The fall in the annual number of young women, 16-21, received into prison on conviction, which has taken place during the fifteen years prior to the War, viz:—from 2,310 to 858, or 63 per cent., may be largely attributable to this special work in Prisons. It is to be regretted that during the War there has been a tendency for this particular age category to increase, the number received last year having risen to 1,098. But it may confidently be expected that with a return to normal conditions, this total will again decrease. Had not the terrible calamity of War impeded progress, steps would have been taken earlier to greatly improve and develop the State methods of dealing with young female offenders; but, as already stated, in view of the remarkable fall in the number of women sentenced to penal servitude, it has lately been found possible to transfer the female convicts from Aylesbury to a Wing of Liverpool prison, thus releasing the establishment entirely for use as an Institution under the Borstal Act. The powers conferred by this Act are largely extended by Section 10 of the Criminal Justice Administration Act, 1914. Whereas the former Act applies only to persons of criminal habits or tendencies convicted on indictment, this Section allows a sentence of detention in a Borstal Institution to be imposed in a case where an offender is summarily convicted of an offence for which a sentence of one month or upwards, without the option of a fine, can be imposed, but before an offender can be dealt with under this Section, it must appear that there is criminal habit or tendency, and it must be proved that there has been a previous conviction of an offence or a failure to observe a condition of recognizance on being discharged on probation. This same Act also raises the minimum period of detention in a Borstal Institution to two years, and increases the period during which a case may be kept under supervision after discharge.
Owing to this extension of powers under the Borstal Act a larger number of young women offenders are now falling within the meshes of the net, thus widely and wisely spread, the daily average having risen from 87 to 184.
In anticipation of such an increase, an extension of the scope of employment under skilled superintendence is being gradually introduced. Work in the open air, gardening, farm-work, tending poultry and stock, will be specially encouraged.
It is devoutly to be hoped that as the Borstal System for women develops, the march of the annual army of female recidivists through the prisons may be arrested. It can only be stopped by the concentration of a great effort, legal, official, and moral, on the young female offender. The easy irresponsible method of awarding sentences of a few days or weeks for repeated offences of a trivial nature is no remedy for the evil. The Borstal System catches comparatively few of these cases. If the age were extended, say to 30, in the case of women, and the principle of Reformatory sentences were approved by Parliament in every case where criminal tendency was observable, and a State Reformatory for this purpose were established, as it has lately been established in some States of America, then there might be some hope of rescuing from crime a larger percentage of women than is likely, or even possible, under the present system. By the daily operation of the law, sending these cases repeatedly and hopelessly to Prison, and from the present limitation of age (21) for the admission of women offenders to special reformatory treatment (i.e., under periods of detention long enough to give a chance of eradicating the evil tendency), no really great impression is going to be made on the girl or woman offender. The heavy roll of commitments to Prison and re-commitments will only cease when the State boldly recognizes the essential difference between the instincts and motives leading to criminal acts in the two sexes, and adapts its method of punishment and reformation accordingly.
The desirability of employing women for the superintendence and control of female prisoners is recognized. At the time when the Departmental Committee on Prisons, 1895, made their report, nearly 50,000 women were being committed annually to Prison, but that Committee did not consider that "the time of a Lady Inspector of Prisons would be sufficiently employed, but thought that a Lady Superintendent might be appointed who could not only do the ordinary work of inspection, but who could also be responsible for the general supervision of female prison industry, and for such other duty as the Secretary of State might consider it desirable to assign her." Since that date the annual committals have fallen by 78 per cent., the total commitments for last year being only 12,000; but the Commissioners have, for a considerable time, been assisted by a Lady Inspector of Prisons, and at each female prison there is a voluntary body of Lady Visitors, whose duties are referred to above; the welfare of young girls at the Aylesbury Institution, both during detention and on release, is the subject of anxious care and supervision by Lady Members of the Visiting Committee. Lately a new rank of Lady Superintendent has been created among the discipline staff of the largest female prisons. The presence of Ladies on the Visiting Committees of Prisons is in every way desirable, and it is hoped that, in the near future, the qualification of Justice of the Peace having been extended to the female sex, all Prisons for females may be subject to the visitation and jurisdiction of Lady Justices. It is recognized also that the medical care of females in penal institutions should be entrusted to Lady Doctors. We have been fortunate in securing very able and highly skilled women both at Holloway and Aylesbury, and their appointment has been an undoubted success.
EDUCATIVE, MORAL, AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES IN PRISON.
In a former Chapter I have referred generally to the efforts made in English Prisons to apply such methods as are practicable, having regard to the average shortness of sentences, and to the fugitive character of the population, for the uplifting of prisoners educationally, morally, and spiritually.