Attempts at treatment and training in correctional institutions have historically preceded the establishment of adequate diagnosis and treatment-planning. Mass work and socialization programmes have generally been instituted in the more treatment-focused correctional systems, not with any realistic assurance that they could be adapted to the individual needs of inmates, but rather because such programmes were considered worthwhile, per se. On the North American continent, new attempts have been made in the past twenty-five years to apply to corrections the principle long-recognized in other treatment fields, i.e., individual diagnosis as the prerequisite to effective treatment. This study briefly reviews the development of correctional classification (diagnosis and treatment-planning) up to the present time, and describes the many penological trends evidenced by this development, in keeping with the various influences of the humanitarians and social scientists. It is suggested, perhaps unconventionally, that the correctional classification process is actually the final step in a series of more general "classifications" by the police, the community, and so forth. Four contemporary classification systems selected for their progressive features are described in detail: (a) the British "Borstal" system, (b) the State of New York, (c) the State of Pennsylvania, and (d) the State of California programmes. These programmes were selected from a wider survey, using the American Prison Association's Directory of Institutions and Manual of Correctional Standards as the criteria for selection. Classification practice within the British Columbia Provincial Gaol Service is next examined and compared with the other systems outlined, for the purposes of assessing the comprehensiveness of the local service and suggesting changes for its improvement. Contributions to classification theory and practice made by social work and related disciplines are evidenced throughout the enquiry. From the systems surveyed, it is apparent that certain features of administration and process are common to all effective classification programmes. Most of these could be incorporated, with appropriate modifications, into existing practice within the Provincial Gaol Service. The possibilities of this development are assessed in the concluding chapter. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate

The purpose of this thesis is to explore, as far as possible, the human element in the process of judicial administration. It attempts to include some aspects, and the environmental situation, of several social groupings including the skid row habitue and the professional criminal. To this extent it tries to get a perspective relative to the intent of the offender. The paper also tries to develop a scope that relates existing machineries of judicial administration as they relate to the various offenders. The primary purpose is, through a general survey, to create questions rather than answer them. It is hoped that future research can and will be done in order to clarify the pertinent queries made. Among the questions indicated as badly in need of an answer are the possibility of a total change in the administration to answer the specific needs of the skid row unemployed or unemployable who may be totally accepting the present judicial syndrome to get subsistence and the effects of the process of admission into the city or provincial jail which may restructure an individual's self-image so as to alienate him from his original society and create a possible recidivist as he adapts to the jail or prison sub-culture. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate