JOYS OF SING SING.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 4993, 28 June 1926, Page 4

JOYS OF SING SING.

WORK LESS THAN FREE MEN;

THEATRES AND SHOWER BATHS.

Why in a single year there should be 12,000 murders in the United States while there are only 140 in Great Britain is a question which American publicists are discussing with increasing alarm.

Every year, it seems, the chances a murderer in the United States has of escaping scot free are multiplying with terrifying rapidity. Thirty years ago one man was hajhged to eve.ry sixteen murdered. To-day the odds in favour of the murderer are 110 to 1. In Chicago the situation is infinitely worse. It is estimated that in that city 30,000 professional criminals arc permanently at large. THE CRIMINAL’S LOOPHOLES. Not only in murders, but also in crimes of violence of every description, the American record is. sensationally greater than that of Great Britain. It is conceded that compared with British methods of criminal juiispiudence. those of the United States/ are amazingly lax. The American criminal has many advantages which the British criminal doesi not enjoy. He is able to arm himself with ease. He has a.t his beck and call expert practitioners of the law whose, sole aim seems to be the exploitation of its innumerable loopholes for the frustration of justice. When arrested i e can always, on payment of a fee, sectile. bail from a surety company. He can delay his trial on a thousand and one ingenious pretexts while employing his liberty, a,s often as not, for the commission of new crimes. And when he appears in court he can, through his' own counsel, secure a jury largely of his own choosing. And when he is convicted he can, thanks to the laws framed for the protection of .the individual a hundred years ago, carry appeal a£ter appeal based on the most trivial grounds to the Higher Courts without thereby lengthening his eventual term of imprisonment. RELEASED “ ON PAROLE.” When finally he goes to gaol he does so in the confident expectation of serving less than half his sentence, for he can be —and in ,a large percentage of cases* is-released on parole by the Parole Boards, and if this source of relief fails him he can rely on enjoying the full benefit of an indeterminate sentence the minimum of which is never more than half the maximum prescribed by the law ; and to this benefit is added further mitigations in the shape of “commutation” and “compensation for services rendered.” It is true that not all American gaols are conducted on philanthropic lines. In many of them, indeed, the system is extraordinarily harsh and is credited by reformers with converting the youthful criminal into a hardened enemy of society. But in many of the leading penal institutions' o, the country the idea of reforming the criminal by soft treatment has been given full sway for a number of yearsHence the contention that punishment cf crime in America does not punish.

In Sing Sing, the great convict gaol of New York States for instance, the inmates until quite recently were allowed, if they had the wherewithal, to purchase their own food a : nd to have it specially cooked and privately served. All kinds of entertainment are provided to relieve the tedium of their ineajrceration. They have theii own baseball grounds equipped with ■a flue grandstand, whence they can witness the prowess of their own teams in competition with visiting teams.

The best theatrical shows -aye performed for their amusement once a, Aveek, and almost very night they are able to visit the picture house. Their hours of work are shorter than those of the ordinary working man, and after their labours shower baths are piovided to freshen their bodies before the evening meal.