PRISON CARE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 164, 14 July 1930, Page 3

PRISON CARE.

WHAT ENGLAND DOES. VALUE OF VISITORS. NEW ZEALAND LAGGING. (By B. E. BAUGHAN4 How is it that the Mother Country is closing prisons year by year and lessening the number of prisoners, while we are doing neither? We are officially told that there is very little serious crime in New Zealand on the one hand, while on the other imprisonment is not only a costly business financially, but also degrades for life the citizen sentenced to undergo it. So that our penal system would appear to be extravagant, both in money and humanly, and one cannot but ask: What does England do with the lawbreaker that we do not? It has been calculated that, had we but her proportion of prisoners to population, we should have but some 4UO instead of some 1500 each day in our gaols, so the question is worth asking. "In-care" and "After-care." Britain does quite a number of things, but it is of one especially that I wish to write; that is, her organised system of "in-care" and "after-care," begun right in each prison, and run mainly by workers who cost the country nothing, among them being many voluntary visitors, duly accredited, and in every way encouraged to get into close personal touch with their offending brothers or sisters. From the sheet of notes issued to these visitors by the prison commissioner, some extracts may be found of interest: —

"Social conversation is an ingredient of ordinary life essential to most men if they are not to lose balance and perspective. . . . Ordinary people of sense and sympathy, who are unconnected with the official administration of prisons, calling on prisoners in their cells, and conversing on the widest range of topics, can supply this need. It is for this purpose that the services of visitors are sought at every prison. . . .

The sympathy shown in the individual affairs* of each prisoner will render him more responsive to healthy influences.

. . . The recommendations and advice of visitors, based on the intimate knowledge acquired oy them of the circumstances and prospects of prisoners while serving their sentences, is invaluable to the societies making provision for practical assistance to prisoners on discharge. ... It is hoped that visitors will become members of the committee of the Prisoners' Aid Society of their prison, and arrange for at least one of their number to attend the weekly meetings of the sub-committees of their Prisoners' Aid Societies, at wiiich provision is made for the needs of prisoners due for discharge daring the ensuing month." And, if visitors cannot attend such meetings, they are asked to enter their recommendations in a book provided, while, in order to facilitate this fraternal interest in, and help for, delinquent fellow citizens, each visitor is handed a cell key on arrival, and not merely permitted, but encouraged, to call on his assigned charge at a time when the latter is in his cell, without any warder being present. A Bridge. How does it work? Admirably, according to the correspondent in England who sent the notes. It introduces to the worse elements of society the whole world of decent standards, through a medium found acceptable; it introduces the visitor to some new insights, too; it gives a clue to the better capacities and talents in the delinquent, the fostering of which is proved far more likely to redeem Mm than mere intimidation through punishment or pious preaching; and it prevents a whole lot of waste in money and effort. Eight in the prison the Aid Society appears to meet and interview those about to re-emerge normal life, with a possible sponsor or two. It is like a bridge from prison back to society; and it is just for tJt-s----want of its equivalent in New Zealand that so many of our offenders fail to make the crossing successfully, and return to gaol once more, a burden to the rest of us.

H;;ve we nothing like it, then? I speak under correction as to Borstals, but as to prisons for adults, nothing! No Prisoners' Aid Society meets within the walls; there are only a handful of these, in any case, and they are wretchedly subsidised. Moreover, to help any ex-prisoner properly, you must know a good deal about 'him, his nature, his strengths and weaknesses, his family affairs and so on (money and work are not all he needs), nor will you gain that deeper knowledge in a day, nor in any official capacity are yon likely to win enough of it. But no demand nowadays for voluntary visitors of this English type seems made in New Zealand —"ordinary people of sense and sympathy" to ''call on prisoners in their cells." Even the fast-diminishing supply of those voluntary workers known as official visitors is not, we learn officially, to he renewed; magistrates, it is thought, can do their work better! This sounds a little queer in face of these English "notes." Might we not do well to try some New Zealand version of thus introducing the well-behaved to the worse-behaved? And might not the Eed Cross, say, provide some workers in this field of patriotic salvage?