(16.) The Committee consider that marriage with any registered person should be made illegal, and that it should be an indictable offence for any person to have carnal knowledge of any registered person. It should also be provided that any parent or guardian who facilitates or negligently allows any registered person to have carnal knowledge of another person shall be guilty of an indictable offence.
(17.) In view of the fact that feeble-minded persons and others likely to become a burden on the community have in the past been introduced from overseas, the Committee recommend that, in addition to the precautions already taken in regard to assisted immigrants, inquiry should be made into the family history, especially as to whether it discloses any cases of insanity, epilepsy, or feeble-mindedness, and that applicants unable to produce satisfactory evidence on this point should be excluded. The Committee are further of the opinion that closer supervision should be exercised over persons who come as ordinary passengers with the intention of remaining in the Dominion.
PART III.—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—