The Fate of the Criminal Justice Bill
It is regrettable in the extreme that the Criminal Justice Bill, which had its Second Reading in December last year, and has met with general approval so far as its main principles are concerned, should have to be dropped for an indefinite period because of the war. Sir Samuel Hoare, who as Home Secretary fathered the Bill, had to say last week that it could not be dealt with this session, and Sir John Simon has now added that it cannot be proceeded with even by dropping the controversial clauses. He pleaded that the work of drafting for the report stage the amend- ments made in Committee would take more time than the officials can spare, and that the Bill could not be brought into operation under war conditions. The decision is profoundly disappointing. In these times there would have been a special fitness in introducing agreed reforms which aim at the humanisation of the criminal law, and especially in regard to young offenders. The reforms arc needed now possibly even more than in peace, for juvenile offences, which had for some time been increasing, will not automatically tend to diminish during the present unsettle- ment. One of the chief objects of the Bill was to keep the young out of prison and stop the manufacture of habitual criminals.
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