Treatment of Young Prisoners.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 296, 19 June 1895, Page 2

Treatment of Young Prisoners.

Francis Abigail, ex- Minister of the Crown, recently released from prison in Sydney, has addressed a letter to the Sydney Daily Telegraph, in which he strongly attacks the system of dealing with juvenile criminals. The Minister of Justice, in consequence called for a report on the methods employed in the gaols for the reformation of young offenders. First offenders, the report states, are purposely subjected to short and sharp sentences in order to give them a wholesome fear of prison life, and the principle of separation is rightly enforced for reformatory reasons. Dr Vedditte, visiting surgeon to the Parramatta Gaol, in an interview, said he concurred with everything in the statement by Mr Abigail. " I have opposed the system of treating juveniles since it was 'first introduced. It is cruel, inhuman, and stupid. We have boys here from sixteen years and upwards, sent in under orders for solitary confinement and I really do not think magistrates have tbe slightest inkling of what they are doing. At the time of life that these boys should be building up bone, muscle, and brain, they are sent in here, and would actually (if I carrfed out the strict provisions of the Act) be starved, with the result that they must either become habitual criminals or dwindle away." -Post.