ON PROBATION

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 309, 25 September 1919, Page 6

ON PROBATION

EXPERIENCE AMONG PRISONERS. Tho report for 1918-19 of the honorary probation officer for Wellington (Mr. T. P. Mills) is included in the prisons report, submitted to Parliament yesterday. Jtr. Mills states that there were seventeen offenders on the register at the beginriing of the year, forty wore placed on probation, and eleven wero transferred from other districts, sixty-eight in all passing through his hands during, the year. Fivo completed the period of their probation satisfactorily, twenty-ono were transferred, to'other districts, four left ( the Dominion with the' Expeditionary Forces, three received sentences of imprisonment, leaving thirty-five ''on tho register at March 31, 1919. Two only of those imprisoned lapsed into criminal ways; a third refused to obey orders as a conscientious objector in camp, and was sentenced at a court-martial. The first two were both mental weaklings, and may nevor reform. "In quite a number of cases under re: view men whose characters lliave not been altogether unblemished • have Ijeen extended probation," adds Mr. Mills. "This certainly increases the task of supervision, but on the whole the Courts' leniency has been amply justified, for in a period extending over almost tihree years there havo been only two distinct cases of failure, the total nujiiber passing through my hands being 11G. ..Outside those, who have been granted probation, there are over thirty on Sny lists who have been convicted and ordered to come up for sentence when called'upon, and placed under my supervision. Only ono of these has lapsed into criminal ways, thus' emphasising the advantages of extending th» benefits of the probationary system."