LUXURIES FOR CONVICTS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 317, 30 March 1928, Page 11

LUXURIES FOR CONVICTS

SMUGGLING TRICKS “DOPE” IN SERVIETTE HEM The recent conviction ot a temporarily employed warder, who supplied tobacco, newspapers and a calendar to a prisoner under his charge, shows that the age-old —:uce_ c 5 eg between prisoners and officials still exists, though it is rare that a culprit is unlucky enough to be found out and punished. It is to the credit of the officials concerned that most of the trafficking is done out of pure kind-heartedness, and without the slightest expectation of making any material gain, says an ex-prison matron in the “Sunday News.” A smoker naturally sympathises with the sufferings of a fellow smoker deprived of his tobacco, and thinks nothing of slipping him a few “fags” or a “chew” on the quiet. The craving, at one time almost entirely confined to men prisoners, has spread to an alarming extent to the women’s prisons. Women Craving For Tea During the writer’s early years of service an elderly woman sometimes went almost raving mad over the loss of her accustomed pinch of snuff, but very few of them troubled about tobacco in any other form. In those days tea rarely figured on the prison menu, and if there was one thing more than another the average woman prisoner craved it was a drink of that cheering beverage. Even the liquor obtained by stewing a few tealeaves picked out of a dustbin would be consumed with gusto. An old hand getting hold of a “tenderfoot” officer would beg, pray aud as a last resource threaten and curse to get a pinch of tea to brew in her tin mug over the cell gas jet. However sorry the officer might feel for the prisoner, there was nothing for it but to refuse the request. Not long ago the gatekeeper at one of the prisons, on examining the contents of a tray intended for an uneonvicted prisoner providing his own food found the cavity in a pie filled with cigarettes and matches instead of meat. Letters, too, especially those of a nature not likely to pass the prison censor if sent in the ordinary way, are often hidden in pies and in sandwiches. On one occasion a sort of hem on the dainty sheet of white paper wrapped

round some eatables sent by post to a woman prisoner was found to contain a quantity of the "snow” to which the unfortunate prisoner owed her downfall. Outsiders often show such sympathetic interest in prisoner’s restrictions that jurymen, tradesmen and others visiting a prison in the course of business or duty have been known to "lose” cigarettes, “twist,” chocolates, newspapers and other trifles on the offchance of some prisoner being the lucky finder. It is the practice also of the friends of prisoners In the outside world (p throw parcels over the prison wall for the benefit of pals inside. During the occupation ot a portion of Wormwood Scrubs Prison by women, an officer was one afternoon sent to a little loophole in a turret at the end of the women’s block, to keep watch on the movements of a woman working in the laundry drying ground underneath the watch tower. After a time a piece of coal came hurtling over the wall from the common outside. With a furtive look round the woman drew a crust from her dress and flung it over the wail. Over the Prison Wall Almost at once a good-fixed parcel landed on the grass beside her with a thud, and was quickly covered with a sheet, and the prisoner went on, as ii nothing unusual had happened, spreading out the wet articles and collecting the dry ones. The parcel was found to contain a collection of dainties —boiled liam. kippers, cheese, a wedge of rich cake, a packet of “bulls’ eyes," and a tin cannister full of whisky. Temptation is often put in the way of prison officials by wealthy people, and it is not surprising that some of them yield occasionally, and for a time reap a fairly rich harvest; but the majority of those tempted resist the prospect of making easy money. Documents, letters, receipts and so on, found on arrest in the possession of the head of a notorious gang, led to the undoing of an official who apparently had for some time been in j their pay. Then a legal man of some standing, on being reprimanded by the governor, and threatened with prosecution for attempting to induce an officer to be kind to a client of his for a consideration, declared airily that he had no idea : such things were not done as a matter of course by the officials.