The Report, for the year ended March' 31st; of the
Commissioners of Police and Directors of Convict Prisons notes a great decrease
• in the prison population—the total being 64,160 as compared with 114,883 in the - previous year. The Report attributes this great -decreacie to three main ceuees—(1),the enlistment of many habitual petty offenders ; .(2) the restriction orders issued by the Liquor Control Board and those made, by. the Justices and by military • Authorities ; and (3) the great demand for, labour.. ..As a result of the war the receptions of prisoners are for- the. most part confined to the physically. and mentally weak. The country's_ call for men has appealed as strongly to.the erizninal as _to-other classes. • Thus one of a gang of five burglars told a London prison chaplain that _his four -pals had all enlisted—two were killed and two wounded— and he himself faithfully fulfilled _ his promise to- enlist as soon as he left prison. The manufacture of war stores has been conduebed -with unabated vigour, . -the prisoners often cheerfully working overtime to the extent of- twenty-five per tent. of their -working-hours. -The male-population-of the' Borstal insti- tutions-has - been- reduced by one • half- by the-enlistment of-lads, many of whom have done well, two- gaining the-- D.C.M. - The decrease in the numbers of- -women committed on conviction for drunkenness is not so -marked as - that of- the • males.- Otherwise the Report is decidedly. reassuring, -not only as iudieatiog-a decrease of criminal.. activities,: but as showing -their_ deflection, by the, war into worthier channels.
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