N.Z. Prisons Revolutionised

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 400, 14 July 1928, Page 25

N.Z. Prisons Revolutionised

(Continued from Page 24). or by money supplied by friends. Last Christmas a party of the inmates was permitted to go to the beach to camp, merely being placed on their honour to return. The best behaved have meals in common and are taught table manners. Cigarettes, chess, draughts and a library are available to them.

The Borstal for young women is at Point Halswell. The same schooling is insisted upon. Tennis and basketball are provided. Radio and gramophone concerts are varied by conceits and plays acted by the girls, with tli* help of friends from outside. The women are employed in dairying, vegetable and flower gardening, fancy work, cooking under expert tuition, etc. For meals, taken in common, they may change their frocks. When a girl is nearing the end of her term of restraint she is permitted to make herself an outfit, with the aid of othei girls. Materials are bought by prison officers and every method of interesting women to care for her when slileaves the institution is sought. In reality New Zealand has only one gaol of the old barred type—Mount Eden—where the warders carry arms

and where rule is hard. In that gaol are housed all the worst of the offenders. They have school three nights weekly for those under 25 who are deficient in education. A Chinese looks after his compatriots in this respect. At New Plymouth all sexual offenders are confined and the old derelict men are sent to Wanganui. At Waikeria is another Borstal for men, while at the Paparua camp in Canterbury an old worthless river-bed has been converted into a farm valued at over £20,000. Is it all worth the trouble? Well, only six to seven per cent, of those who pass through the Borstals come again under prison control. Realise that at Waikune sawmill there was a serious breakdown. The men volunteered to begin work at 4 a.m. and work on until repairs were effected. It took 17 hours. There was no overtime; no reward other than a kind word. At the same mill, some of the bullocks strayed. Two of the men offered to find them. It took two days in the thick bush in blinding wet, cold weather, and the men had neither shelter or food. But they brought back the bullocks. While the legislative body has given authority that has Ibeen eagerly seized by prison officials to encourage persons under restraint to endeavour to rehabilitate themselves, there is one other factor that carries weight. The Prisons Board has power to review the sentence of any prisoner and to say; “You have sinned against society, but the price is paid. Go your way and sin no more.”

Nobody thinks that the last word has been said on prison reform, but we have gone a long way on the road toward abolishing the gaols. Offenders against social laws must be punished, but we can do that in other ways than by gaols. In most cases the offence was due to some defect in the make-up of the offender. The wisest way is to ascertain what that defect is and cure it, rebuild the citizen and send him out again into the world ready to be of use both to himself and to his community.