Sir Samuel Hoare, the Home Secretary speaking at the annual meeting of the Central Dtscharged Prisoners'
Aid Society, held at the said the main objective to keep. people out of prison if they committed crimes and went to prison it was vital to keep them from going back after discharge, and to get them a new start in life.
Behind these objectives there was the widest possible field. of social reform generally, and in particular of prison reform, criminal law amendment probation work, and aid work for the employment of prisoners when they were released. The pioneers in these matters were not sentimentalists. For the most part they were the men and women, the exper who were dealing daily with the problems of crime. Least of any people did they wish to let crime ge undetected or unpunished, and least of all did they wish to make prison life pleasant for the criminal. Side by side, therefore, with the de-Yélopment of the humane and intelligent treatment of prisoners the police war against crime and the society's defensive measures against the dangerous criminal must go on.
The Police and Wireless The police were more and more adopting the help of science in their attack upon crime, and wireless was playing an increasing part in their efforts, while scientific laboratories, such as those in London and Notting. ham, were doing work which a few years age would have been inconceivable.
The -Probation Committees and their officers had done remarkable work, and he intended in the autumn to try to extend it by introducing new regulations, while he was starting at once a training course for probation officers.
Criminal legislation should brought up to date with the mode: a prdctives 6f criminal administration, He\eriew that it was very difficult 10 fit such legislation into an over-full Government programme, but while he could not give his pledge he would like to. see that legislation. which was already overdue, before the end of this Parliament. Administration had outstepped legislation, and the two should be brought into step. Both prison buildings and the training in them should be modernized. He knew that much had been done, but much remained to be done, and the people who really knew—the Prison Commissioners, visiting justices, and the social workers among prisoners—were specially anxious to see many improvements.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.