PRISON CONDITIONS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 146, 12 February 1932, Page 4

PRISON CONDITIONS

[ Some time ago an English visitor to New Zealand con- j tributed to the "Empire Reviqw" on his return a very flattering ^ tribute to our penal system. The British system, although in re- ! c-ent years showing signs of the influence of progressive agitations for penal reform, still retains many of the features of the j Jblarly Victorian attitude toward the malefactor. Dartmoor ITison i is one of them. Its anaehronistic character is emphasised in the report of the Commissioner appointed to investigate the recent riots, and in the statement by the Home Secretary in the House of Commons, it is reported that its partial discontinuance as a prison had been uncler consideratiorf before that event occurred. Reforms in Britain move slowly, and each successive stage is usually stimulated by some outbreak of feeling that arouses public attention and moves Goveriiment to action. That is partly due to the inherent conservatism of British people, their dislike of change, and their suspicion of reformers. Penal reforms have been 110 exception. The persistent effiorts of the Howard JLeague for Penal Reform have resulted in a more enhghtened public attitude toward the social delinqueht, and strongly influenced modern prison architectuTe and penal methods. Prisoners are now classified on a more liberal scale, and in general the tendency is in the direction of the methods adopted in New Zealand. Nevertheless, as recently ago as 1929; a contributor to the "Nineteenth Century" described the average British prison as "a museum of justice," and the bond that united its incarcerated inmates merely "the fact that every sihgle one of them has consented or has been forced to illustrate the different ways in which a citizon can break the law." While the Dartmoor riot has convinced the British Government that^ steps must be taken -to prevent a recurrence, the frequency of similar outbreaks in the United States Prisohsi has led to a closer exaihination of the causes, with a view to their elimination. Dr. Kirchwey, a former warden of Sing Sing Prison and now head of the department of criminology at the New York School of Social Work, recently observed that "if we would eliminate the danger of the 'explosions' that have been occurring recently, we must tirst of all establish decent living conditions." Dartmoor Prison, from this point of view, contained, according to report, plenty of explosive material, and the general atmosphere of the place seems to have even reacted on some of the staff. Environment is apt to produce definite moral reactions upon people, whether in prison or out of it. "The Times," of LohdOtt, ih oue of its halfsenous third leaders,. enlarged upon the thedry bromulgated by prison reformers in Chicago that what was wrong in the_ American institutions was not so much long sentences, or physical discomfort, as the disappointing character of the society that awaits the convict. The Chicago authorities, said this writer, were • about to concentrate their attention upon recruiting a more cultivated type of warder. "Chicago," he said, "will be setting a useful lead in establishing the principle that muscle and a khack with locks and keys are inadequate in themselves as a warder's equipmem;. He will be the best warder, in fact, whose charges are reluctant to leave him." Behind this little pleasantry indulged in at the expense of Chicago there is something provocative of serious reflection. If the treatment of the criminal is to bc placed by easy and cautious stages upon a mor'e scientific footing it is clear that there must be a correspondirig charige ih the qualifications of those whose duty it will be to guide his steps toward becoming a respectable citizen. The danger of adopting a hew and more humane psychology as a basis for the afchitectural scheme of prisons and the treatment of thosb inCarc'erated therein is that reform may go too far. It must always be femembered that although a large number of delinquents cannot be cohsidered as belonging to the criminal class, the latter is ever present in varying numbers. Yet even for the latter, social sciehtists tell us, there is at least .some hope. However hiUch it ihay be, it is certain that it would be inevitably and utterly crushed in 'a place like Dartmoor, which, instead oi making sbhie of the prisoners a little better, seems to have made most of them a good deal worse.