Chap. 18.—An ACT to amend and re-enact Chapter 404 of the Acts of 1918, ap-
proved March 23, 1918, entitled “An Act to provide for the examination and
punishment of persons convicted of prostitution, or of keeping houses of ill
fame or assignation, and for commitment of such persons to city farms or hos-
pitals.”, so as to include inmates of a house of ill fame and persons soliciting for
immoral purposes, and so as to prohibit, before conviction, the release on bail
before examination and before being pronounced not dangerous in the com-
munity on account of a venereal disease, of any person arrested on a charge

- of any such crime, and if not conyicted but found infected to provide for con-
finement of such persons and expense of such confinement. [S B 6]

Approved October 5, 1942

1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia, That chapter
four hundred and four of the Acts of nineteen hundred and eighteen, ap-
proved March twenty-third, nineteen hundred and eighteen, entitled “An
act to provide for the examination and punishment of persons convicted
of prostitution, or of keeping houses of ill fame or assignation, and for
commitment of such persons to city farms or hospitals.”, be amended and
re-enacted so as to read as follows:

Section 1. Any person arrested in this State upon a charge of
prostitution or of being a keeper or inmate of a house of ill fame, pros-
titution or assignation, or of soliciting for immoral purposes, shall be sub-
jected to a physical examination for contagious venereal disease by the
local board of health, of the county or city in which such person is being
held, or by a competent physician appointed and designated by the trial
justice or court of the county or city in which such person 1s being held,
and no person, whether convicted or not, shall be admitted to bail or
released until pronounced by said board, or physician, not dangerous
in the community on account of such venereal disease; provided, how-
ever, that such physical examination of every such person shall begin as
soon after the arrest as is reasonably possible not exceeding three days,
and shall be completed as soon as reasonably practicable.

Section 2. Any person convicted of being a prostitute, keeper or
inmate of a house of ill fame, prostitution or assignation, or soliciting for
immoral purposes, shall not be fined but shall be committed to a city
farm or hospital, as in the discretion of the court or justice is deemed
best or in case there is not a city farm or hospital in which such con-
victed person can be confined, such person shall be committed to jail.

Section 3. The judges and justices are authorized to commit, with
the consent of the farm board, persons convicted of being prostitutes,
or for keeping or conducting a house of prostitution or assignation to any
county or city farm established in accordance with an act approved
March fourteenth, nineteen hundred and fourteen, or any hospital for
the treatment of venereal diseases which have been or may be established
in this Commonwealth.

Section 4. The State Board of Public Welfare shall report to the
Governor all persons confined in the jails of the State for prostitution,
or for keeping a house of ill fame or assignation, and the Governor is
hereby authorized, with the consent of the farm board, to remove such
persons from the jails to city farms or other suitable institutions. And the
State shall pay to institutions receiving and caring for such persons the
same that the sheriff or sergeant was receiving for their keep in jails from
which they are removed.

Section 5. Whenever any person arrested and physically examined
as provided in section one of this act, is found to be infected with a
contagious venereal disease, the trial justice or other court in which the
charge against such person was pending or was tried, if such person be not
convicted of the offense charged, may order that such person be confined
in such manner as is provided for convicted persons so infected in sec-
tions three and four of this act, or in any other suitable place, and the
expense of such confinement shall be paid in like manner as for persons
confined pursuant to the provisions of said sections three and four.

2. An emergency existing, this act shall be in force from its
passage.