Mental Defectives and Sexual Offenders / Report of the Committee of Inquiry Appointed by the Hon. Sir Maui Pomare, K.B.E., C.M.G., Minister of Health

by New Zealand. Committee of Inquiry into Mental Defectives and Sexual Offenders

Section 1.—Scope and Origin of the Inquiry.

The second section of the order of reference requires the Committee "To inquire and report as to the necessity for the care and treatment of mental degenerates and persons charged with sexual offences, and to recommend forms of treatment for the various types of cases."

The Committee's finding and recommendation in regard to the "care and treatment of mental degenerates" who have not been charged with criminal offences are embodied in the first part of this report.

The origin of the inquiry, in so far as it concerns the care and treatment of mental degenerates and sexual offenders who appear before the Courts, is to be found in the resolution of the Prisons Board first appearing in their annual report for the year 1920 and repeated in their reports for 1921 and 1922.

The resolution is as follows:—

"Whereas an increasing number of sexual offences has been the subject of frequent and serious judicial comment, especially in cases where young children were the victims, or the very serious nature of the charge connoted a perversion dangerous to the moral well-being of society; and, as the experience of the Board in dealing with prisoners of this class accords, as far as it goes, with the now generally accepted opinion that, with certain exceptions, persons committing unnatural offences labour under physical disease or disability, or mental deficiency or disorder, or both, which accounts for the sexual perversion and the morbid character of the offence charged: It is resolved by the Prisons Board strongly to recommend to the Government an amendment of the Crimes Act under which such offenders could be dealt with scientifically—

"(1.) Before sentence is pronounced, by furnishing expert medical or surgical reports or evidence:

"(2.) By sanctioning an indeterminate sentence:

"(3.) By segregating persons so sentenced and subjecting them, under proper safeguards, to any medical or surgical treatment which may be deemed necessary or expedient either for their own good or in the public interest."

The repeated occurrence of gross offences of the character described by the Prisons Board, both before and since the Committee commenced its sittings, has focussed public attention more strongly upon the necessity for immediate action in regard to the more adequate treatment of this class of degenerate than upon the much larger and relatively more important class of mental defective covered by the first section of the order of reference.

The bulk of the evidence heard by the Committee and practically the whole of the information obtained from various sources bore more particularly upon the question of the care and prevention of the propagation of the mentally defective part of the population coming under the general designation of "feeble-minded." While, however, the evidence obtained regarding the prevalence of sex offences and the care and treatment of the offenders was not great in volume, it was eminently practical in character. Apart from this, the flagrant cases reported in the daily Press during the past few months in connection with the Supreme Court Sessions in the various centres offer sufficient proof of the necessity for some drastic amendment of the law on the lines suggested by the Prisons Board.