THE NAPIER GAOL.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1595, 31 March 1879, Page 4

THE NAPIER GAOL.

[" Daily Telegraph."] At the present time, the Napier Gaol contains forty-four prisoners, for the accommodation of whom there are twelve large and two small cells. Amongst the forty four are three young boys, and these are locked up in the female ward at night. This ward contains three cells and a day room. There are no female prisoners. The case was very different last year when there were over sixty male prisoners and six females. All the wards wer filled, and the men had to sleep in the passages. To what extent prison discipline could have been made of a reformatory character under these circumstances we may leave our readers to judge. Under any circumstances, however, a gaol in which the prisoners cannot be classified is no place for mere children such as the three small boys now incarcerated at Napier. Any sudden influx of prisoners would make it necessary that those boys should be herded with the men, and it is a disgrace to the colony that such should have to be the case. With the not too nice discrimination that is shown in the selection of emigrants at home and with the inefficient prison arrangements in the colony, it may almost be said that weare layingthe foundation forafuture criminal population. With human nature such as we find it, there must needs be a certain proportion of juvenile offenders, and youthful waifs and strays of Bociety for whom provision of some sort must be made. It is simply disgraceful that the only provision we can find for them here is the common gaol, from whence they must issue with worse characters than they had on being convioted. If in the enjoyment of perfect liberty it has come down to us as a truism that " evil communications corrupt good manners," how much more so must it be true in the case where there is no opportunity of communicating with anything but what is evil ? The very gravest responsibility, therefore, rests with our magistrates in their dealings with young criminals and vagrants. One of the three small boys of whom we have spoken has been sentenced to six months' imprisonment for petty larceny. His parents are respectable, but the boy is incorrigible, and it was as far as possible toiaro

him from himself that he was sent to gaol. The youDg prisoner Is a bright intelligent boy, who, under proper training, would most probably become a useful member of the community. His home training has proved a failure ; the question is into what will he develop after a course of gaol discipline ? The obvious place for him was a reformatory or a training ship. What is urgently needed is a central reformatory to which such boys could be sent, where they could be tnught useful trades, or drafted to training ships according to the bent of thoir desires. It is as useless from a reformatory point of view to compel boys to becomo sailors, if they have no natural liking for the sea, as it is to send them to gaol where they loam nothing. The constant desertions from the training ships offer an example of the truth of what we state. At the expiration of their term of service those bojs ate thrown back on Bociety with such a hatred for ships that they will never go on board of one again. A central colonial reformatory would obviate any mistake of this kind, and boys would be trained according to their temperament.