PRISON REFORM.

Hokitika Guardian, 13 February 1923, Page 4

PRISON REFORM.

AUSTRALIAN VIEW OF NEW ZEALAND SYSTEM.

FAR AND AWAY AHEAD Of US.”

Wellington “Dominion.”)

•In the humanitarian movement of prison rclorni Now Zealand is fur anil away ahead of us in Australia, ’ says Sir William Sowclen, who, as an official Australian delegate, has been inspecting the prison system id the Dominion, Irotn which lie has gleaned manv valuable hints.

"You have the advantages of the Elmira movemeit. which you have carried further hv the use of com-mon-sense adaptations,” Sir William Sowilen said in an interview yesterday. ■ The man who deserved least of posterity I consider to he the inventor of the treadmill system, hv which the prisoner could see him.-eii Irani at work doing nothing. The cardinal note in your system is the creation of something, which is having a wonderful result on the morale of the tuau himself.”

"Mr Matthews, secretary to the .Minister of Justice, and Sir Francis Bell conducted me over the I’aparoa .settlement at Christchurch, where eight years ago an area of two and a half square miles of shingly land, covered hv four to six inches of alluvial mould, was taken over hv the Prisons authorities. There are now CIO men there. They have a garden, .0 dairy cows, ISO acres of lucerne, and they do their own cooking, and practically all their own work, no outside salaried labour being employed. The large pri on house was erected by them, and the uni k was dime bettor and more rapidlv than if done under ordinary industrial < oiidit ions. The men are Hell housed, and Ihc ventilation is

■V. h.ii struck me most, was the fact 1 !.;, l there is not an arm of any kind ear rieil hv those in charge. The men are placed on their honour, and the retiiiemeut of tact is shown by the fact rh.it the warder does not walk about in supercilious autiiorliy. hut takes

with the rest of the men. unarmed, working amongst men armed with sledge-hammers and other tools. In their quarters the men are encouraged to decorate their rooms. The general idea of creation was a great objectlesson to me. In Australia our system, with the exception of a relormalive clfort in New South Wales, is purely punitive, I am sorry to say. "Some time ago I inspected a large Japanese prison. Japan, of course, has had ihe advantage of our experience, and they have set up the principle that no mail shall ho allowed to leave prison until he has been taught, i! he did not already know, a means of earning an honest living. "(nether thing in which you lead is the probationary system. V e hio'c a st stem by which first offenders. subject 1.0 good behaviour, are iml imprisoned, bull wlmn I saw the principle applied here to second and third ru-

fenders, and flint the net rcsull-, are guild, it was quite an eye-opener te me. R is 'I, different to the old idea I hat d •> mill hit -I not hot , the 1.-w -.hoi,hi hit him in min i] t !"• -am'' wa v. and il is the ideal ol the buinainlarjan svstclu ol working oil the principle that whatever stage a man Inis readied lie cannot he said to he destitute cf honour, or incapable o! responding to it. The I’aparoa system of aecommoda I ion and t reatment seems ideal. Each man has more room than he would get in the bedroom of an average hotel, and there is plenty ol light. "There is onlv one thing that I can suggest that might he an iiupiovemeiil. and I eauimi he sure I lull something of the sort is not being alreadx done. If il, were done, it would haw to he done guardedly, of course. bin what seems to me lacking is the keeping of the men in touch with what is going on in the outside world. I comparison with the freedom allowed Tbe men in the fields, it is strange I think of a man with, say, seven years’ detention, being released with no mor b now ledge of interim events than a baby. In our own system a ■ •barged ten years’ sentence prisoner is a veritable llip Van Winkle in this