These facts certainly justify the hope that a successful attempt has been inaugurated for dealing with the problem of Habitual Crime and of Recidivism. As an additional security that the great powers vested in the judge may not be appealed to lightly, and without the fullest consideration, the Act provides that the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions must be obtained before a charge for dealing with a prisoner as an Habitual Criminal can be inserted in the indictment. This is sufficient guarantee that the intention of Parliament, _viz_:-that the somewhat drastic provision, by which the offender guilty of a grave crime can, after expiating a sentence of penal servitude for that offence, be deprived of his liberty for another period of ten years in the general interest, and for the protection of society, shall not be applied to persons who, as stated in Mr. Churchill's Memorandum, are "a nuisance rather than a danger to society, or to the much larger class of those who are partly vagrants, partly criminals, or who are, to a large extent, mentally deficient." In other words, it must be clearly understood that this defensive power is not meant to be used as a protection against Recidivism in petty offences. It does not touch that large army of habitual vagrants, drunkards, or offenders against bye-laws and Police Regulations, who figure so largely in the ordinary prison population. It is a weapon of defence to be used only where there is a danger to the community from a professed doer of anti-social acts being at large, and reverting cynically on discharge from prison to a repetition of predatory action or violent conduct. Used in this way, with caution, it is, I think, an invaluable instrument for social defence. It has remained rusty during the war, only 80 having been sentenced under the Act during the last four years; but it remains ready for application in the event of the recrudescence of grave habitual crime, and it is earnestly to be desired that both Judicial and Police Authority may make use of the great powers conferred upon them by the Act to relieve society, at least for a time, of those who are its professed enemies. The Act also applies to women, but only eleven have been sentenced to Preventive Detention since the Act came into force, and at present there are none in custody. CHAPTER VI. IMPRISONMENT.