PRISON POPULATION.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 September 1917, Page 3

PRISON POPULATION.

WAR MARES NO DIFFERENCE. A remarkable decrease in the prison population of the United Kingdom followed tho outbreak of war, but in Now Zealand there has not been the same movement, the number of prisoners in custody last year averaging 943, a reduction of only 05, or about G. 4 per cent. Unfortunately, states the Minister in Charge of Prisons, 1915 was a record year in the history of the New Zealand prisons, and in spite of tho fact that a number of ex-prisoners are known to have enlisted, it does not appear as if our criminal population is likely to be reduced to a figure appreciably below ■that reached during tho pre-war period. When tho war is over it is feared that we shall have the customary experience after the cessation of all wars—a large increase in the number of persons committed to our prisons. It is difficult to assign a cause for the extraordinary difference between the figures for England and Wales and our own, but perhaps it is partly to be accounted for by the fact that, while the war has revolutionised the social conditions existing among the lower stratum of society in the older countries, making living possible where it was formerly impossible, and providing well-paid work for the masses who previously found it difficult to obtain work at all, conditions in this country have remained practically the same. The war ha s made little or no difference. In New Zealand it cannot be. said that tho ranks of the criminal classes aro recruited from tho poverty-stricken. Poverty and the conditions arising therefrom are seldom the 1 cause of crimo in this Dominion.