Amendments to the Social Security Act

Prisoners" are far from being universally observed; even those practices explicitly condemned by the Assembly in 1935 still continue in many places. The question of the numbers of prisoners over the whole world is therefore, we submit, one which should be intensively studied as showing the scope of this international problem. Like the kindred scourge of slavery, the evil of unnecessary imprisonment is largely due to public ignorance and public apathy. At present the materials for a census of prisoners do not exist. The International Penal and Penitentiary Commission is carrying out a careful inquiry into penal conditions in various countries. It includes, amongst other matters, that of the prison population, but their published results as yet cover 22 countries only. This inquiry confirms what we have ourselves discovered in an endeavour to arrive at an estimate of numbers, that statistics are still very inadequate, and where they exist are compiled on such different bases as to make comparison extremely difficult. We respectfully suggest that serious improvements in justice could be obtained, important economies effected, and an enormous amount of needless suffering avoided if the States members of the League of Nations and others could be induced to (1) keep and publish accurate statistics regarding all persons deprived of their liberty by the State; (2) make known to each other (through annual reports to the League of Nations as well as by participation in the quinquennial congresses of the International Penal and Penitentiary Commission) any methods, whether relating to the treatment of offenders without imprisonment or to changes of law or administrative procedure, which they have actually proved to diminish the number of persons whom it is found necessary to deprive of liberty. A further note in the editorial of the Manchester Guardian will interest our readers: The truth is that in an increasing number of States religion, race, and politics' or simply suspicion, are grounds for imprisonment, and that where law is a flexible instrument in the hands of governors the guiding rule is "If in doubt, lock a man up." It is wiser to insist, as the Howard League does, on the mistakenness rather than on the injustice of this system, and to appeal that our attentions may not be so distracted by political affairs that we neglect all humanitarian causes.