Prison Reform.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 7752, 2 March 1905, Page 4

Prison Reform.

What is known in England as the Borstal scheme has been on trial •since October, 1902. in the Horstal prison, near Rochester. A' part of the prison has been set aside for younger offenders, who, by good conduct, can win promotion to liigh- . or grades and the enjoyment of certain privileges. Whenever possible, definite trades arc taught, such as carpentry, bricklaying, blacksmith's work, tin .smelting, gardening, husbandry, etc. On the whole, the scheme appears to be working satisfactorily. Since its inception 1«2 lads have been discharged. Of these, twenty-nine were first offenders, fiftyseven had been previously convicted once, while ninety-six had received two or more previous convictions. With a few exceptions the offences were against property, seventy-eight having been sentenced for larceny and seventy-nine for burglary. All the convicts were undergoing senten. ces of six months' hard labour or more. Of the 182, one is dead, fifty-three have been re-convictetf since their discharge, thirty-six have been lost sight of, nine are considered as " not promising," and eighty-three have done consistently well, seventy-four of them being in 'active employment, and the remainling nine temporarily out of work , through slackness of trade. The i'cIconvicted are. of course, the failures. They arc either irreclaimable or requise a much longer period of detention for the reformatory influences to produce any lasting effect. The apparent reform of more than one-third of the prisoners is held, by its advocates, to be conclusive proof of the value of the system, and they are bestirring themselves to secure the establishment of a general system of penal reformatories.