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3 Prob. 1 (1938-1942)

handle is hein.journals/probj3 and id is 1 raw text is: Probation The Journal of the National Association of Probation Officers VOL. 3, NUMBER i. JUNE, 1938. THE TWENTY-SIXTH ANNUAL CONFERENCE THE SOCIAL SERVICE OF REDEMPTION Speech by the Rt. Hon. SIR SAMUEL HOARE, Home Secretary, at the National Conference. I T has been my fortune, either good or bad, always to go to Government Departments at moments of almost feverish activity. I remember many years ago, when I went to the Air Ministry, we were trying to build up our Air Force at the end of the war. It was not a rest cure. I went to the India Office at a time when, to put it mildly, everybody in England and India was groping as to the exact details of the new Constitution for the India Empire and for nearly five years I struggled with the biggest bill that ever was introduced in Parliament. Then I went to the Foreign Office also at a moment when there was a great deal happening. Lastly I went to the Home Office at a moment when in all the chief fields of the activities of that De- partment, the time had come for a move forward. First of all there was the great new field with all its difficulties and imponderable problems-Air Raid Precautions. Then there was that other field con- nected with conditions of labour and hours of em- ployment. One of my first duties was to get through Parliament that great Factories Act. Last there is the other, the third field, the field that has been too narrowly and inaccurately known as the field of penal reform. It is really one of the great provinces of social reform-indeed I think I would call it the social service of reformation. It is in connection with that field that you are working and I am come to-day to offer you a word of very sincere encourage- ment. I remember that when I first got into the House of Commons, nearly 30 years ago, the first probation Act had not long been passed and the ordinary Member in Westminster regarded it as an untried experiment-perhaps many of them as a rather sentimental fad. In the course of time and ex- perience came the next Act of Parliament, the Criminal Justice Act 1925, and since 1925 you know better than anybody in the country how definite was the progress made in making the system better organised and in making it more comprehensive for the whole country. In more recent years came the Report of the Committee upon Social Services to which Miss Tuckwell has just alluded, with a num- ber of very valuable recommendations, all of which so far as I can judge we seem to be carrying one after another. In the course of this very interesting period of time this great new social service has come to be organised to the point at which it is now dealing with over 25,000 cases and to the point at which, whilst in the ten years previous to the last two years (that is previous to the two years that followed the Report of the Social Service Committee) about six probation officers were appointed each year, in the last two years the number has gone up to 50. I quote that fact for the benefit of the public out- side. You know all these details, but I want the public outside to realise how steadily the organisa- tion is developing and how that development is a direct result of the success that has attended your work during the 30 years in which it has been in existence. Not only public workers everywhere are witnesses to the value of your work but expert opinion after expert opinion also bears testimony to it. I take as an instance the report of the Prison Commissioners. The Prison Commissioners time after time draw attention to the value of the work and they draw attention particularly to the fact that still there is in the country a measure of ignorance about its value and that still in certain cases Benches Digitized from Best Copy Available

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