THE PRISONS OF THE COLONY.

Auckland Star, Volume XIX, Issue 113, 14 May 1888, Page 4

THE PRISONS OF THE COLONY.

The prisons report, which has just been laid before Parliament, states that the success of the First Offenders Probation Act is now established beyond a doubt. The cost of maintenance of prisoners is much less than in

the previous 12 months, and there has been a considerable falling off both in the number and seriousness of prison offences as well as of complaints against prison officers. There had been three escapes during the year, viz., from Hokitika, Oamaru, and Mount Cook (Wellington), but in each case the prisoner was speedily recaptured. In the Mount Cook case the escape was entirely due to want of vigilance on the part of thenight-watch officer, whose services have been dispensed 'with. The health of prisoners had been good all round, the daily average of sick having been 10*23 males and 2-59 females, showing a daily average decrease of 3-9 in males and an increase of 0-G-i in females as compared with last year. At the commencement of the year there were 557 male and OS female prisoners confined in the gaols of the colony, and at the close of the year 592 males and 99 females. The prisoners were maintained last year at a gross cost per head of _£49 4s 4d, as against 7,53 Ss 9d for the previous year, and while this may bo regarded as satisfactory, Captain Hume expresses the opinion that keeping open small prisons at such places as Timaru, Nelson and Lawrence is disastrous alike to taxpayer and criminal. The smaller the prison the greater had been the expense, and the worse the discipline. Kegret is expressed at the increase in the number of juvenile offenders, and Captain Hume is of opinion that the only means of preventing a criminal class developing in the colony is to establish a reformatory for juvenile offenders. This might advantageously be done as an experiment, without incurring any additional expense, in the South Island, by converting either the Caversham or Burnham industrial schools into a reformatory for convicted juvenile criminals, and retaining the other establishment as an industrial school proper, for unconvicted orphans or neglected and homeless children. The Inspector records his annual protest against persons suffering from delirium tremens, or supposed lunatics, being sent to the prisons for medical treatment. Such action is nothing short of cruelty and inhumanity, and is occasioned by the hospital staffs being too much alive to their own peace and quietness. All such cases should be sent to the hospital in the first instance for curative treatment and then in case of drunkards, when cured, they should be dealt with by magistrates, and severely punished. Kespecting habitual criminals, Captain Hume says, in order to prevent a fluctuation by-and-by and the present satisfactory falling off in re convicted criminals being followed by a temporary increase, it is of the utmost importance that the prisons now building at Auckland and Wellington should be finished with all practicable speed, as the additional accommodation is urgently required to guarantee the complete separation of casual offenders from habitual criminals. This is the only complete method of preventing the contaminating influence of the worst class of offenders. It is generally, the case that in spite of all precautions criminals do contrive to hold some intercourse with one another. It is important, therefore, to take care that the least possible amount of mischief shall come from it, and this is very fairly secured by the absolute local separation of the two classes, and the consequent limiting of the influence of the worst class to members of its own order. A prison so conducted is no longer what a prison once was — a training school in vice, taking its own fashion almost as a matter of course from the lowest and most degraded of its inmates.