Two Reports Ok Sex Offences
| Published date | 01 October 1949 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1949.tb00143.x |
| Date | 01 October 1949 |
488
TEE
MODERN
LAW
REVIEW
VOL
la
recommendations in regard to increased judicial strength, accom-
modation and staff are also implemented.
It
would be
a
tragedy
if
cheese-paring financial objections to the latter were allowed to hold
up the introduction of this vital reform but in the light of the
Committee’s Report this seems unthinkable. The Committee refer
in passing to a
number
of the other matters that are receiving
attention such as the reorganisation
of
the circuit system and the
High Court Divisions, and appeals. Their subsequent Reports on
these and other proposals for reducing costs will be eagerly awaited;
for upon them may well depend the future prosperity and
independence of the legal profession. L.
C.
B.
GOWER.
TWO
REPORTS
ON
SEX
OFFENCE8
1.
Psycho-Therapeutic Treatment of Certain Offenders with
special reference
to
the case of persons convicted of sexual and
unnatural offences. Scottish Home Department. Report by the
Scottish Advisory Council on the Treatment and Rehabilitation
of
Offenders.
2.
The Criminal Law and Sexual Offenders. A Report of the
Joint Committee on Psychiatry and the Law appointed by the
British Medical Association and the Magistrates’ Assodation.
(Published by the British Medical Association, 1049, price 8d.)
It
is
symptomatic of the serious attention now being given in
this country to the position of the sex offender that, within
a
com-
paratively short period of time, these two Reports should have been
published, both of them dealing, in part at least, with the same
aspects of the subject.
The Scottish Report, which was submitted by the Scottish
Advisory Council to the Secretary of State for Scotland and may,
therefore, be regarded
as
official or at least semi-official
,
i snarrower
in its scope, being mainly concerned with the prospects of psycho-
therapeutic treatment and how it should
be
incorporated in the
existing framework of criminal procedure. The English Report
which, though unofficial, has behind its recommendations the
unanimous approval of the Councils of both the British Medical
Association and the Magistrates’ Association, deals in addition with
the whole question of how to adapt the present substantive law of
sex offences and,
in
particular, the law of criminal procedure
to
the
special needs of the sex offender and of his victim.
I.
Statistics.
In both Reports mme statistical flgures are pre-
sented which show
a
considerable increase for most types
of
sex
offences over the past five or ten years respectively,
e.g.,
for rape
from
99
in
1988
to 240 in 1947, for attempted unnatural offences
from
822
to 1,889, for indecent assault on females from
2,598
to
5,052
(England and Wales, crimes known to police).
It
is, however,
(Edinburgh
:
H.M.S.O.,
1948,
price 4d.)
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