2600224 C.S. 84
D
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XCR(73)90
15
4
It should be stressed that, while there is no specific limitation to this effect contained in the Bill, preventive detention is not intended to cover drug addicts or petty thieves, but only those guilty of really serious offences. In practice, drug addicts are very seldom sentenced to two years' imprisonment on any one occasion and therefore are unlikely to qualify for this form of detention.
16
It is essential that prisoners serving a sentence of preventive detention should be subject to a different prison regime from that which applies to the ordinary prisoner. As this kind of detention is intended to keep the detainee out of the community, rather than to punish him, he would be provided with better accommodation and food, more recreational facilities and less discipline than an ordinary prisoner. It will probably therefore be necessary for the Commissioner of Prisons to prepare special accommodation for the reception of detainees, though it is not anticipated that there will ever be very many of them. The introduction of this kind of detention is likely to be widely welcomed by the public as showing that the Government is determined to take vigorous measures against the professional thug and hardened criminal.
17
The Commissioner of Prisons and the Commissioner of Police give their support to the Bill. However, the Commissioner of Police is of the opinion that condition (e), referred to in paragraph 13 (see new section 1091 (d)), should be deleted to deal with those who have a bad criminal record with several offences for which they have been sentenced to imprisonment for under two years on each occasion. The Chief Justice has urged that a sentence of preventive detention should not be imposed on an offender under the age of 30, instead of 25 as proposed in the Bill.
Training Centres (Amendment) Bill 1973
18
At Annex D is the Training Centres (Amendment) Bill 1973, the object of which is to lower the minimum period for which a young offender, upon whom a sentence of detention in a training centre is passed, must be kept in custody from 9 months to 6 months.
19
The Commissioner of Prisons has proposed this reduction in the minimum period of detention for two main reasons
(a)
experience of the working of training centres has shown that the necessary rehabilitation of some offenders can be adequately achieved in a period of six months; and
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