The Diagnosis of Adolescent Mental Conditions, with Special Reference to Delinquents *This paper is published by permission of H.M. Prison Commissioners, but it must not be taken as necessarily representing their views.

In the work of a remand prison the diagnosis of mental conditions is of considerable importance. When there is reason for the opinion that a prisoner who is on remand or awaiting trial is insane or mentally deficient, it is important that the court should be informed of this fact, as it is undesirable for several reasons that he should be convicted and sentenced to imprisonment. He would prove unsuitable for ordinary prison discipline, and probably unable to perform prison labour, and would almost certainly require after conviction that certification which could more properly have been effected before. At the prison to which the writer is attached some 8,000 or 9,000 male prisoners are received annually, either on