GAOL CHAPLAIN SPEAKS OUT.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 892, 11 August 1910, Page 4

GAOL CHAPLAIN SPEAKS OUT.

NEW LIGHT ON "HABITUALS." . i - 'Br TelccraDb—Press Association.! . Auckland, August 10. • Speaking .on. the prison reform scheme to-day the Eev. E. C.Budd, local gaol chaplain, expressed hiniseli' in . entire agreement witli the effort towards tue better classification''' of prisoners, and stated that the construction ot prison buildings and the inadequate supervision had been largely responsible ior_ tiio want of classification in the past. Speaking of the proposal to introduce the principle of the indeteruiinato sentence .in the cases of young and lirst offenders,. Sir.' liudd said that ho emphatically protested against this. "It is no breach of confidence to say," he continued, "that the Habjtiial Criminals and Offenders Act is being administered most unsatisfactorily. There are two outstanding features in' this law: One is that a habitual criminal shall, after serving a sentence, bo sunt to a reformatory prison for reformatory treatment, and the other that he shall not be released until it is clearly proved that ho is a changed man, and on longer a menace to society. Both these principles are being completely ignored. The 'habituals' receive no reformatory treatment whatever, and their release docs not depend upon their reformation, but upon their importunity, or outside inflwouces or a promise to leave the Dominion.'' r '