PRISON POLICY.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 July 1918, Page 5

PRISON POLICY.

SELF-QOHPQE'iaNG PBKGEPLR " The Minister of Justice (the Hon. T. M. Wilford) gave some figures to the • Wellington Post last week showing that the value of useful work done by prisoners is now at the rate of £43,000 a year, compared with £31,000—-the total cost ■of the Prisons Department Mr. Wilford said that the cash credits from various Departments of State, in respect to prisoners' work was £16,083 for the year I*l7-18. The labor for the Public Works Department, at 5s a day per man, was equivalent to £16,052. The improvements effected by prisonersat Waikeria and Paparua were valued at £3645. Boots and slippers mado by prisoners for officials and prisoners wasp valued at £1283. The value of domesiw work (laundry, sanitation, etc.) by prisoner* was about £SOOO, making a total of £43,261 in a yea/ (an increase of' £4OOO over the figures of any previous year) The prison operations now .included the making of brwiks and concrete tiles (and other articles in concrete), bootmaking, fanning, dairying, tree-planting." The concrete piles were supplied for roofing the State Departments, which were unable to obtain galvanised iron. The farm at Waikeria comprised about 1200 acre 3, bought at £1 an acre. The improvements made by prisoners would make this land worth £l7 or £ ; WS an acre eventually He would favor a move on, ultimately to another locality which could be similarly improved for settlement by free men. Thus prison labor would serve to make rough places smooth for the free. At Paparua, near Templeton, a few miles from Christchurch, prisoners were using concrete to make a large prison and outbuildings. • The Minister remarked that every .prisoner able to work wag employed use. fully. The prisoners were being moved out of the cities aB much as possibleThe prisoners in the city gaols to-day were all faeffectives or short-sentenced persons, or men who could not be trusted in the open except under close super* vision.