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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
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gone up to 82; that in 1872 there were but 6 female juveniles, in 1873 only 7; but in 1874 there were 21 committed.
In 1872 the number of second commitments of the same offender were but Land of third committals 3; whilst in 1873 the second committals amounted to 13, the third to 3, the fourth to 2, and the fifth to 1; and in 1874, following the same downward tendency, the second commitments were 14; the third, 15; the fourth, 4; and the fifth, 1.
The state of things, therefore, with which we have to contend is a general and large increase of crime of all kinds, a marked increase of depravity in both females and juveniles, and a most undoubted augmentation of drunkenness, disorderly conduct of every kind, and vagrancy,
It may, perhaps, be said that these Returns do not necessarily show real increase of crime, and that the apparent increase may be due to greater vigilance on the part of the police. I trust that such may be the case; but even so the fact unhappily remains that in the year 1874 there was a large amount of crime in the island; and I fear that the daily records of the police courts and the gaol do not show that the first three months of 1875 have been less prolific of offences than the corresponding period of the previous year.
I may here call attention to the fact that the Tables A to F, which are compiled from the records of the Royal Gaol, refer only to those offenders who have been punished by imprisonment; and that as many a person fined, say 11. for a compara- tively slight offence, is committed to gaol for inability to pay, whilst others who are heavily fined for much graver offences pay the pecuniary penalty at once, they can scarcely be considered as affording true statistics of crime throughout the island. have, therefore, added Tables II and I, which show the number of offenders of every class (except debtors) brought before the different Tribunals of the Colony. By Table I it will be seen that 4,118 of our population were during the year punished for offences of a more or less serious nature.
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On examination of Table I a somewhat curious fact will be noticed, viz., that the general crime of the island appears to have been less in 1871 than in the preceding year, although the number of commitments to the Royal Gaol during the past year (as shown by Table A) were far more numerous.
This proceeds from one of two causes (possibly from both); either the magistrates have more frequently imprisoned offenders without giving them the option of a fine, or the fines inflicted have been so high that the parties fined were unable to pay.
I now come once more to the consideration of an all-important question, What is to be done to check this too evident increase of crime, which, if not speedily stayed, will gather impetus as it flows on, till it overwhelms all that comes in its way? and before endeavouring to solve the problem, I would make a few remarks upon the nature of the offences which are most rife here.
I have not before me the means of drawing from statistical returns any compa- rison between this Colony and others similar to it in the nature, habits, and education of its people; but speaking from my general knowledge I state confidently that, so far as the more serious crimes are concerned, Trinidad has no reason to fear a comparison even with countries more civilized and advanced than herself.
The real bane of our society is idleness and all its attendant vices, drunkenness, gambling, and immorality of the grossest and most degrading kind; which latter entails two serious physical evils, the deterioration of our population and a check of its natural increase.
The first thing that strikes a stranger arriving in Trinidad is the great number of able-bodied men and women who spend their time lounging about the streets literally doing nothing; and after a very short residence here the fact becomes evident that the same people are always thus spending their time, so that it is not merely an accidental holiday or occasional want of work that keeps them doing nothing, but habitual and systematic idleness.
This is the more remarkable in a Colony the magnificent resources of which cannot be fully developed from want of labour, and to which for-the last thirty years labourers have been brought from the East at an immense cost.
The question will naturally be asked, How do such people live? The answer is easily given, and its truth practically proved by the returns annexed to this Report. By petty theft, by gambling, by prostitution, and many other means more or less illegal or immoral.
I do not deny that occasionally a little work, if work it can be called, is done by some of them. A woman who is well known as a common prostitute will now and
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then do a little washing, or eke out her means of subsistence by making a batch of cakes or bread, and this, too, in the very room in which she carries on her more ordinary occupation.
The gambler will sometimes go on a fishing or shooting expedition, especially if he can persuade song officers from the garrison or other strangers to take him as a guide on an expedition which to him is all profit.
It cannot, however, be pretended that this is work, and the great difficulty is to bring such a pressure upon these people as will compel them to labour honestly as free men, or if they will not, then to obtain compulsory labour from them in the Royal Gaol.
It is useless to attempt to deny that this is a serious difficulty. It is one which is experienced in all intertropical countries; and is mainly owing to the fact that whilst using every legitimate means of inducing and even enforcing habits of industry, it is absolutely necessary for those in authority (whether Government or private individuals) to do nothing which has the slightest tinge of oppression, or which may in any way recall the bygone days of slavery.
I venture to sketch the outlines of a plan which I conceive would go far towards removing the difficulty and curing the evil.
I commence with the gaol, for it appears to me that much of the faultiness of our present system lies in the actual constitution of that establishment as a locus penitentia.
A glance at the Tables appended to this Report show that a large number of persons are yearly committed to the Royal Gaol for offences which are, after all, what lawyers call mala prohibita not mala in se. For instance, during the year 1874, 532 were committed for breach of contract-367 immigrants without pass, and a large number of others for such offences as riding on shaft of cart, plying without a badge, &c. It cannot be pretended that such offenders as these require the reformatory discipline of a gaol, or that the offences in themselves merit penal labour. A labourer may frequently neglect his task work, and yet be a very estimable member of society generally; and the carter who obstinately persists in riding on the shafts of his cart may be an excellent father of a family and a perfectly honest man.
These men, however, have been convicted of a breach of certain engagements into which they had entered; the one towards his employer, to whom he owes a fixed number of days' work in the month or year; the other towards the public, for whose protection certain traffic regulations have been enacted.
Having broken these engagements, they must pay their debt; but there can be no reason why they should be made to do so in company with felons and misdemeants, and the worst scum of our population.
I would suggest, therefore, that offenders of this class should never become inmates of the Royal Gaol at all. A portion of the depôt at Chaguanas might be set apart exclusively for them, and sufficient land put into cultivation by them to keep them constantly employed at industrial labour.
There would be no communication between them and the penal gangs working in the forest; and, although in confinement, they would not be treated in any way as persons tainted with any crime.
This would dispose of one class of prisoners.
Those sentenced to long terms by the Supreme Court would, in the first instance, be committed to the Royal Gaol, there to undergo that probationary period of strictly solitary confinement which is now admitted by the most experienced in such matters to be absolutely necessary.
At the expiration of that time they would be drafted to the penal Depôt at Chaguanas, or Carera's Island, but never, save under exceptional circumstances, kept at the Royal Gaol.
I am strongly opposed to gangs of convicts of any class going from the gaol to work outside during the day, returning to the gnol at night, even with the precautions taken to isolate them at the quarry. They get an opportunity of seeing and making signs to their friends, and their imprisonment loses one of its great terrors, that feeling of being cut off from the rest of the world which has more or less effect upon every man not utterly devoid of feeling.
If it is thought desirable on economical grounds to continue working the quarries by convict labours, my plan would, of course, require modification; but I venture to reassert that the first thing to be sought is to make the gaol deterrent, without seeking to render it a source of revenue.
The other classes of criminals still to be dealt with are the females, the juveniles,
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