to be found in the resolution of the Prisons Board first
appearing in their annual report for the year 1920 and repeated in their
reports for 1921 and 1922.

The resolution is as follows:--

"Whereas an increasing number of sexual offences has been the subject of
frequent and serious judicial comment, especially in cases where young
children were the victims, or the very serious nature of the charge
connoted a perversion dangerous to the moral well-being of society; and,
as the experience of the Board in dealing with prisoners of this class
accords, as far as it goes, with the now generally accepted opinion
that, with certain exceptions, persons committing unnatural offences
labour under physical disease or disability, or mental deficiency or
disorder, or both, which accounts for the sexual perversion and the
morbid character of the offence charged: It is resolved by the Prisons
Board strongly to recommend to the Government an amendment of the Crimes
Act under which such offenders could be dealt with scientifically--

"(1.) Before sentence is pronounced, by furnishing expert
medical or surgical reports or evidence:

"(2.) By sanctioning an indeterminate sentence:

"(3.) By segregating persons so sentenced and subjecting them,
under proper safeguards, to any medical or surgical treatment
which may be deemed necessary or expedient either for their
own good or in the public interest."

The repeated occurrence of gross offences of the character described by
the Prisons Board, both before and since the Committee commenced its
sittings, has focussed public attention more strongly upon the
necessity for immediate action in regard to the more adequate treatment
of this class of degenerate than upon the much larger and relatively
more important class of mental defective covered by the first section of
the order of reference.

The bulk of the evidence heard by the Committee and practically the
whole of the information obtained from various sources bore more
particularly upon the question of the care and prevention of the
propagation of the mentally defective part of the population coming
under the general designation of "feeble-minded." While, however, the
evidence obtained regarding the prevalence of sex offences and the care
and treatment of the offenders was not great in volume, it was eminently
practical in character. Apart from this, the flagrant cases reported in
the daily Press during th