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73.
One comes with some reluctance to the view after studying these local
problems, and the attempts to alleviate them,that the hard core of these social
deviants will need the ultimate sanction of compulsory powers to remove them
from the community. The powers under the Mental Health Act 1959 are not
definable to include alcoholics, per se, and so often interpretation will
depend on the individual prejudices of the examining doctors. The Inebriates
Act 1898, which is still in force, contemplates the use of such powers
associated with the provision of retreats in which such persons can be placed.
Unfortunately,in this modern welfare state, attempts at rehabilitation of
the practically irredeemable are pursued, to a greater or lesser degree, by
altruistic bodies. Consequently, society never faces up to the inadequacy
of present legislation to remove from the community its social misfits. This
leads to further degradation in areas already overloaded with social problems.
Whilst this borough continues to have districts requiring, in the modern idiom,
urban renewal, it will be plagued with itinerant misfits. Rapid development
of derelict sites and the comprehensive, not sporadic,development of districts
will solve the local problem. The problem of these individuals themselves in
society will however remain. One is sorely tempted to put on parochial
blinkers in this regard having seen the nuisance and distress caused to the
citizens of the Borough by these unwelcome visitors.