PAY FOR CONVICTS

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 11, 6 October 1937, Page 5

PAY FOR CONVICTS

Effects of Pocket Money in Dartmoor PLAN TO HUMANISE GAOLS LONDON, Sept. 30. Three hundred Dartmoor convicts received their first payment under the new wages system to-day. Some broke down and wept. Many of them were handling money for the first time in a lorig period of penal servitude. Ninety per cent of those paid ordered tobacco and pipes. But so unaccustomcd to smoking had they become, Ihat a numbcr became sick within half an hour. Non-smokers bought srnall quantities of jam and butter and other provisions not included in the gaol diet. Britain 's new humane prison system, designed to restore tho self-respect of cohvieted moa, has proved most succosiiul. Tho system is one of granting prrvileges whioli are lost by bad behavlour rather thau holding out indefinite h-'pe of rewards. Thus prisoners for th° first time are givon the opportunity of earuing wages which may bo spcnt upon imnir luxuriee. The Home Secretary, Sir Samuel HoarA explains that there are two oieth«ls open to prison authorities: — (1) To make prison conditiona so rigid and conditions so inhuman that it may be boped that prisoners, after one experience, will be deterred from runuing the risk of a second. (2) To attempt to restore lost selfrespect and to build up the character of the transgressor. The first method has not succeeded, Sir Samuel Hoare says, but he points to iigures to prove that the second has redueed the number of kabitual criminals.