This Act may be cited as the Crimes Amendment Act, 1910, and shall be read together with and deemed part of the Crimes Act, 1908 (hereinafter referred to as the principal Act).

This Act shall come into operation on the first day of January, nineteen hundred and eleven.

In this Act, unless a contrary intention appears,—

When any person is after the commencement of this Act convicted on indictment of any offence committed either before or after the commencement of this Act and punishable by imprisonment, or is after the commencement of this Act committed for sentence on a plea of “Guilty” under Part IV of the Justices of the Peace Act, 1908, in respect of any such offence, the Supreme Court or a Judge thereof before or to which or whom such person is convicted or committed for sentence may, if the said Court or Judge thinks fit, having regard to the conduct, character, associations, or mental condition of such person, the nature of the offence, or any special circumstances of the case,—

When any person is after the commencement of this Act convicted summarily before a Magistrate of any offence committed either before or after the commencement of this Act and punishable by imprisonment for more than three months, that Magistrate may, if he thinks fit, having regard to the conduct, character, associations, or mental condition of the person so convicted, the nature of the offence, or any special circumstances of the case,—

The jurisdiction conferred by this section upon a Magistrate shall not be exercised by any Justice of the Peace other than a Magistrate.

Every person sentenced by a Magistrate to a period of reformative detention may, at any time within fourteen days thereafter, apply ex parte to a Judge of the Supreme Court to review that sentence on the ground that the same is excessive or ought not to have been passed, and such Judge may thereupon either uphold or reverse the sentence or reduce the term thereof.

Nothing in this section shall in any manner affect any right of appeal against the conviction in respect of which a sentence of reformative detention is passed.

The Governor in Council may, with the concurrence of any two or more of the Judges of the Supreme Court, make rules governing the procedure in applications for review under this section.

Every person so sentenced to reformative detention for any period shall be detained in prison for that period, but subject to the provisions of this Act as to release on probation and discharge.

Every person who after the commencement of this Act is declared, in pursuance of the principal Act, to be an habitual criminal or an habitual offender shall, after the determination of the sentence of imprisonment passed upon him, be detained in prison under the provisions of this Act during the pleasure of the Governor.

Section thirty-two of the principal Act is hereby repealed.

Every person who before the commencement of this Act has been declared, in pursuance of the principal Act or of the Habitual Criminals and Offenders Act, 1906, to be an habitual criminal or habitual offender shall remain subject to the provisions of section thirty-two of the principal Act in the same manner as if that section had not been repealed, save that after the commencement of this Act no habitual criminal or habitual offender shall be discharged under the provisions of that section, and save also that after the commencement of this Act every prison shall be deemed to be a reformatory prison within the meaning and for the purposes of that section.

For the purposes of this Act there shall be constituted a Board to be called the Prisons Board.

The Board shall consist of not less than three nor more than seven persons.

One of those persons shall be a Judge of the Supreme Court, who shall ex officio be the President of the Board.

The members of the Board shall be appointed from time to time by the Governor in Council, and every person so appointed shall hold office for a period of three years, but may be reappointed.

The Governor may from time to time appoint any person to act temporarily as a member of the Board during the illness or incapacity of any member of the Board, or during the absence of any such member from any place at which a meeting of the Board is to be held. The acts of the Board shall not in any proceedings be questioned on the ground that the occasion for any such temporary appointment had not arisen or had ceased, or on the ground that any permanent member of the Board acted as such while a substitute for him so appointed remained in office.

Three members of the Board, of whom a Judge of the Supreme Court shall be one, shall constitute a quorum of the Board.

Meetings of the Board shall be held at such times and places as the President or the Board determines.

Subject to this Act and to regulations made thereunder, the Board may determine its own procedure.

The Governor may appoint such secretaries, clerks, and other officers as he thinks necessary for the conduct of the business of the Board and the administration of this Act, and may pay the persons so appointed such salaries as he thinks fit out of moneys appropriated by Parliament in that behalf.

It shall be the duty of the Board—

When the Board has, in accordance with this Act, recommended to the Governor the release of any person on probation, the Governor may, if he thinks fit, direct the release of that person accordingly.

Every such release on probation shall be granted either unconditionally or on such conditions as the Governor thinks fit to impose as to the subsequent good conduct of the person so released or as to any other matters.

When the Governor has so directed the release of any person on probation, a probationary license under the hand of the Minister of Justice, or of any person or persons appointed by him in that behalf, shall be issued to that person, which shall be in such form as the Minister of Justice thinks fit, and shall set forth the conditions (if any) so imposed by the Governor, and thereupon that person shall be released from confinement.

A probationary license granted under this Act may be at any time and for any reason cancelled by the Governor by warrant under his hand, whether the conditions thereof have been fulfilled or not, and thereupon the person so released may be arrested without warrant by a constable or any other person and returned to the prison from which he was released, or to any other prison.

If any person so released on probation commits any breach or non-observance of the conditions of his probationary license he shall be guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction by a fine of twenty pounds or by imprisonment for three months.

If any person so released on probation is thereafter convicted of any offence and sentenced to imprisonment, and the Governor has, whether before or after that conviction, cancelled the probationary license issued to that person, he shall on the determination of his sentence of imprisonment be returned to the prison from which he was released, or to any other prison.

No person who has been released on probation from reformative detention shall be returned to prison under the foregoing provisions of this Act after the expiry of his sentence of reformative detention.

Every person returned to prison under the foregoing provisions of this Act shall, subject to this Act, be detained during the Governor’s pleasure, but in the case of a person under sentence of reformative detention he shall not be so detained after the expiry of that sentence.

For the purpose of determining the date of expiry of any sentence of reformative detention, every period during which any probationary license has been in force shall be computed as part of the period of that sentence.

When the Board has, in accordance with this Act, recommended to the Governor the discharge of any habitual criminal, habitual offender, or person under sentence of reformative detention, the Governor may, if he thinks fit, direct the discharge of that person accordingly; and thereupon the declaration that he is an habitual criminal or habitual offender, or the sentence of reformative detention, as the case may be, shall cease to be in force.

If any habitual criminal, habitual offender, or person under sentence of reformative detention is convicted of any offence, he may be declared an habitual criminal or habitual offender, or sentenced to a period of reformative detention, in the same manner and in the same cases as if no such previous declaration or sentence had been made or given, and the previous declaration or sentence shall thereupon be deemed to be cancelled and determined.

If any habitual criminal, habitual offender, or person under sentence of reformative detention is at any time before the determination of his sentence of imprisonment sentenced to any term of imprisonment for any other offence, the period of his detention as an habitual criminal or habitual offender, or the period of his reformative detention, as the case may be, shall not commence until the expiration of every sentence of imprisonment so passed upon him.

Save so far as provided in this Act, reformative detention and the detention of an habitual criminal or habitual offender shall be deemed to be imprisonment with hard labour within the meaning of the principal Act, the Prisons Act, 1908, and all other Acts referring or relating to imprisonment.

Reformative detention and the detention of an habitual criminal or an habitual offender shall not be deemed to be imprisonment within the meaning of any statutory provision relating to the maximum periods of imprisonment for any offence.

Except so far as provided by regulations made under this Act, the provisions of the Prisons Act, 1908, and of the regulations made thereunder as to the remission of sentences by marks obtained for good conduct shall have no application to any period of reformative detention to which any person is sentenced under this Act.

Every person declared to be an habitual criminal or habitual offender, whether before or after the commencement of this Act, and every person sentenced to reformative detention for any period, shall, while the declaration remains in force or the sentence of reformative detention remains unexpired, be deemed to be a convict within the meaning and for the purposes of Part III of the Prisons Act, 1908 (relating to the administration of convicts’ property):

Provided that so long as any probationary license under this Act, or any order of discharge granted under section thirty-two of the principal Act before the commencement of this Act, remains in force with respect to any such person he shall be deemed to have ceased to be subject to Part III of the Prisons Act, 1908.

For the purposes of this Act a sentence of imprisonment shall be deemed to have determined so soon as the person so sentenced would have been entitled to have been set at liberty had he not been declared an habitual criminal or habitual offender or sentenced to reformative detention.

Persons undergoing any sentence, whether of imprisonment or of reformative detention, shall be employed in such labour as is prescribed by regulations under this Act or directed by the Minister of Justice.

Wages according to the scale prescribed by regulations under this Act for the class of labour in which any such person is employed may (subject to such regulations) from time to time be credited to him in an account to be kept by the Gaoler of the prison, and the amount from time to time standing to his credit shall be applied wholly or in part, as directed by the Minister of Justice, towards maintaining the wife and children (if any) of the prisoner during the period of his imprisonment or detention, and the balance (if any) standing to his credit on his release on probation or discharge shall thereupon be paid to him, either in a lump sum or by such instalments as the Minister of Justice directs.

All moneys so payable shall be paid out of the Consolidated Fund without further appropriation than this Act.

Section thirty-one and sections thirty-three to thirty-six of the principal Act are hereby repealed.

Every person who before the commencement of this Act has been declared to be an habitual criminal or an habitual offender shall, in pursuance of that declaration, be detained in a prison under the Prisons Act, 1908, instead of in a reformatory prison under the principal Act.

The Governor in Council may from time to time make such regulations as are deemed necessary for the effective administration of this Act.

Nothing in this Act shall be so construed as to limit or affect in any manner the Royal prerogative of mercy.