FEWER IN GAOL

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 71, 10 April 1937, Page 5

FEWER IN GAOL

-Press Aasociation.)

Prison Population Lowett (or Year* TOO FEW FOR WORK DONE

(Bjr Telegraph-

WELLiLN GTUN, Dast JNigUt. "This is one State Department where diminution of business is the criterion of success," said Mr B. L. Dallard, Controller of Prisons, at the annual meeting of the women 's branch of the New Zealand Borstal Association, when referring to the fact that the prison population at present was lower than for several years. Mr Dallard said that the tatai number of inmates was a shade over 800. A few years ago it had bean fcetween 1500 and 1600. Authorities were finding it difficult to carry on the prison industries with the. smaller total of inmates. The Minister of Justice, the Hon. H. G. Mason, expressed pleasure at the decline in the prison population. He emphasised the importance of caring for prisoners when they left the institutions after serving a sen. tence. He commended the women 's branch of the Borstal Association for its work in this conneetion. Whatever 'was done in the prisons themselves, in restoring inmates to good citizensMp, waa relatively notMng to the jmportan.ee of caring for; the prisoners at the moment when they stepped but as free men and women frqm- the gaols and borstal institutions.