The First Offenders Act, 1958
| Author | J. E. Hall Williams |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1959.tb00508.x |
| Published date | 01 January 1959 |
| Date | 01 January 1959 |
STA‘I’UTES
THE
FIRST
OFFENDERS
ACT,
1958
0s
July
7,
1958,
there came into operation the First Offenders Act,
1958,
which is, to quote its Long Title,
“
an Act to restrict the
imprisonment of first offenders.” Sponsored by Sir George Benson,
%r.p.,
as a Private Member’s Bill, it received support and encourage-
ment from the Home Office, which provided some drafting assist-
ance, and it w.as almost unanimously welcomed in the House
of
Commons
as
a measure which would contribute in some degree to
the solution of certain urgent penal problems.
These problems are partly temporary and
of
an emergency
nature. The sharp rise in the crime rate has caused serious over-
crowding in the prisons, which are now hoIding the highest iiumber
of prisoners ever recorded, with the result that over
4,500
men
have
to
be accommodated three in one cell, more than double the
number at the end of
1956.
This Act may contribute towards
lessening the pressure on the prisons by reducing the number
of
committals by something like
2,000
a year. This will effect a
saving
of
perhaps the equivalent of
150
cells-for it must be
remembered that the
2,000
who but for the Act would go to prison
would do
so
only for short periods. Although this will be a welcome
by-product of the passing of the Act, it was not with this object in
view that the Bill was brought forward. The motives which
prompted it are deeper and far more significant.
In
1048
the Criminal Justice Act, section
17
(l),
restricted the
powers of the courts with regard
to
the imprisonment of young
persons.
It
provided that no person under seventeen years of age
should be sent
to
prison by a court of summary jurisdiction, and
that no court of assize
or
quarter sessions should impose imprison-
ment on a person under fifteen. The Act went on, in subsection
(2),
to introduce the requirement that no court should send any
person under twenty-one to prison unless of opinion that no other
method of dealing with him is appropriate, and to provide that
“for the purpose
of
determining whether any other method of
dealing with any such person is appropriate the court shall obtain
and consider information about the circumstances, and shall take
into account any information before the court which
is
relevant to
his character and his physical and mental condition.”
Section
17
(3)
introduced the additional requirement that when
a court of quarter sessions
or
a magistrates’ court imposed
a
sentence
of
imprisonment it should give the reason why in its
opinion no other method of dealing with the offender is appropriate,
and, in the case
of
magistrates’ courts, the reason shall be specified
41
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