminals, urging that useful training be extended. The results, he said, of what has been done have been satisfactory. For some, he commented, general education might be more suitable than vocational training.

On the subject of the habitual criminal, Judge Jackson proposed that men so classified by imprisoned for not more than three times the maximum penalty for any crime of which they have been convicted, or to detention at the pleasure of the Governor-General-in-Council. The Royal Commission proposed preventive detention in a separate institution for habituals.

It is the case that much more than is now being done for the reclamation of men could be one and should be done. It is certain that some habituals could be restored to social usefulness by medical and educational means. For the others detention should be extended for the protection of society.

The need for manpower is steadily increasing. It is tragic that thousands of young men are in our penitentiaries when they might be playing a useful part in the war effort. Certainly many of these are the victims of incurable mental quirks, and they will never be useful to society or to themselves. But efforts should be extended to re-educate those for whom these is hope. To this end a prison commission should be appointed and the salvage machinery set in motion. The outlook is that our need for manpower will be greater next year than it is now. With the taking of the proper measures, it should be possible for many young men who are today in prison to be restored to liberty equipped and anxious to take a part in the world’s work instead of being prepared only to prey on others.

The Royal Commission, which had as its members the Hon. Mr. Justice Archambault, R. W. Craig, K.C., and J. C. McRuer, K.C., issued its report in 1938, and since then it has been gathering the dust of the year. It was a notable study of the penal problem. The penitentiary troubles that gave rise to the agitation for prison reform subsided as the result of minor concessions made ot inmates, but the larger benefits that could have come have been lost. This Governmental laxity is most deplorable. Second only in importance to the winning of the war come reforms in Canada, and prison reform is one for which the way has been prepared and the knowledge assembled.

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