The Vagrancy Problem.: The Case for Measures of Restraint for Tramps, Loafers, and Unemployables: With a Study of Continental Detention Colonies and Labour HousesDawson, William Harbutt
History
The Vagrancy Problem.: The Case for Measures of Restraint for Tramps, Loafers, and Unemployables: With a Study of Continental Detention Colonies and Labour Houses
Dawson, William Harbutt
Poor laws; Poor laws -- Great Britain; Tramps; Unemployed
"The counterparts of the first two of the above offences are
already punishable under the Vagrancy Acts, and a third repetition
of them renders the offender liable to imprisonment for not more
than one year with hard labour. For this punishment we propose to
substitute committal to a Detention Colony for any period between
six months and three years. This proposal is in general harmony
with the recommendations of the Departmental Committee on Vagrancy,
and we believe it to be essential to the proper treatment of the
ins-and-outs, the work-shy, and the loafer. Moreover, by removing
these cases to the care of another authority, the Public Assistance
Authority will be enabled to deal more effectively and more hopefully
with the better class of workmen applying for assistance."[89]
[Footnote 89: _Ibid._, Vol. II., p. 549.]
Again:--
"Stronger measures--particularly detention--should be taken in dealing
with the ins-and-outs. Public Assistance Authorities should have
power to retain the children of such under their care, and to take
proceedings to secure the detention and training of the parents in a
suitable institution or colony, until they are prepared to maintain
themselves and their families outside.
"Feeble-minded ins-and-outs should be detained in suitable
institutions according to the recommendations of the Royal Commission
on the Feeble-minded.
"For able-bodied ins-and-outs, who are incapable of maintaining
themselves permanently owing to want of discipline, application, or
skill, provision should be made by which they would labour according
to their strength, and support themselves as far as possible; more
varied work might be furnished, and their labour made more productive
in supplying the needs of the institution to which they are admitted.
"For those frequenting Public Assistance Institutions who are
confirmed drunkards, and persons leading immoral lives there should be
power of detention after their incapacity to lead a decent life has
been proved.
"Paupers well able to work, _i.e._, cases of persistent idleness,
should be referred to a Detention Colony under the Home Office."[90]
[Footnote 90: Majority Report, Vol. II., pp. 282, 283.]
As I have already shown, every one of these social offences is punished
by detention and disciplinary treatment in Forced Labour Colonies,
variously called, on the Continent. Not only so, but we have seen that
the power to commit to these institutions is in many towns exercised by
the Poor Law Authorities, either independently of or concurrently with
the police and the magistrates.
Beyond recommending that the Detention Colonies should be established
by the State, and that the local Public Assistance Authorities should
pay for the maintenance of individuals detained by their order or
request, the Commission do not go into details, but accept the general
conclusions of the Vagrancy Committee.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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