PRISON POPULATION.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 4955, 24 March 1926, Page 4

PRISON POPULATION.

DECREASE IN BRITAIN.

DISCLOSURES OF STATISTICS.

A L remarkable decrease in the prison population of Britain has just been made known. Twenty-five English prisons have been closed since 1914—nearly one-half of the complement. The women’s wingis of these remaining gaols are closed, while a majority are by no means full. A detailed examination of the 1925 statistics as compiled for year-book purposes supports the foregoing statement. Comparing the 1913-14 period with the 1923-24 period, it is shown that in respect to the number of prisoners, drunkenness' has fallen from 51,851 to 11,4'25; begging and sleeping-out, from 15,019 to 3046; breaches of police regulations, from 8661 to 1778 ; prostitution, 'from 7952 to 1209 ; assaults, from 8666 to 3083 ; larseny, embezzlement, etc., from 19,126 to 12,129; burglary, from 1960 to 1734 ; murder, maiislaughter, wounding, from 474 to 445. It will be noticed that under the last two headings there has been comparatively slight diminution, which suggests that the decline in serious crime is a much slower process than in the other classes of offences against the community. The marked decrease in the latter case is no doubt due to the general improvement in social conditions due to higher wages and the spread and influence of education.

The downward tendency as, revealed in the statistics of the prison population of New Zealand is not so marked. In the report* presented to Parliament last session there is a table showing ■ “the distinct persons imprisoned after convictions during each of the last ten years.” This embrace'll the peroid 19.15-1924. At the beginning of the, decade the number stood at 3039, or a proportion of 26.44 per 10,000 of mean population. From 1915 till 1919 there was a steady decline, to 1833, or 15.37 per 10,000’. From 1920 till 1924' the figures rose slowly from 1955 to '2405 —15.74 to 17.78 pel 10,000. That is to say, although the difference between the 191'5 figures and those for 1924 represents a fall of 8.66 per 10,000', the later statistic are on the rise. x

The Controller-General of Prisons, commenting on the figures, points out that there were fewer offeSiders under the age of. twenty than in 1922 or 1923, but as a set-off against this there was a marked increase in the number of .offenders over the age of forty. “It is difficult to' account for the increase in the’ older offenders,,” he says, “more particularly as a large proportion of them had not previously been convicted of any offence. ... lt\ is evident that crime in proportion to the population is not increasing.” , This latter observation does not quite square with the statistics, quoted ’’above,' but no doubt the Con-troller-General wap the situation by and large. The figures are worth watching, however, . for if the rise continues some inquiry. into the contributory causes’ should he made.