New Zealand. Committee of Inquiry into Mental Defectives and Sexual Offenders

“ Surely it is a kindly act to give the protective care of the State to those unfortunate persons who are unable to hold their own in the struggle for existence, and who, if left to their own devices, will fall miserably by the way and in many cases become a menace to society. ”

“ Murray, Medical Officer to the Mount Eden Prison at Auckland, who has had a good deal of experience with sexual offenders, said he had seen a good many flogged, and he did not think it had any effect as a deterrent. He added, "Nothing will deter men once they have taken on that line. I think you will find in some cases where a person has been addicted to those practices before marriage he will drift again into the same course after a certain number of years. It seems a perversion they have no control over, and after a certain number of years it masters them." ”

“ The Committee feel bound to refer to the great strides made during the last half-century towards establishing laws and theories of genetics and heredity. Unfortunately, terms such as the "integrity of the germ plasm" and "the Mendelian law," while marking great advances in biological thought and science, have become too much associated in the public mind with a depressing and fatalistic notion that heredity determines everything and that environment can play but a very insignificant part in human evolution, development, and progress—physical, mental, or moral. ”

“ The first most pressing and immediate practical duty of the Government and the community is to spare no pains to improve the status and environment of the family so as to promote the highest attainable standard of physical, mental, and moral health for the new generation—already in our midst or bound to arrive in the course of the next few years. ”

“ It is very important to remember that although propagation by defectives is one of the causes of mental deficiency, nevertheless this is by no means the only social menace attaching to their presence in the community. If left unguided and unprotected, their lack of stability and control may lead them to commit serious crime, such as theft, arson, assault, and even murder. Their inability to maintain economic independence results in vagrancy and destitution. Their helplessness in the face of obstacles frequently brings about their complete collapse at the first rebuff which they have to meet. ”

“ In this connection it is surprising to find that New Zealand is lagging behind in that in the laws relating to the punishment of crime hardly any distinction in procedure is made between the child and the adult. It is true, of course, that a practice has grown up whereby children are dealt with in the Police Courts at a time apart from the hearing of adult cases, but the procedure of the Criminal Court has been retained—i.e., the young delinquent is charged with an offence, is required to plead, and if found guilty is liable to conviction. ”

“ After everything possible has been done in the matter of education a large proportion, as they grow up, will be quite unable to hold their own in the world, and for their own protection and safety, and in the interests of society, must be cared for in some institution, where they may be kept usefully occupied in gardening or farming, or in some handicraft which will serve to keep them in health and help to recoup the State some part of the cost of their maintenance. ”

“ The Committee advocates powers of segregation and of sterilization, these powers to be placed in the hands of the Eugenic Board, under proper safeguards and the right of appeal.
Sterilization in suitable cases is not a high price to pay for liberty. There are in our mental hospitals to-day men and women who suffer from recurrent insanity, who are admitted to the mental hospitals from time to time and discharged when they are better, and in the intervals between their admission cohabit with their wives or husbands, as the case may be, and bring more defective children into the world. ”

“ There are, of course, numbers of mental defectives who can never be allowed their liberty, and in the case of these the question of sterilization need not be considered. There are many cases of mentally defective girls, liberated from institutions in New Zealand for the purpose of engaging in domestic service or other work, returning afterwards the mothers of illegitimate children, probably also mentally defective. Unless such are to be maintained for years as wards of the State in institutions, should they ever again be allowed their liberty unless they undergo the operation of sterilization? ”

“ For the purpose of the present inquiry we need merely state as a practical preliminary regarding heredity that it has been proved beyond question that if two feeble-minded persons marry they will most probably produce abundant offspring, of whom all may be subnormal, and a large proportion will become a burden on the State; and that if one such person is mated with a healthy individual an undue proportion of their children are likely to prove degenerate or defective, and the unsoundness will continue to make its appearance in succeeding generations. ”

“ Professor William MacDougall, the noted psychologist of Harvard University, speaking at Toronto recently in reference to the disregard of eugenic methods in America in maintaining and improving the national stock, said: "As I watch the American people speeding daily with invincible optimism down the path that leads to destruction I seem to be watching one of the greatest tragedies of history." ”

“ To any one who has seen a medical inspection of passengers arriving in an overseas vessel it is obvious that any degree of feeble-mindedness short of manifest imbecility or dementia would be liable to be admitted, and a good many cases of tuberculosis escape detection. Other countries are now alive to the importance of greater care being taken to guard against the admission of these who are likely to lower the mental and physical standard of the race, and in the opinion of the Committee stricter precautions should be taken in New Zealand. ”

“ In the opinion of the Committee it is of the utmost importance that mental defectives should be prevented from reproducing. No person who has been placed on the register should be allowed to marry until the Eugenic Board has given its consent by removing the name from the register.
It is altogether wrong to suppose that there is any unkindness in taking the feeble-minded, who are unable to battle for themselves, under the care of the State and preventing them from bringing forth another generation of defectives. ”

“ For the purposes of this Act,—
"'Feeble-minded child' means a child who, not being an idiot or imbecile or otherwise a proper person to be sent to an institution under the control of the Mental Hospitals Department, and not being merely backward, is by reason of mental or physical defect incapable of receiving proper benefit from instruction in an ordinary school, but is not incapable by reason of such defect of receiving benefit from instruction in a special school." ”

“ The special school is to be regarded as a training-centre for such feeble-minded children as are expected as a result of the training received there to be fitted to take a place in the community and to perform useful work under adequate supervision. There is a danger of filling the special schools with children whose poor mental endowment renders them incapable of receiving benefit at all commensurate with the energy and expense devoted to them. ”

“ Hawkins, Inspector of Prisons, whose experience extending over forty years in charge of prisoners in New Zealand makes his opinion of great weight, says there are two types of sexual offenders to be found in our prisons: First, there are those who yielded to sudden temptation, assaulted women or young female children, sometimes under circumstances exhibiting extreme brutality. In the majority of these cases, he says, the offenders are curable under a proper system of treatment, and it is seldom that they again offend. ”

“ There are well-known examples of men eminent in the arts and literature given to this unnatural practice, and of the offenders who come before the Courts only a small proportion can be described as feeble-minded. The practice is not confined to the male sex, although for reasons which will be apparent it is only males who come before the Courts charged with this specific offence. Many parents are unaware that girls as well as boys may contract bad habits and fall into sexual abnormalities, but it is a fact which they ought to know in order that the danger may be guarded against. ”

“ There is no doubt whatever that from the purely financial point of view it is very much to the interest of the community that this problem should be taken boldly in hand at once while the evil is within fairly manageable proportions, instead of allowing it to grow into an intolerable burden. ”

“ Sterilization gives the patient liberty to do useful work in the community, is less drastic than segregation for life, and on the whole a much slighter interference with the rights of the individual, which are surely subordinate in such cases to the rights of the State. ”

“ The laws of heredity, though as yet only partially determined, are already sufficiently ascertained to prove for practical purposes that, in order to promote integration and further progress in human evolution—not disintegration and degeneration—two things are essential and complementary. On the one hand, we must do everything possible in the direction of improving the nutrition, health, conditions of life, and habits of the community ”

“ As regards the suggestion that sterilization may lead to new foci of venereal disease, it must be borne in mind that the unsterilized feeble-minded are already prone to sexual promiscuity, and there is no evidence that sterilization would increase this tendency. The opponents of sterilization offer as an alternative only permanent segregation to prevent the transmission of mental defect. It is evident, however, that the cost of the segregation of all mental defectives capable of reproducing other mental defectives would be exceedingly heavy. ”

“ Such individuals should be segregated in farm and industrial colonies, so that not only is the community freed from the responsibility of their presence, but they themselves are afforded opportunity of leading much happier and more useful lives, and of becoming, to some extent, self-supporting.
All feeble-minded children within the community, whether in special classes, or on parole from an institution for the feeble-minded, or over school age, should be carefully supervised. ”

“ The Committee cannot ignore the fact that the leading medical and psychological authorities lay it down as an axiom that the power of self-control is at its highest when the individual is physically active, well-nourished, and in perfect bodily health, and that impaired control always accompanies impaired nutrition, debility, and disease. ”

“ Many feeble-minded individuals are capable of performing useful work, and provided they have no anti-social traits and can receive adequate care outside their permanent inclusion in an institution is undesirable, not only from consideration of their own well-being, but also from a social and economic standpoint. Many feeble-minded individuals are so dependent upon routine that having once been trained in the regular performance of simple duties they find difficulty in breaking their methodical programme. ”

“ The housing problem is still far from satisfactory; help in the home can scarcely be procured, and the rearing and care of children throughout the pre-school and school periods, in a large proportion of cases, is neither conducive to a high standard of nutrition, growth, and moral development, nor to the establishment of normal self-control, especially as regards sexual habits and manifestations. ”

“ The grosser bony deformities so often found in older lands associated with rickets are rarely seen in New Zealand, but less evident manifestations of faulty diet and regime are frequent. It is fortunate that in this country we cannot altogether escape, however we seek our pleasures in stuffy rooms or dark, ill-ventilated places of entertainment, those powerful and beneficial agents for promoting healthy growth—sunlight and fresh air. For the prevention of defect it is essential that the classroom should offer hygienic conditions—e.g., good lighting and ventilation, suitable furniture, &c. ”

“ Each case should be examined by a psychiatrist as well as by the Prison Medical Officer, and the length of the period of detention should be determined by the Prisons Board after looking into the nature of the offence and considering the report of the psychologist and evidence as to the conduct of the prisoner while under detention. In cases of the worst type the indeterminate sentence would doubtless resolve itself into detention for life.
At all costs the women and children of the community must be protected against this class of offender. ”

“ They fill our gaols, our hospitals, and our asylums, and, like a swarm of low parasitical organisms, they have, to an extent that is almost incredible, absorbed the outdoor relief that was meant for the self-supporting and struggling poor. ”

“ Such children are given a thorough physical examination, a careful psychiatric study, and an individual psychological examination, including a variety of psychological tests, not only to determine the child's intelligence rating, but, in so far as possible, his special abilities and disabilities. A social study is made of the child's home, school, and other environments to determine what factors may have unfavourably influenced the development of the child, and what forces may be utilized in securing the child's adjustments. ”

“ Untrained to perform the simple work which is within their power and in the achievement of which they might earn self-respect and happiness, they feel themselves to be aliens, and may cease to regard the laws of society in which they have no sense of membership. ”

“ Many children bring to school substantial "play-lunches" to be consumed at the mid-morning interval. Others consume large quantities of sweets. Healthy hunger they rarely know. A noteworthy fact is that in New Zealand the consumption of sugar per head per annum is 117 lb., as against rather more than half that quantity in Britain and much less in other countries. Apart from its directly deleterious influence on the teeth, the alteration of food values in the dietary necessitated by the inclusion of so much sugar results in digestive troubles and disturbed nutrition. ”

“ As a matter of fact, the school at Richmond has its full complement of pupils, and as many cases have now to be refused admission it is urgently necessary that other provision should be made, especially for the older girls needing custodial care.
Mention should also be made of a visit paid by the Committee to the industrial school at Caversham, which deals with girls and young women who have failed to make good when placed out under supervision in the community. There is a small clothing-factory attached to the institution, which provides useful employment for certain of the better-type girls. ”

“ The Department holds the view, shared by leading authorities, that home life, however humble, provided the foster-parents are suitable people, is better than institution life for the majority of the children who are cast on the State for sustenance and protection. The supervision of these cases, and the selection of employment for them when they become old enough, are carried out by the nurses, Managers of receiving homes, and Juvenile Probation Officers of the Education Department. ”

“ New Zealand is a young country already exhibiting some of the weaknesses of much older nations, but it is now at the stage where, if its people are wise, they may escape the worst evils of the Old World. ”