Insubordination and other offences are not infrequent, and there is a long gradation of punishments, beginning with formal reproof, either alone or in presence of other detainees, and rising by many steps to cell imprisonment for twelve hours in a cage which allows only of standing and sitting, and finally to corporal punishment, a punishment which has practically fallen into desuetude and which in no case is awarded to women or men over sixty years. The majority of offences are of a minor character and are punished by some curtailment of diet.
Counting only the persons who were committed or admitted to the Labour House for reformative reasons, the number dealt with in 1908 was 721; 250 (200 men and 50 women) being in confinement at the beginning of the year, and 471 being newly admitted. The maximum number was 338, and was recorded in February; the minimum was 180, recorded in July; and the daily mean for the year was 253.
The Labour House received in addition, however, a large number of persons who had been sentenced by the police to simple detention with or without labour (Classes e and f), and a large shelter connected with it lodged 12,655 persons for an aggregate of 36,413 times; of these persons, 634 were proved to be vagabonds and loafers, and the remaining 12,021 were artisans and labourers without employment.
The reasons for compulsory or voluntary detention in that year were as follows:—
| Males. | Females. | Total | |
| (1) Destitution by reason of idleness, drunkenness, or irregular life:— | |||
| (a) Personal destitution | 22 | 6 | 28 |
| (b) Destitution of dependants | 90 | 17 | 107 |
| (2) Demoralised persons under 18 years | 19 | 26 | 45 |
| (2) Demoralised persons under 18 years | 19 | 26 | 45 |
| (3) Children detained for observation prior to transfer to a reformatory | 3 | 1 | 4 |
| (4) Temporarily detained by reason of homelessness | 283 | 4 | 287 |
| Total | 417 | 54 | 471 |
| Committed on compulsion | 204 | 50 | 254 |
| Entered voluntarily | 213 | 4 | 217 |
The detainees discharged during the year numbered 421 and were classified as follows:—
| Males. | Females. | Total | |
| Discharged or out on parole | 275 | 24 | 299 |
| Removed to hospital, poorhouse, lunatic asylum, and orphanage correctional institutions | 28 | 8 | 36 |
| Removal to penal or correctional institutions | 19 | 6 | 25 |
| Absconded | 53 | 7 | 60 |
| Deaths | 1 | — | 1 |
| Totals | 376 | 45 | 421 |
The terms of their detention were as follows:—