PRISONERS AT TRENTHAM

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 212, 2 June 1919, Page 6

PRISONERS AT TRENTHAM

SHORT-TERM MEN ONLY.

The proposal of the Justice Department to use an area of land at Trentham, for prison purposes applies, it is explained officially, to some short-term prisoners of the kind at present employed at. tho Mount' Cook prison reserve. Steps; ara being taken to erect temporary cell buildings for the accommodation of a limited number of short-sentence prisoners some distance at the back of the Trentham encampment in one of the side gullies leading from the swamp areas. When th» necessary buildings have been provided the prisoners will be employed draining the swamp at Trentham ajid generally improving the Government property in that locality. There is no mention o1 placing the prison buildings or a camp on the frontage of tho property within ■a mile of the railway line. The section facing the Horetaunga railway station has merely been reserved as an entrance section, and will not be utilised for the prison buildings. At the present time the only prisoners employed there are a few men who have been sentenced to imprisonment with hard labour by the Military Courts. There aro no civil prisoneiG. It was intended, the authorities explained on Saturday, to improve tho property by drainage, alteration, and some reafforestation'. At presont nine-tenths of tho land was unfit for any purpose, but the prison labour would ftring it to the point of usefulness. The Department was only crecting temporary buildings, and was building them in such a way that they could be removed at any timo to any other area that might bo selected by tho Government for improvement by prison labour. Thorc was no intention at the present time of erecting a big permanent building.'