Hitherto our Annual Reports have been in respect of the financial year which runs from the 1st April to the 31st March, and our last Report was in respect of the twelve months ended 31st March, 1926. As, however, the annual volume of Criminal Statistics is compiled in respect of the calendar year, it has been decided that it will be more convenient for purposes of statistical comparison that the Annual Report of the Prison Commissioners should also be made in respect of the calendar year. Accordingly, the Report now submitted covers the twelve months ended 31st December, 1926. Those statistical tables, however, which summarise the value of prison labour, and give particulars of expenditure, can only be compiled in respect of the financial year, and these tables relate to the twelve months from 1st April, 1926 to 31st March, 1927. In the last report and the preceding reports information has been given as to the policy which the Commissioners are pursuing and as to any important changes or developments in the prison system. In the last nine months of the year 1926 progress was made along lines indicated in previous reports, but there were no special changes calling for comment in the present Report. I. PRISON POPULATION. The following table shows the numbers of receptions into prison; these are not necessarily the numbers of individuals received. In the local prisons, which contain most of the persons in custody (8,109 out of the daily average of 10,860 in the year under review), the total of receptions is always greater than the total of individuals received, because many persons are received more than once during the year. The number of receptions of prisoners under sentence was as follows: Of these prisoners, the number who also received a sentence of Preventive Detention was: 17 in 1926 and 22 in 1925-26. There was an increase in the total number of receptions into prison under sentence as compared with the previous year, of 1,474, as compared with a decrease last year of 882. The next table shows the total number of receptions into prison on conviction (excluding Court Martial cases) during the year under report, as compared with the numbers since the beginning of this century : The next table shows for the past four years the number who were received after conviction (a) for indictable, (b) for nonindictable offences, distinguishing between men and women : Next follows the number of receptions on conviction per 100,000 of the population of the country for each of the periods mentioned in the last table. The population figures on which this calculation is made are those given in the latest revised estimate issued by the Registrar General : The daily average population of the prisons and Borstal Institutions was 10,860. The following table gives the analysis, and compares it with that of the previous year : The total daily average population for each year from the last year of the war onwards has been as follows: Remands. The number of persons received on remand who, after production at Court, did not return to prison on the same charge, was 5,429, as against 6,620 last year, or a decrease of 1,191. Debtors. The total number of persons received into prison who were treated under the rules for debtor prisoners was as follows during the past four years : We next give an analysis of offences, the figures for the previous year being given for comparison : |