' The Adult Offender '—2
Lt.-Colonel Sir VIVIAN HENDERSON ,
M.C., M.P.
THE TALK last week dealt with the ' star ' prisoner-the type of offender whom it is desirable to keep apart from the persistent type.
A recidivist is, for prison purposes, one who serves more than one sentence of imprisonment; recidivism is the habit of relapsing into crime.
The Departmental Committee of Persistent Offenders, surveying the official figures in the Commissioners' annual report for 1931, concluded that ' a very large proportion of " first-timers " are not re-convicted ; of the comparatively small number of persons who return to prison on a second sentence a large proportion, however, come back repeatedly; the probability of relapse increases with the number of previous sentences, and a substantial part of the prison population consists of a " stage army " of individuals who pass through the prisons again and again.'
It is of this class of prisoner, as divided from the ' star' class, that Lieut.-Colonel Sir Vivian Henderson will talk this evening. He will say something of where they are sent, how long they stay, and what is done to them. He will speak of preventive detention, and of various prisons to which recidivists are sent.