of public hysteria and press ballyhoo over series of unsavory sex crimes. Act provided that if court feels any person convicted of indecent assault, incest, assault with intent to commit sodomy, solicitation to commit sodomy, assault with intent to ravish or rape, etc., constitutes (if at large) a threat of bodily harm to members of the public, or is an habitual offender and mentally ill, the court may order an indeterminate sentence, following a complete psychiatric exam, of from one day to life, in an institution where treatment' is presumed to

Occur.

Hawkins' article was occasioned by Judge Soffel's ignoring the BarrWalker act when sentencing a 21yr-old West Virginian to 2-to-5 years for several acts of indecent exposure, over protests of one of the offended girls' parents-who said such men should be kept permanently off the streets.

Hawkins said the Barr-Walker act was in general judicial disfavor, because it was superfluous legislation, and since, under the act, psychiatrists could usurp the judicial function and dismiss a prisoner within a few weeks, as "no longer a menace," and because the state which has sufficient diagnostic centers, lacks facilities for treatment.

Of course the assumption that sex variant behavior, whether or not it constitutes a social nuisance or a real menace, is presently ame-

nable to therapeutic treatment merely because an ignorant legislature prescribes such "cures" is the chief flaw in this logic. At any rate, Hawkins concluded, "Pennsylvania is still a long way from solving the problem of the sex offender, if indeed it can be solved through legislation."

Calif just missed getting a major revision of its infamous catchall "vagrancy" law. Loosely worded to allow greatest freedom of action to police, the present law permits. arrest of almost any person without charge of specific act, if that person seems to police to be of "lewd or dissolute character" or associates with such characters, or is loitering in a public place, or has no visible means of support (in cases on record, including Bunny Breckenridge, even a millionaire may lack "visible" means of support) etc. The new bill, which passed the legislature overwhelmingly some time ago (but with a technical flaw in its passage) limited vagrancy to four closely defined acts. Governor Brown vetoed the bill, because, he said, it removed police control from certain dangerous conduct. Los Angeles Dep. City Atty. Robert Burns had complained, when it looked as if the bill might become law, "Homosexuals could not be arrested unless caught in the act in a public place, and prostitution charges could only be leveled if money exchanged hands."

And wouldn't that be a shame?

PLAN FOR FINANCIAL FREEDOM

ZERE

by Charles K. Robinson

All of us want security. Security for most of us is money, especially for those who work five days a week.

The homosexual has a more urgent need for security or financial inde-

one