CRIME IN NEW ZEALAND.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 November 1920, Page 12 (Supplement)

CRIME IN NEW ZEALAND.

■ MASKED DECREASE SHOWN. COMMENTS OP CHIEF JUSTICE. Some interesting observations upon crime ill New Zealan4_were made by the Chief Justice (Sir Robert Stout) in the Auckland Supreme Court recently. His Honor, addressing the grand jury, said that although there was a large / number of prisoners, crime was not increasing in New Zealand; on the contrary, it was decreasing. If they considered the number o! prisoners relative to the population it would be seen it was only one-half, according to the proportion of the old days. Last year, according to the papulation, the number of prisoners was not much more than two-thirds of what it was thirty yean ago. There had been a gradual diminution of crime right through New Zealand, and, added the Chief Justice, •ft pleasing feature was that there was less crime amongst those who were New Zealand born - and educated than among those from other places, there being a difference of 17 per cent, in favor of New Zealanders, taking only , those over 15 years of age into consider- ■ ation. That, no doubt, was caused by the fact that our education and upbringing was better than it was in many other countries. • If they compared it with of the Australian colonies, whose system of education was not the satoe as ours, they would see that New Zealand stood out well so far as crime was concerned If progress was to b--made in our social life everyone must take interest in the changed at- / titude towards crime. That change waa especially noticeable in England. It many places there special doctors ha>> been set apart to examine criminals and prironera. A .Birmingham doctor bad pbinted out lately that he found amongst prisoners convicted in bin town that a large majority of them had some mental deficiency. Anyone wlo bad to do with prisoners in New Zealand would say the same thing. In a great number of our prisoners there were mental defectives, degenerates, and . aexual degenerates. Some perhaps ; were suffering really from what might be the sins of their fathers or grandfathers. They had come into the world with that burden. With s realisa- I y. tionthe old idea of "an eye for an eye, , a tooth for a tooth," had been abolisbHis Honor pointed out that there were many objects in sentencing pris- ; onera, one of the chief being the chance • of reforming and making good citizens out of the offenders. Efforts in that direction had been very successful. For example, 92 per cent, of those put on probation were doing well, 70 per c«nt. of those separated for reformative treatment had been successful, and there Had also been a considerable reform , amongst habituate. Giving his own ex- • perience, the Chief Justice said that he had betn connected with Courts for nearly fifty years, and had been on the PriMU Board since its inception. He bad found that the majority of prisoners coming before him had some mental defeot Many h'ad a chance of being:tered, and the attempt was made. That •' ling why the open-air treatment had been'adopted, and the Borstal system instituted. The prisoners did valuable Wwork—'thousands of pounds' worth— inotead of filling in their time turning an ( Iron cylinder, as he had seen men employed. Looking back over sixty years, ■one-"could see that our social life had ".improved. All that we needed to still farther improve it was to get rid of pome of the temptations in our cities. Ef we had less drink and less waste, and £ more industrious spirit amongst us, we would see an enormous improvement y in the social life.