Thus, of 10,165 persons convicted of serious crime at assizes and quarter sessions throughout the kingdom during 1913 nearly 70 per cent. were recognised as having been convicted before—a significant fact which emphasises the necessity of the eternal vigilance of the C.R.O.
While I was gathering material on this subject I was prepared to find that the police acted with severity. I was agreeably disappointed. I found that they go as far as possible to the other extreme.
In effect, the law says that a licence-holder or supervisee shall produce a license when called upon, shall not habitually associate with persons of bad character, shall not lead an idle or dissolute life, shall report themselves monthly to the nearest police station (this regulation does not apply to women), and report any change of address.
But the law is carried out with a broad appreciation of the variations in human nature—even criminal human nature. There are dangerous men who must be watched closely; there are others it is unnecessary to keep under close surveillance.
A licence-holder, as distinct from a supervisee, is not necessarily likely to become a criminal again. A trusted clerk in a City office who has forged his employer's name, a solicitor absconding with trust funds, a man who has committed manslaughter are not to be classed in this respect with burglars, jewel thieves, or coiners.
It is true that either class may hold licences, but the former are not often sentenced to police supervision. They are not, in that sense, habitual criminals. So the circumstances of every case are taken into consideration.
Sometimes a man is allowed to report himself by letter instead of in person. Nor is a detective attached to a district, who might be known as a police officer, allowed to make inquiries when the mere fact of his calling might make things unpleasant for a licence-holder. A stranger from Scotland Yard is sent. This applies especially when a man is in a workhouse, a hospital, a Church Army labour home, and such places.
To a limited extent the work of the department has been lightened by the scheme which resulted in the establishment of the Central Association for the Aid of Discharged Convicts—an amalgamation of various prisoners' aid societies—which may recommend that a discharged prisoner should be excused reporting to the police in certain cases. The result has been that one man in every ten has been freed from the obligation to report.
There is a little row of figures in the last issue of "Judicial Statistics" which affords a striking illustration of the work of the department. It shows that during the year 1913 the number of persons under police supervision in the Metropolitan Police district was 1,197. This is what happened to them:
| Supervision expired | 229 |
| Supervision remitted by Home Secretary | 3 |
| Removed to other districts | 111 |
| Sent to prison | 133 |
| Missing | 49 |
| Left England | 30 |
| Died | 7 |