Out of
121,461 in the Police Courts, 6,377 were conditional, and there
were 49 relapses.
The proportion for various offences was approximately the same as
in the previous year.
These figures, it is true, do not tell us much about the
effects of conditional sentences in Belgium, as we might expect
from the brevity of the experiment; so that the question still
remains in the theoretical phase.
The statistics of the Massachusetts probation system are not much
more instructive.
According to the decennial report (1879-88) of Mr. Savage,
probation officer at Boston, imprisonment was remitted in the
county of Suffolk (including Boston) to 322 persons in 1879 and to
880 in 1888; whilst the number officially recorded for the
following year was 994. In the course of ten years the probation
officer inquired into the cases of 27,052 persons liable to
supervision. Of these, 7,251 were put on probation, and 580 were
deprived of the benefit of the law.
The grounds on which the probation system was applied in
Massachusetts were strikingly different from the circumstances
under which conditional sentences were recorded in Belgium. Thus
in Boston there were put on probation, between 1879 and 1888,
3,161 persons charged with drunkenness for the first time, 222
charged with habitual drunkenness, 211 with drunkenness for the
third time, 958 with theft, 764 with solicitation, 470 with
inflicting bodily harm, 274 with disorderly conduct and idleness,
240 with violation of domicile, especially with intrusion in
business premises.
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