The Daily News. TUESDAY, MAY 7, 1912. PRISON REFORM.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 203, 7 May 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, MAY 7, 1912. PRISON REFORM.

Since the days when a larger proportion of inmates of gaols died from gaol-fever —that is, dirt-engendered disease—and the prevailing systems of all lands waa punitive and merciless, a change has come over prison administration almost everywhere. The reason of the change is the newspaper. The newspaper has not only "starred" criminals and criminal doings, but has given immense attention to the misdemeanant of all classes It has lately been shown, for instance, that the Paris "Apaches" were really created by newspapers, that the criminals so named commit crime for the public "glory" that comes to them and that no "curative" treatment has so far counteracted the incorrigible desire of a proportion of decadents to commit crime. Here in New Zealand there are not the •disparities of luxury and penury necessary to permit so monstrous a growth as is to be seen in France or the United States or even Britain, for there is no possible doubt that an unnatural "civilisation" produces the human abnormalities who stock and harass society. New Zealand is in the position of a learner in these matters. She is able to study the vast and complex machinery employed by powerful and populous countries in dealing with their criminals, and may from the complexity evolve the best means of keeping the wrong-doer from contact with the right-doer. This is technically the whole object of every prison systom, to protect normal society from abnormal human beings. The purification of society is impossible by any known means. The population of our gaols is composed merely of the abnormalities who have not escaped. It is for the captured wrongdoers that New Zealand wants the experience of other countries. There is in these southern lands a caricature of pity for the wrongdoer. Politicians have seized on this element, and have converted it into use to gain applause, so that New Zealand often stands accused of a weak-kneed and spineless indifference to crime and a too tolerant attitude towards the criminal. Unquestionably, because of this, nameless and horrible offences flourish in a soil that is too new to be so polluted. The new Minister for Justice (Mr. J. A. Ilanan) is happily taking his portfolio seriously. Any reforms he

contemplates making can only be judged j by the lessening of the cases coming/ before the courts. If a reduction isi shown the system may be applauded. It is noted that the Minister has earnestly conferred with the several gaolers throughout New Zealand in order, it is presumed, to devise new methods believ- < i.l to be rather reformative than punitive. The most important truth that has been told about the present prison systems is that prison staffs arc not always in concert with the plans that are so largely advertised. No special qualifications, for instance, other than physical ones, are necessary for gaol warders, and it is impossible that these men can understand and assimilate the ideals of the criminologists and theorists whose ' ideas are the basis of New Zealand prison reform. If ideals are to be reached, the idealists must have expert aid, The average man of a prison staff is ably automatic—nothing more. It is still extremely doubtful if every warder were an expert criminologist, whether he or the whole of his kind, together with philanthropists, Ministers for Justice and the rest, could plant a new mind in a criminal. We cordially agree with the Minister of Justice that warders should be specially and carefully trained ' before they are turned loose in prisons , to "reform" prisoners, but we do not agree that the study of theories and the science of criminology would help the warder to do his duty with a firm hand. Mr. Hanan, has said that prisoners are not to be treated in "rosewater" fashion, the conclusion being that hitherto there has been a too pronounced gentleness. If the average warder in the future is instructed to treat every criminal as a "patient," the "rosewater" fashion will flourish even more extensively than hitherto. If the warder become an "expert" then of course he must rise in social status, and his emoluments must rise with his status. A very great stress is placed on the "reform" of prisoners, but we have never been given any instances where "cured" criminals have remained "cured" indefinitely. The real necessity for prison reform is not so much the treatment of criminals as the protection of the public. The public are entitled to regard the reappearance of a "cured" criminal as a certain sign that he is again licensed to commit crime, Sir John Findlay, the criminologists, Mr. Hanan and the gaolers notwithstanding.