The Feilding Star. Published Daily TUESDAY, SEPT. 5, 1893. DIMINUTION OF CRIME.

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 57, 5 September 1893, Page 2

The Feilding Star. Published Daily TUESDAY, SEPT. 5, 1893. DIMINUTION OF CRIME.

The report of the Inspector of i'risons for tho year ended 3 1st December, 1892, is now beforo us. It states that the First Offenders' Probation Act continues to work satisfactorily. No deaths have occurred during the year in any of the prisons, though several cases of delirium treuiens of a serious nature were treated, and each case cured. In this connection, however, one of the gaol surgeons reported : " I hope soon to see some arrangement come to with regard to inebriates. It is hard for our officers to do night duty ovur them, when wo have public hospitals with night nurses on duty. Every hospital should bo provided with a refractory ward, where delinous, inebriated, or lunatic patients could and should bo treated until otherwise disposed off." There is sound common-sense as well as humanity in this recommendation. There were no death seutences passed in 1892, or executions. According to figures supplied by the RegistrarGeueral, the population of tho colony was at the end of the past year 368,007 males, and 32-1,419 females, a total of 692,420 persons, while tho number of prisoners at tho same date was 435 males aud 42 females, a total of 477 persons. Tho average percentage of prisoners according to population was therefore "069, a decrease of '01 as compared with the previous year. Tho receipts and credits for prison labor, etc.. amounted to £6,899 15s 6d, a decrease of £316 68, as compared with the previous year. Special attention is directed to the fact that during the year twelve infants under the age of ten years have been confined in the prisons of the colony. These children were, of course, kept separate from tho adults, but it is considered that it is nothing less than a grave scandal that the prisons of the colony should be used for the incarceration of those who are better fitted to be cared for in a nursery than placed in the cells of any prison, the moral atmosphere of which can only lead to their becoming hardened criminals, and there can be no doubt that the result of this misguided treatment of young persons will make its mark to the detriment of tho colony in future years. Comment is made on the steady diminution of the number of prisoners with the corresponding increase of population, aud it is considered the significance of these figures, as a practical test of the preventive and punitive measures in force in tho colony, cannot be overrated. Whether the report for 1893 will be as favorable remains to be seen, but we very much doubt if it will bo so, owing to the very undesirable class which has been attracted to this colony from other countries during the present year.