N.Z. PRISONS

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24909, 24 June 1946, Page 2

N.Z. PRISONS

Sir, —In his alarm over criminals, Mr Dallard gives no indication of how the prison system protects society from them. Criminals are still sent to prison camps, where they have ample opportunity of spreading “moral rot and contamination.” Is there any aspect of the penal system calculated to send them out less vicious or dangerous to society? If not, arß they not even more of a menace to society after release from prisons, which Mr Dallard wisely forbore to discuss? He was ‘‘urging a more wholesome and realistic attitude toward crime,” for which he 5s not responsible—not toward prisons, for which he is. Penal reformers are concerned that the men who so shock Mr Dallard’s soul should receive such treatment in prison that on release they will be an asset, not a menace to society. What is his penal system doing to this end?—Yours, etc., A. R. MALCOLM. Waimate, June 22, 1946.

Sir, —I congratulate Mr Dallard, Controller of Prisons, for his outspoken statement, with regard to the nambypamby attitude taken up by the public, against the poor criminal. A man commits a crime of an offensive nature against humanity, although he definitely states in Court that while under the influence of intoxicating liquor he had no recollection of the personal offence with which he is charged. However. it is to be observed, that the drunken culprit always appears to be sharp and clear enough in the up-take to gain his objective while under the. so-called influence of liquor.—Yours, HYPOCRITICAL AND COWARDLY SHAM. June 21, 1946.