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Purposes of Preventive Detention
1168
This is true ; a sock is darned and not pleated. but no darn will hold if an underlying hole in the shoe -the intra-abdominal pressure-does not receive attention. Though commonly called a darn, the sutures resemble more the girders of an extension bridge, the gaps between which have to be filled in by fibrous tissue. Indeed, when the patient bends, the darn forms a mere wad. ASCROFT clearly showed this bending effect in tantalum gauze X-ray pictures ; some 1200 full bending strains were required to fracture it. Sepsis is the great bugbear of such darns, and can incapacitate the patient for many months. KEYNES’S criticism of these methods was not of the muffled kind ; " it is easier," he said, " to remove a swab than floss silk." Monofilament nylon and stainless steel wire were said to have the advantage that septic wounds could heal without their extrusion. Such septic hernial wounds should not be allowed to continue discharging ; if freely reopened at the end of six weeks the foreign material is often easily removed. Both KEYNES and LEWIS lamented that incisional hernise are still so common, especially after gynaecological surgery ; greater care, they said, was required in preparing and closing the layers ; for, as GALLIE observed years ago, firm sheath layer union required that no muscle or fat be interposed. The large incisional hernia often had a small neck, and these patients should be offered surgery rather than belts. The umbilical hernia, KEYNES thought, should be repaired at the time of a strangulation operation ; the rarely gave the surgeon a further opportunity. Statistics are lacking, but the umbilical hernia recurrence-rate was believed to be high. The common use of catgut may be a factor ;-, the late PETER McEvEDY (a master of such hernia surgery) emphasised the importance of a continuous suture at the peritoneal line of overlap, and GREY TURNER stripped or criss-crossed the peritoneum of the overlapping layer so as to assure firm apposition. For the management of the colostomy incisional hernia, especially with the oblique incision, Mr. E. T. C. MILLIGAN gave some sound advice : the hernial wound should be completely repaired and the colostomy transplanted, by stab wound, higher up. HERTZLER,ll in his well-known book, observes : to step on a banana skin and slip is no indication for returning to the quadruped fashion." An occasional recurrence after the rational repair with local layers is insufficient reason for abandoning this method. Look ye to the cobbling instead !
in
patient
"
Purposes
of Preventive Detention
IN The Habitllal Criminal 12 Mr. NORVAL MORRIS us that for the forty years before the passing of the Criminal Justice Act, 1948, the sole means by which English courts could deal with the problem of habitual criminality was part II of the Prevention of Crime Act, 1908. This Act gave the courts, for the first time, the power of sentencing a habitual criminal to a term of preventive detention. The original idea was that the sentence should be indeterminate-as it is for criminal lunatics committed
reminds
A. E. Ventures in Science of a Country Surgeon. 1944. 12. London : Published for the London School of Economics and Political Science, by Longmans, Green & Co. 1951. Pp. 395. 27s. 6d.
11.
Hertzler,
to Broadmoor.
The indeterminate sentence, indeed, is being used successfully in Denmark ; and it is said that the gradual realisation that he will not be discharged until he has made himself into another kind of man has a remarkably salutary effect on the criminal. The idea of an indeterminate sentence, however, has never appealed to the British, for reasons which on the whole do us credit ; perhaps Magna Carta is too valuable an heirloom to gamble with, or perhaps, as Mr. MORRIS puts it, " we do not possess the ruthlessness of ’the pure heart.’ " The most we could bring ourselves to accept was (and is) an indefinite sentence-that is, a sentence with a fixed limit but no fixed remission for good conduct. The 1908 Act also required that before serving his period of preventive detention the offender should do a term of penal servitude. This is generally described as the " dual track system." The conditions under which preventive detention is served are, relatively, not unpleasant. Prisoners begin with earn
small
sums
a
credit of Is., and
are
able to
by tagmaking, bookbinding, cleaning,
gardening, or work of other kinds. They wear better clothing than other types of prisoner, and they are allowed to decorate their cells with pictures, to own radio sets, and to improvise furniture. Their cells are unlocked from7 A.M. to 8.15 P.M. ; they associate freely with each other and can make use of a library, readingroom, and games room. They can write and receive more letters than ordinary prisoners, and may be visited once a
week.
But one great defect of the system, as it developed under the 1908 Act, was that work was too scarce to occupy the attention of prisoners, or to teach them diligence or develop their latent skills ; as the report of the Departmental Committee on Persistent Offenders put it, in 1932, it was an empty life, with little to stimulate interest or mental activity. Discharge was at the discretion of an advisory committee
composed of intelligent laymen-the same type of people (and often the same people) as become members of prison visiting committees. Mr. MORRIS notes that in 1921-31 the beginnings of a rigid system of release were perceptible, prisoners as a rule being discharged conditionally a few months after serving three-quarters of their sentence. The great weakness of the Act, however, was its failure to net the real professional criminals-those whom Mr. HERBERT GLADSTONE, in presenting the Bill, had described as men with an object, sound in mind-so far as a criminal could be sound in mindand in body, competent, otten highly skilled, and who deliberately, with their eyes open, preferred a life of crime and knew all the tricks and turns and manoeuvres necessary for that life." What in fact the Act did catch is revealed in Mr. MORRIS’S analysis of the cases of 32 preventive detainees-the total number undergoing this form of sentence when the Criminal Justice Act was passed in 1948. Their ages ranged from 35 to 65, but they were mostly "
men, each with an average of about 15 previous sentences behind him. Mentally they were, in the main, not very bright, and were emotionally starved, apathetic, trained to rely on others, and quite incapable of holding down an outside job, though some of them had repeatedly tried to do so. In any case, physical disabilities and ailments were common among them, being severe enough in 12 to make regular work an absolute or relative impossibility. None of them was happily married or living under stable conditions before his last conviction.
elderly
1169 Their crimes
were
largely
of the nuisance
type, mostly
larcenies, housebreaking, vagrancy offences, begging, frauds, and the receiving of stolen goods. The correlation between their periods of imprisonment and their periods of freedom indicated that punishment had had no deterrent effect
This is
a
on
picture
their behaviour.
of
a
group whom the Prison Com"
missioners have described as generally harmless and elderly men whose sole aim is to lead a quiet life " ; and a quiet life was what preventive detention effectively provided. However, as Mr. MORRIS says, prison is hardly the place for the near-invalid and the
near-certifiable. Life under supervision in a hostel would surely be a better and cheaper substitute. Meanwhile, during the forty years between the two
Acts, those bigger fish, the professional criminals, 5000 of whom Mr. GLADSTONE had hoped to find in his catch, had escaped through a gap in the net ; for before a sentence of preventive detention could be imposed the court had to comply with so many conditions (which Mr. MORRIS sets out) that the whole intention of the Act was thwarted. The gap has been mended by the Criminal Justice Act, 1948, and in future the courts will probably order preventive detention more often and for more appropriate people. Under this Act the longest sentence has been extended from 10 to 14 years, while the shortest remains at 5. The dual track system, however, has been replaced by a single track : the offender will be sentenced to preventive detention in lieu of, not in addition to, a sentence of another kind. The new situation presents us with some fresh duties. In its dealings with offenders the law is like the medieval doctor with his patients-heroic, certainly, but weak on diagnosis, pathology, and aetiology, poorly informed about course and prognosis, and with a handful of remedies which have never been properly assayed. What, in truth, do we know about the nature and causes of habitual criminality, and of the heredity and environment which produce the habitual criminalMr. MoRRis has made a beginning in this study by analysing the qualities, characteristics and background of 270 confirmed recidivists, now likely candidates for preventive detention.
some
He classed as " confirmed recidivists " men who were at least 30 years old when sentenced to a minimum of 3 years’ penal servitude, pursuant to conviction for an indictable offence, and who since attaining the age of 17had been convicted of indictable offences punishable with imprisonment for 2 or more years on six separate occasions, and committed to borstal detention or imprisonment on four or more such previous occasions.
His 270 had been received into Wandsworth prison between July 1, 1946, and Sept. 30, 1948. Their crimes included attempted murder, wounding, violence, sexual offences, bigamy, brothel-keeping, cruelty to children or animals, burglary, robbery and extortion, larceny, frauds, receiving, arson, and coining-the commonest crimes being burglary and other thefts, frauds, and receiving. What kind of men fall into this pattern of serious crime ? Their ages ranged from 31 to 70, with an average of Their first sentences were received at ages 8-42, the average being 19 years 2 months. The average age at first imprisonment was 21 years ; nearly 40 % of them had been in prison before reaching that age. Mr. MORRIS suggests that it might be worth studying whether early imprisonment robbed prison of its deterrent value, and habituated youths to a criminal career, criminal associates, and a criminal standard of values. Twelve of these
41.
recidivists had been sentenced to imprisonment when aged 16, three at the age of 15. Some account of the early lives of these men was obtained in 196 cases ; 123 (nearly 70 %) of them came from broken homes, and 48 of them were illegitimate or rejected children, or the children of alcoholic, insane, or grossly immoral or criminal parents. In a, period of full employment 72 % of the group had been unemployed at the time of their last crime. Of 141 who were married, 57 were living with their wives when out of prison ; a further 50 were living, when arrested, with women who were not their wives, and 8 of these liaisons appeared to be lasting. Many cases were found in which the death of a wife or other break in the marriage had precipitatedor preceded-the start of, or relapse into, a life of crime. The physical condition of the group was much better than that of the preventive detainees, being good or fair in 210 of them, indifferent in 31, and poor in only 29. Most of them appeared to be normal mentally (no intelligence tests were possible) but 9 were borderline mental defectives and 40 showed evidence of psychopathic personality. Their prison behaviour was nearly always good. Once again, the correlation between the length of the periods of imprisonment and the periods of freedom indicated that punishment had not influenced criminal behaviour.
Mr. MoRRis suggests that it is time we knew more about the natural history of criminals and criminal behaviour. Follow-up studies of criminals would enable us to assess the effects of various punishments on various types of men at various ages, and to classify offenders accordingly. If the punishment is not only to fit the crime but to deter the offender from repeating it, the sentencing judge must have full information about the group to which the prisoner most nearly conforms. A series of prediction tables could be drawn up, Mr. MORRIS believes, in which the statistical probability of later conduct would be correlated with qualities, traits, circumstances, and previous punishments of offenders ; and he ends his book with an offer of the data he has collected to any person, approved by the London School of Economics and the Prison Commissioners, who will pursue this urgent and promising line of research.
Canicola Fever BROOMhas lately commented on the apparent rise in the incidence of Leptospira canicola infection The disease in man was first described in and in 1948 MINKENHOF 3 found records of 1934,2 only 98 cases. In contrast to this, between 70 and 80 confirmed cases have occurred in England and Wales during the past four years 4 ; and similar increases have been noted in other countries-notably Germany.5-14 Most workers agree that the true incidence has probably not increased, and that the rise in the number of cases reported is due partly to great improvement in diagnostic facilities and partly to more widespread appreciation of the variability of the signs and symptoms ; for example, the- presence
in
man.
Mon. Bull. Min. Hlth. P.H.L.S. 1951, 10, 258. 1. Broom, J. C. 2. Dhont, C. M., Klarenbeek, A., Schüffner, W. A. P., Voet, J. Ned. Tijdschr. Geneesk. 1934, 78, 5197. 3. Minkenhof, J. E. Lancet, 1948, ii, 8. 4. Broom, J. C. Brit. med. J. Sept. 22, 1951, p. 689. 5. Günther-Kühne, H., Rimpau, W., Schubert, H. Dtsch. med. Wschr. 1949, 74, 129. 6. Kindler, M., Schindler, R. Zbl. Bakt. 1949, 154, 286. 7. Krämer, R., Wieland, O. Arztl. Forsch. 1949, 3, 460. 8. Wegener, F. Dtsch. med. Wschr. 1949, 74, 1227. 9. Stahl, E., Tetzner, E. Ibid, 1950, 75, 254. 10. Glattkowski, G. Ibid, 1950, p. 857. 11. Adam, W. Städtehyg. 1951, 1, 214. 12. Hellwich, K. Dtsch. GesundhWes. 1950, 5, 1140. 13. Steigner, K. Fr., Messerschmidt, T. Z. ImmunForsch. 1950
108, 37. 14. Primavesi. K. A.
Öffentl.
GesundhDienst. 1951, 13, 231.
This is true ; a sock is darned and not pleated. but no darn will hold if an underlying hole in the shoe -the intra-abdominal pressure-does not receive attention. Though commonly called a darn, the sutures resemble more the girders of an extension bridge, the gaps between which have to be filled in by fibrous tissue. Indeed, when the patient bends, the darn forms a mere wad. ASCROFT clearly showed this bending effect in tantalum gauze X-ray pictures ; some 1200 full bending strains were required to fracture it. Sepsis is the great bugbear of such darns, and can incapacitate the patient for many months. KEYNES’S criticism of these methods was not of the muffled kind ; " it is easier," he said, " to remove a swab than floss silk." Monofilament nylon and stainless steel wire were said to have the advantage that septic wounds could heal without their extrusion. Such septic hernial wounds should not be allowed to continue discharging ; if freely reopened at the end of six weeks the foreign material is often easily removed. Both KEYNES and LEWIS lamented that incisional hernise are still so common, especially after gynaecological surgery ; greater care, they said, was required in preparing and closing the layers ; for, as GALLIE observed years ago, firm sheath layer union required that no muscle or fat be interposed. The large incisional hernia often had a small neck, and these patients should be offered surgery rather than belts. The umbilical hernia, KEYNES thought, should be repaired at the time of a strangulation operation ; the rarely gave the surgeon a further opportunity. Statistics are lacking, but the umbilical hernia recurrence-rate was believed to be high. The common use of catgut may be a factor ;-, the late PETER McEvEDY (a master of such hernia surgery) emphasised the importance of a continuous suture at the peritoneal line of overlap, and GREY TURNER stripped or criss-crossed the peritoneum of the overlapping layer so as to assure firm apposition. For the management of the colostomy incisional hernia, especially with the oblique incision, Mr. E. T. C. MILLIGAN gave some sound advice : the hernial wound should be completely repaired and the colostomy transplanted, by stab wound, higher up. HERTZLER,ll in his well-known book, observes : to step on a banana skin and slip is no indication for returning to the quadruped fashion." An occasional recurrence after the rational repair with local layers is insufficient reason for abandoning this method. Look ye to the cobbling instead !
in
patient
"
Purposes
of Preventive Detention
IN The Habitllal Criminal 12 Mr. NORVAL MORRIS us that for the forty years before the passing of the Criminal Justice Act, 1948, the sole means by which English courts could deal with the problem of habitual criminality was part II of the Prevention of Crime Act, 1908. This Act gave the courts, for the first time, the power of sentencing a habitual criminal to a term of preventive detention. The original idea was that the sentence should be indeterminate-as it is for criminal lunatics committed
reminds
A. E. Ventures in Science of a Country Surgeon. 1944. 12. London : Published for the London School of Economics and Political Science, by Longmans, Green & Co. 1951. Pp. 395. 27s. 6d.
11.
Hertzler,
to Broadmoor.
The indeterminate sentence, indeed, is being used successfully in Denmark ; and it is said that the gradual realisation that he will not be discharged until he has made himself into another kind of man has a remarkably salutary effect on the criminal. The idea of an indeterminate sentence, however, has never appealed to the British, for reasons which on the whole do us credit ; perhaps Magna Carta is too valuable an heirloom to gamble with, or perhaps, as Mr. MORRIS puts it, " we do not possess the ruthlessness of ’the pure heart.’ " The most we could bring ourselves to accept was (and is) an indefinite sentence-that is, a sentence with a fixed limit but no fixed remission for good conduct. The 1908 Act also required that before serving his period of preventive detention the offender should do a term of penal servitude. This is generally described as the " dual track system." The conditions under which preventive detention is served are, relatively, not unpleasant. Prisoners begin with earn
small
sums
a
credit of Is., and
are
able to
by tagmaking, bookbinding, cleaning,
gardening, or work of other kinds. They wear better clothing than other types of prisoner, and they are allowed to decorate their cells with pictures, to own radio sets, and to improvise furniture. Their cells are unlocked from7 A.M. to 8.15 P.M. ; they associate freely with each other and can make use of a library, readingroom, and games room. They can write and receive more letters than ordinary prisoners, and may be visited once a
week.
But one great defect of the system, as it developed under the 1908 Act, was that work was too scarce to occupy the attention of prisoners, or to teach them diligence or develop their latent skills ; as the report of the Departmental Committee on Persistent Offenders put it, in 1932, it was an empty life, with little to stimulate interest or mental activity. Discharge was at the discretion of an advisory committee
composed of intelligent laymen-the same type of people (and often the same people) as become members of prison visiting committees. Mr. MORRIS notes that in 1921-31 the beginnings of a rigid system of release were perceptible, prisoners as a rule being discharged conditionally a few months after serving three-quarters of their sentence. The great weakness of the Act, however, was its failure to net the real professional criminals-those whom Mr. HERBERT GLADSTONE, in presenting the Bill, had described as men with an object, sound in mind-so far as a criminal could be sound in mindand in body, competent, otten highly skilled, and who deliberately, with their eyes open, preferred a life of crime and knew all the tricks and turns and manoeuvres necessary for that life." What in fact the Act did catch is revealed in Mr. MORRIS’S analysis of the cases of 32 preventive detainees-the total number undergoing this form of sentence when the Criminal Justice Act was passed in 1948. Their ages ranged from 35 to 65, but they were mostly "
men, each with an average of about 15 previous sentences behind him. Mentally they were, in the main, not very bright, and were emotionally starved, apathetic, trained to rely on others, and quite incapable of holding down an outside job, though some of them had repeatedly tried to do so. In any case, physical disabilities and ailments were common among them, being severe enough in 12 to make regular work an absolute or relative impossibility. None of them was happily married or living under stable conditions before his last conviction.
elderly
1169 Their crimes
were
largely
of the nuisance
type, mostly
larcenies, housebreaking, vagrancy offences, begging, frauds, and the receiving of stolen goods. The correlation between their periods of imprisonment and their periods of freedom indicated that punishment had had no deterrent effect
This is
a
on
picture
their behaviour.
of
a
group whom the Prison Com"
missioners have described as generally harmless and elderly men whose sole aim is to lead a quiet life " ; and a quiet life was what preventive detention effectively provided. However, as Mr. MORRIS says, prison is hardly the place for the near-invalid and the
near-certifiable. Life under supervision in a hostel would surely be a better and cheaper substitute. Meanwhile, during the forty years between the two
Acts, those bigger fish, the professional criminals, 5000 of whom Mr. GLADSTONE had hoped to find in his catch, had escaped through a gap in the net ; for before a sentence of preventive detention could be imposed the court had to comply with so many conditions (which Mr. MORRIS sets out) that the whole intention of the Act was thwarted. The gap has been mended by the Criminal Justice Act, 1948, and in future the courts will probably order preventive detention more often and for more appropriate people. Under this Act the longest sentence has been extended from 10 to 14 years, while the shortest remains at 5. The dual track system, however, has been replaced by a single track : the offender will be sentenced to preventive detention in lieu of, not in addition to, a sentence of another kind. The new situation presents us with some fresh duties. In its dealings with offenders the law is like the medieval doctor with his patients-heroic, certainly, but weak on diagnosis, pathology, and aetiology, poorly informed about course and prognosis, and with a handful of remedies which have never been properly assayed. What, in truth, do we know about the nature and causes of habitual criminality, and of the heredity and environment which produce the habitual criminalMr. MoRRis has made a beginning in this study by analysing the qualities, characteristics and background of 270 confirmed recidivists, now likely candidates for preventive detention.
some
He classed as " confirmed recidivists " men who were at least 30 years old when sentenced to a minimum of 3 years’ penal servitude, pursuant to conviction for an indictable offence, and who since attaining the age of 17had been convicted of indictable offences punishable with imprisonment for 2 or more years on six separate occasions, and committed to borstal detention or imprisonment on four or more such previous occasions.
His 270 had been received into Wandsworth prison between July 1, 1946, and Sept. 30, 1948. Their crimes included attempted murder, wounding, violence, sexual offences, bigamy, brothel-keeping, cruelty to children or animals, burglary, robbery and extortion, larceny, frauds, receiving, arson, and coining-the commonest crimes being burglary and other thefts, frauds, and receiving. What kind of men fall into this pattern of serious crime ? Their ages ranged from 31 to 70, with an average of Their first sentences were received at ages 8-42, the average being 19 years 2 months. The average age at first imprisonment was 21 years ; nearly 40 % of them had been in prison before reaching that age. Mr. MORRIS suggests that it might be worth studying whether early imprisonment robbed prison of its deterrent value, and habituated youths to a criminal career, criminal associates, and a criminal standard of values. Twelve of these
41.
recidivists had been sentenced to imprisonment when aged 16, three at the age of 15. Some account of the early lives of these men was obtained in 196 cases ; 123 (nearly 70 %) of them came from broken homes, and 48 of them were illegitimate or rejected children, or the children of alcoholic, insane, or grossly immoral or criminal parents. In a, period of full employment 72 % of the group had been unemployed at the time of their last crime. Of 141 who were married, 57 were living with their wives when out of prison ; a further 50 were living, when arrested, with women who were not their wives, and 8 of these liaisons appeared to be lasting. Many cases were found in which the death of a wife or other break in the marriage had precipitatedor preceded-the start of, or relapse into, a life of crime. The physical condition of the group was much better than that of the preventive detainees, being good or fair in 210 of them, indifferent in 31, and poor in only 29. Most of them appeared to be normal mentally (no intelligence tests were possible) but 9 were borderline mental defectives and 40 showed evidence of psychopathic personality. Their prison behaviour was nearly always good. Once again, the correlation between the length of the periods of imprisonment and the periods of freedom indicated that punishment had not influenced criminal behaviour.
Mr. MoRRis suggests that it is time we knew more about the natural history of criminals and criminal behaviour. Follow-up studies of criminals would enable us to assess the effects of various punishments on various types of men at various ages, and to classify offenders accordingly. If the punishment is not only to fit the crime but to deter the offender from repeating it, the sentencing judge must have full information about the group to which the prisoner most nearly conforms. A series of prediction tables could be drawn up, Mr. MORRIS believes, in which the statistical probability of later conduct would be correlated with qualities, traits, circumstances, and previous punishments of offenders ; and he ends his book with an offer of the data he has collected to any person, approved by the London School of Economics and the Prison Commissioners, who will pursue this urgent and promising line of research.
Canicola Fever BROOMhas lately commented on the apparent rise in the incidence of Leptospira canicola infection The disease in man was first described in and in 1948 MINKENHOF 3 found records of 1934,2 only 98 cases. In contrast to this, between 70 and 80 confirmed cases have occurred in England and Wales during the past four years 4 ; and similar increases have been noted in other countries-notably Germany.5-14 Most workers agree that the true incidence has probably not increased, and that the rise in the number of cases reported is due partly to great improvement in diagnostic facilities and partly to more widespread appreciation of the variability of the signs and symptoms ; for example, the- presence
in
man.
Mon. Bull. Min. Hlth. P.H.L.S. 1951, 10, 258. 1. Broom, J. C. 2. Dhont, C. M., Klarenbeek, A., Schüffner, W. A. P., Voet, J. Ned. Tijdschr. Geneesk. 1934, 78, 5197. 3. Minkenhof, J. E. Lancet, 1948, ii, 8. 4. Broom, J. C. Brit. med. J. Sept. 22, 1951, p. 689. 5. Günther-Kühne, H., Rimpau, W., Schubert, H. Dtsch. med. Wschr. 1949, 74, 129. 6. Kindler, M., Schindler, R. Zbl. Bakt. 1949, 154, 286. 7. Krämer, R., Wieland, O. Arztl. Forsch. 1949, 3, 460. 8. Wegener, F. Dtsch. med. Wschr. 1949, 74, 1227. 9. Stahl, E., Tetzner, E. Ibid, 1950, 75, 254. 10. Glattkowski, G. Ibid, 1950, p. 857. 11. Adam, W. Städtehyg. 1951, 1, 214. 12. Hellwich, K. Dtsch. GesundhWes. 1950, 5, 1140. 13. Steigner, K. Fr., Messerschmidt, T. Z. ImmunForsch. 1950
108, 37. 14. Primavesi. K. A.
Öffentl.
GesundhDienst. 1951, 13, 231.