The author then goes on to argue that the divide between a two-year sentence of imprisonment in a local prison and a three-year sentence of penal servitude in a convict establishment was by the time of writing a completely arbitrary one the two systems had become virtually indistinguishable in terms of their ambitions and objectives. Edward Shortt's proposal was never taken up by Lloyd George's coalition government which itself collapsed in the following year due to the withdrawal of Conservative support. ![]() ![]() He or she was clearly in favour of its abolition, which had been recently and tentatively proposed by the then Home Secretary, Edward Shortt MP KC, simply stating that: ‘From the standpoint of scientific criminology, it is not only anomalous, but illogical’ (p.40). ![]() The author was clearly extremely critical of penal servitude, claiming that ‘this artificial system still deals with a higher percentage of recidivists than any prison system in the world’ (p.40). In an anonymous article entitled ‘Should penal servitude be abolished?’ (Anon 1921), published in the first volume of the Howard Journal, the author in fact poses two separate questions: first, whether the system of long-term imprisonment known as penal servitude was fit for purpose and second, whether or not determinate sentences should be replaced by indeterminate ones in the form of what was known as preventive detention.
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