PRISON REFORM.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2527, 23 March 1871, Page 2

PRISON REFORM.

This question is occupying a good deal of attention just now, espeeiilly in the Province of Auckland. On the occasion of the March criminal sessions there, Chief Justice Arney referred to it in these terms ; “ "Vou will find, however, when you refer to your calendar, that it presents one or two features which raise the question, whether the system of punishment that is carried out in the cases of a large number of crimin vis—the hardened criminals at all events ought not to he more severe than that which has been hitherto adopted. This is suggested by the fact that, although y u have so long a list of indictments, yon have in truth only thirteen piisoners whose cases will be 1 r .night before you, and it will he found that more than one-half of that number are persons who have been previously conviete', and some of these have been punished so fre quell*ly as to afford proof that the punishment has had very little effect upon then. One cannot, therefore, help th nking that some more corrective process should he applied so as to make such persons fee! the consequences of their crime. C'f thirteen pci, sons charged with crime, seven of them have been previously convicted. There is one person accused of no less than seven different charges. The discovery of six of th •in arose out of his being accused of the seventh and inquiry being instituted by the police into that offence, which was most recently committed. It was then discovered that there was sufficient foundation for laying no less than seven distinct offences to the charge of this same person, and if these off nccs. or any considerable portion ol them, should be proved to have been committed by the accused, the fact will show that he must have been living by a systematic course of c, ini''."

In his*charge to the Grand Jury of Christchurch, Judge Gresson alluded to the fact «f seven cases of murder and two of wounding with intent to murder having occurred in the original province of Canterbury within the short space of three months, and that the expense incurred in 1869 in the punishment anti repression of crime in the Colony had amounted to 1.80,000, as pointing to the necessity for all persons in the enmnnnity interested in the welfare of the Col ny, e0..-

sidcring anxiously what are the causes of so much crime, lii making that enquiry it would occur to all that one obvious cause of much of the crime was drunkenness, but to that question he did not wisli to call particular attention as it was already much before the public. What he wanted to refer to was that which had been almost al ogether lost sight of lately—the urgent necessity that exists for providing a penal establishment for the Colony. “If,” observed his Honor, “the large amount of indebtedness of the colony be urged as an objection to the formation of a penal establishment, it may be answered that such an institution would be in a sense reproductive, inasmuch as it would tend to prevent the spread of crime, which it has been shown is excessively costly, and the seeds of which are constantly being sown in each of the gaols of the colony, through contact of the comparatively innocent with hardened offenders. If such an establishment were formed the provincial gaols of the colony, with slight

alterations, might he made suitable for the accommodation of the prisoners who would be confined iu them ”

The Grand Jury, in their presentment, stated “ their opinion that the present system does not check the extension of crime, which is, of course, th; object of the punishment inflicted by the law. The Grand Jury would respectfully suggest that the punishment for crime should be moi’C deterring. The establishment of a central gaol in which prisoners could be classified, and their time employed in labor at some useful industry, would undoubtedly, in the opinion of the Grand Jury, tend to reduce crime in the Colony ; and they fully indorse your Honor’s views, that a portion of the earnings of prisoners should be set aside for their benefit when leaving prison, which would be used to best purpose iu providing the means of passage to some other locality where, unknown as criminals, they might have a chance of retrieving their characters by honest labor. The Grand Tury fully a-rec with your Honor that much of the crime in the Colony results from intemperance, but they are unable to sugge t any immediate practical remedy for this great evil; they can only express a hope that the Legislature will shortly provide some means by which the sale of spirituous liquors, at present apparently unlimited, may be effectually cheeked and reduced. ’