WARRANT APPOINTING THE COMMITTEE.

WHEREAS representations have from time to time been made to me by influential bodies, to the effect that there is a large and increasing number of Habitual Offenders, Vagrants, Beggars, and Inebriates in Scotland, and that the existing powers of dealing with such persons, especially with a view to a permanent remedy, are inadequate; and whereas I consider that it is desirable, in the public interest, that a full inquiry into this subject should be instituted,-I accordingly hereby appoint a Committee consisting of :

Sir Charles Cameron, Bart., M.D., M.P. (Chairman);

Lieut.-Col. A. B. M'Hardy, R.E., Prison Commissioner for Scotland;

R. Farquharson, Esq,, M.D., M.P.;

Col. Sir Colin Scott Moncrieff, R. E., Under-Secretary for Scotland;

John Dove Wilson, Esq., LL.D., Professor of Law, Aberdeen University;

J. F. Sutherland, Esq., M.D., Medical Officer, Glasgow Prison;

Miss Flora C. Stevenson, Hon. F.E.I.S., Member of the Edinburgh School Board;

to inquire whether the number of such persons is increasing, and into the cause of such increase; and further, to suggest such remedies as may, while deterrent, be likely to bring about their reformation and to prevent further additions to their numbers, due regard being had to the cost of any remedies which may be suggested, and to the practicability of their being carried into effect. And I appoint Dr Sutherland to be Secretary to the Committee.

(Signed)

GEORGE OTTO TREVELYAN,
Her Majesty's Secretary for Scotland.

SCOTTISH OFFICE, WHITEHALL,

19th June 1894.

To the above remit was subsequently added by the Secretary for Scotland, on 23rd November 1894, the following:

And also to inquire into the number of male and female Juvenile Offenders sent to prison in Scotland, the offences for which they are committed, and the extent to which such committals could be lessened, and to report generally on the subject.

DEPARTMENTAL COMMITTEE

ON

HABITUAL OFFENDERS, &c. (SCOTLAND).

REPORT.

A

6

SIR,

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

SIR GEORGE OTTO TREVELYAN, BART., M.P.,

H.M. Secretary for Scotland.

Your remits to the Committee call our attention to habitual offenders, vagrants, beggars, and inebriates in Scotland, and direct us to enquire whether the number of such persons is increasing and into the causes of such increase, and to suggest such remedies as may, while deterrent, be likely to bring about their reformation and to 'prevent further additions to their numbers, due regard being had to the cost of any remedies which may be suggested, and to the practicability of their being carried into effect; and also to enquire into the number of male and female juvenile offenders sent to prison in Scotland, the offences for which they are committed, and the extent to 'which such committals could be lessened, and to report generally on the subject.'

B In pursuance of our enquiries and the consideration of our report, we have held 38 sittings. Of these, 27 were devoted mainly to the examination of 151 witnesses, whose evidence is reported. These comprise I senator of the College of Justice, 4 sheriffs, 13 provosts and magistrates, 10 chief constables of burghs, 8 chief constables of counties, 8 poor-law officials, 1 representative of the Scottish Local Government Board, and 1 of the Scottish Lunacy Board, 6 medical superintendents of asylums, 17 prison officials, 3 members of School Boards, 6 physicians and medical experts, 4 solicitors, 13 clergymen of all denominations, 3 representatives of Prisoners' Aid Societies, 20 of refuges and asylums of all sorts, 3 Industrial and Reformatory School Officials, delegates from the Perthshire Committee on Tinkers and Vagrants, delegates from the Salvation Army, a representative of the Charity Organization Society, a female convict and a male ex-convict. Besides this we visited 35 institutions, including 8 prisons, 3 police offices, 10 reformatories and industrial schools, 7 Magdalene asylums, 1 orphans' home, 1 inebriates' home, 1 children's shelter, night and industrial refuges, and other institutions, a list of which we give elsewhere (p. ix., Minutes of Evidence).

C

D

In the course of these visits your Committee interviewed a very large number of officials and inmates, including scores of prisoners of all classes, adult and juvenile, convicts and police cases, as well as many habitual inebriates and inmates of Magdalene See Apinstitutions. The circumstances in which these interviews took place (in prisons, police pendix. cells, reformatories, and elsewhere) rendered it impossible for the statements made to be Prison Comtaken down by a shorthand writer, but in the course of them many facts were elicited missioners, which have largely influenced your Committee in arriving at their conclusions.

Reports

Inspector of

Reformatories,

Judicial

Select and

Besides this your Committee have obtained a large number of statistical returns Statistics, and memoranda,' and they have availed themselves of published official reports of re- Departmental sponsible committees and departments on the various branches of their enquiry."

A

Committees,

&c., &c.

Appendix I.

2

3

PART I.--HABITUAL OFFENDERS.

Cases of drunkenness, breach of the peace, assault, vagrancy, begging and A importuning, account for seventy-one per cent. of the total apprehensions and Sutherland, citations in Scotland.1 A large portion of the balance is accounted for by offences. against local police regulations, and the remainder consists of indictable offences for which the sentences are so long as to prevent any rapid increase in the number of re-convictions. The average duration of confinement of criminal prisoners in Scotland, excluding convicts Donaldson, at Peterhead, during the five years ending 1893 was under 14 days2; and when we remember that this includes long sentences as well as short, it will be seen that an opportunity for repeated conviction is afforded in the case of the habitual petty offender which is wanting in that of the more serious criminal, and it is therefore to the class of petty offences that our investigations have practically been confined.

Appendix
LVII.

3

Petty-offender Statistics.-In Scotland the number of arrests and convictions,- B including forfeited pledges and cases dealt with by fine, imprisonment or admonition,— for drunkenness, breach of the peace, assault, vagrancy, importuning and petty theft has * Appendix X. since 1875 increased, though not proportionately to the increase of population. From the police returns furnished to us it appears that the number of arrests and convictions for these offences in the whole of Scotland, in the years to which the figures relate, were as follows:

The same returns show, however, that this increase occurs in the case of counties C only, and that in the burghs, although there is an increase in 1893 as compared with 1885, there is practically no increase in numbers as compared with 1875. between counties and burghs the figures are

*

Counties.

As divided

Pushing the analysis further we find in the smaller burghs that the percentage of D convictions to population since 1875 has been practically stationary, while in the larger,

The division between counties and burghs, which is made in the Judicial Statistics, has necessarily been followed in this Report, though it is in some respects unsuitable for the purpose. The division which these statistics make does not correspond with the division of the population into rural and urban, or with the division between the territory of the county common law and that of the burghal statute law on the subject of petty offences. What are classed as burghs in the statistics are only those burghs which have entirely separate police establishments, and make separate statistical returns. All the larger burghs are in this position, but the small burghs returned as such in the statistics, are only a comparatively small proportion of those actually existing. It thus happens that a large number of burghs, which hold courts and administer law special to burghs, but which are policed by the counties in which they are situated, are massed in the county statistics, so as to make it impossible to distinguish what number of the offences, which are recorded as belonging to the counties, belong properly to them, or belong to burghs massed with them. A return has been made of the burghs which are thus included in slump with counties, and will be found in Appendix XCIII. It will be observed that it includes burghs, such as Wishaw, which are much larger than some of the burghs making separate returns.

A although, as before, 1893 shows a slightly increased percentage of convictions to popula-
tion on 1885, it exhibits also a largely decreased percentage on 1875. Dividing the
cases between the smaller and the larger burghs, the figures are as follows:-

Small Burghs.

(Including Ayr, Partick, Perth, Hamilton, Kilmarnock, Kirkcaldy, Inverness, Dumbarton,
Stirling, Dumfries, Dunfermline, Hawick, Airdrie, Port-Glasgow, Johnstone,
Arbroath, Renfrew, Alloa, Galashiels, Rothesay, Forfar, Montrose, Brechin,
Broughty-Ferry).

(Including Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen, Leith, Greenock, Govan, Paisley).

B

C

D

Increase in Drunkenness and Offences arising therefrom.-A carefully prepared diagram, to be found in the Appendix to this Report,' showing the number of Sutherland, apprehensions and citations for breach of the peace, drunk and incapable, and dis- Appendix IV. orderly conduct, and in another colour the growth of the population since 1880, proves that the main factor in this increase is an augmentation of drunkenness and offences arising therefrom. Reference to this diagram shows that the number of apprehensions and citations for these offences increased from 80,855 in 1880, when the population was 3,637,000, to 98,427 in 1893, when the population was 4,050,000. Not only do these figures show an absolute increase of 17,572, or 21 per cent., in thirteen years, but an increase beyond that proportionate to the increase of population (10 per cent. between 1881 and 1893) to the number of 9,487 a year. The arrests for the offences specified reached their maximum in 1890, between which year and 1893 they have declined by nearly 8,000, which is so far encouraging; but still the serious significance of the net increase of the percentage of arrests from this cause to the population of Scotland in 1893 as compared with 1881, is shown by the fact that it amounts to more than one-fifth of the total arrests for similar offences in the London Metropolitan district at the present time.

XIII.

Commitments to Prison.-On analysing the number of commitments to prison in Scotland we find (a) that the number of commitments to prison in Scotland for 2 Appendix petty offences has steadily increased from 26,000 in 1875 to 32,000 in 1885 and 35,000 xiii. in 1893, and (b) that the number of commitments to prison for other offences has decreased since 1875, being in that year over 17,200, against 14,000 in 1885 and 15,600 in 1893.

It thus appears that the number of commitments for drunkenness, breach of the peace and assault, vagrancy or begging, prostitution and petty theft, in 1893 constituted more than two-thirds of the whole number; and, as petty offenders constitute the class among whom the greatest number repeated convictions occur, one would naturally expect a corresponding increase in re-commitments to prison.

1