AMERICAN PRISON LIFE

Hokitika Guardian, 7 January 1932, Page 2

AMERICAN PRISON LIFE

ENGLISH CRITICISM. WEAKNESS IN STAFFING. LONDON, November 10. Mr Alexander Paterson, one of his Majesty’s Prison Commissioners, gave a most interesting and comprehensive account at a luncheon of the Howard League for Penal Reform ol the American prisons he had visited during a tour in the United States. The first thing that impressed him, he said, was the number of the penal institutions' and thqir size. America has 3000 of them with an average population of half a million people. Making inquiries about the largo proportion of foreign names on tiie doros of the cells, he learned that they belonged, as a rule, to the ftre-t----born generation of immigrants, ordinary decent folk, who had not learned to speak English, but whose children, sent to schools staffed almost entirely by women and wheie ieligjon was not taught, became almost intoxicated with liberty and geew up with little respect for authority. In the industrial northern districts coloured people who had flocked there front the south presented a great problem. In ditricts where they formed 20 per cent, of the population he found prisons who I'd they formed a quarter of the population. Another great problem was due to the great number of laws and the heaviness of the penalties. fl Jn the United States,” he said, ‘‘there are many law besides Prohibition that have not received the acquiescence of the people. No social stigma attaches to breaking them. Men are serving five or ten years tor offences that would he met in this couiu.-y with six oi' twelve mon'ir-. .HI these problems have overfilled tin' prisons, and overcrowding accentuates every possible prison evil.” __ Mr Paterson visited the great' prison near Chicago a few hours before the riots occurred there. It was a bright, sunny day and the workshops were closed, hut the men were cooped up in their cells because it would have been dangerous to let such an enormous number out. He said that as he and •the warder talked they knew that mutiny was imminent. Immorality anct lack of employment were further inevitable results of overcrowding prisons, and it was impossible to treat any of the men as individuals.

PRISON STAFFS. In regard to their prisons Air Paterson said the Americans were very precise in detail but .'very vague in principle. They might intend to mend broken lives, but they were tempted to place too much importance on securing famous men. as wardens and on huge buildings. They tried to achieve spiritual results, by practical means“l always consider the prison staff as of first importance,” said Mr Paterson. ‘‘When visitors ask to gee our English prison system, I, say 1 am not sure that we have a system but we have a prison service and a /Borstal service, In the States they do not attach the great importance we do to having the right men and women in the prison service, in the great majority of the States, the wardens are appointed for political reasons and are changed when the party goes out. And because of his immense administrative duties a warden 'has lftt’te opportunity for -personal contact with the prisoners. The prison officers and guards are not given any training, they are not paid more than a lorry driver and they also are changed with a political ;change.”

Prison discipline seemed to be an extraordinary mixture of firearms and familiarity. A prison might have an arsenal of machine-guns and gas or tear bombs and ase them, but the guards would greet a prisoner familiarly with “ ’Morning, Bill.” Visiting a prison in which during a fire 300 prisoners shut in their cells had been burned to death, Mr Paterson found that in another block of the same prison the prisoners were perfectly free and unguarded, and that some of them went every day to the town hall, where they were employed :»s derks, returning to prison at at night, hi another prison a man serving a life sentence drove the warden's car. When Mr Paterson left, this prisoner -drove him to a town nearly 200 miles away and then went back to gaol. -

“REALLY TOUGH.” ‘‘The American prisoner is a very different person from ours,’ he said. ‘‘He really is -tough. He can hare, and very few of our men know how to hate. I think if they had some such system as we have of voluntary workers and teachers visiting them they would, not he so tough.” A refreshing fact he noted was that American prisoners were not too much alike. There was great variety in tlieir clothes, which they might huv from their wages. This difference in dress helped them to preserve their* individuality. The danger in our prisons was that the man who came in as a criminal might go out as a prisoner, whereas the American criminal remained a pc moil and not a prisoner. Another good point about American prisons worth noticing here was that they had different types of prisons, cells, and security. Only a minority of prisoners required the perfectly secure and therefore very expensive type. For others there were prisons of medium security, anil for others buildings that could hardly be described as prisons. “That is n very important principle,” said Mr Paterson, “and I hope in course of time we snail adopt it in this country far more than we 1 now do.” Referring to the work done in American prisons by psychologists and psychiatrists and the very careful examination and reports made when individual prisoners were received at the prison's-, Air Paterson said that very little seemed to be done after that in the way of treatment. Once the prisoner was handed over to the warders of an overcrowded prison no one had any time- to give him,

The prison hospitals were wonderful and splendidly equipped, but Mr Patterson suggested that the great sumo spent on medical services, ten times as much as is spent here, might he i advantageously expended on clas,?I rooms, playing fields, and chapels. He : described one vast American prison ! with 500!) prisoners, where there is a | great- hall used ceve' al days a week for ;cinema entertainments and periodically ' as a ehanel. ! He paid a high tribute to the women ; in charge of some of the women’s prison camps oi' cottage communities lie had seen, and said he thought the plan of putting women and girls together in some of the prison establishment's worked extremely well. It was considered unwise to put boy and men prisoners together, but the women seemed ■to have a good and sobering effect on the gills.