"HALF-WAY HOUSES"

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 231, 24 June 1919, Page 4

"HALF-WAY HOUSES"

! f " VIEWS"OF A MAGISTRATE., Further reference to the need for "halfway houses" for. the reception of certain classes of persons who figure- 111 tho Courts from time to time was made by Mr. F. V.'Frazer, S.M., at the Magistrate's Court yesterday, in a case in which a middle-aged 'man named James tarquliai' Ross was charged with vagrancy. •\ few days ago Ross was arrested for begging in Clyde Quay, the individual from whom he had solicited alms being a constable in plain clothes. He was remanded in order that the police authorities might see what could be done with him, and finally he was placed in the Dliiro Home. However, he refused to remain in thai, institution, and was again taken into, t nstodv on a charge of being a vagrant^ "This is still another case which points to the need for a 'half-way house,' ' commented Mr. Frazer. "The man was sent to the Ohiro Homo a few days ago 011 ft similar chai'£o> tut ho would not slay at the. home. He is not a criminal, and I don't (like the idea of sending him to gaol. If there were a. 'half-way hoti«e to which ho could 1)0 sent he would bo under care and would receive" the medical attention necessary. He would be able to learn a trade, or, at any rale. iO get some training in out-door l ") d there would then be a possibility that in the course of time he would Become a useful citizen, able to look after himself. If this man is allowed to go on as lie has done in the. past, lie will about aimlessly, dri/tin* from one place to another, dirty ami disputable and with no place to sleep, with tie lesult that ho will be found dead in (he sheet some morning. There are such homes in Eneland and America, though the hi\(,jisli homes are inlended for the treatment of meut-il cases in the main, and are rot nearly so wide in scope as the American institutions. T cannot let the man go nt this time of the year, and 1 think lhat the best .plan is <o sentence tall in a period of 18 months' reformative detention I will make a recoinincndntion Mint lie should be sent to an institution where lie will I)" "ble to learn some useful outdcor work."