The System pursued for rendering aid to discharged convicts, and the means taken for their rehabilitation will be dealt with in a subsequent Chapter. CHAPTER V. PREVENTIVE DETENTION. Preventive Detention is the name given to a form of custody, provided by the Prevention of Crime Act, 1908, for the protection of the public from the Habitual Criminal. The Judge has the power of passing a sentence of penal servitude for the particular crime charged in the indictment, and to pass a _further_ sentence ordering, from the determination of the sentence of penal servitude, that the prisoner shall be detained for a period not exceeding ten years in Preventive Detention. Such a sentence cannot be passed unless the jury finds on evidence that the offender is an "Habitual Criminal", that is to say, that since the age of 16 he has been at least three times previously convicted of crime, and that he is persistently leading a dishonest or criminal life. During the public inquiry into Prison administration of 1894 the question had been raised whether a new form of sentence should not be placed at the disposal of the judges for dealing with persons convicted of "professional" crime. The word "professional" is used in a technical sense to denote men whose Penal Records show that they have lived systematically by thieving and robbery, and that their acquisitive instincts have not been controlled by the fear and example of punishment. It appears from a census of the convict population of 1901 that of the total convict population of 2,879, no less than 1,342 had been previously sentenced to penal servitude or to three or more terms for serious crime involving sentences of six months and over. Of these, no less than 1,213 were convicted of offences against property, and it is interesting to observe that as we descend from the best to the worst, there is a proportionate increase of crime against property, until it can be almost said that the "professional" criminal as defined constitutes a separate and peculiar class which demands a special and peculiar treatment. As stated in the volume of Judicial Statistics for 1897, "It is a fact that has to be faced that neither penal servitude nor imprisonment serves to deter this class of offender from returning to crime. His crime is not due to special causes such as sudden passion, drunkenness, or temporary distress, but to a settled intention to gain a living by dishonesty." It was proposed in 1903 to set up in Convict Prisons a "Habitual Offenders" Division, and that Courts, when satisfied that a person convicted on indictment of an offence punishable by penal servitude after more than two previous convictions on indictment, was leading a persistently dishonest or criminal life, and that it was expedient for the protection of the public that he should be kept in detention for a term of years, should have power, after passing a sentence of penal servitude for not less than seven