PLEA FOR REFORM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 187, 9 August 1930, Page 12

PLEA FOR REFORM.

N.Z. PRISON S.YSTEM.

"SENTIMENTAUSM AT WORST" if

APPLICATION OF SCIENCE

(By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.)

HAMILTON, this day.

The penal system in New Zealand.was strongly condemned by Mr. De La Mare, president of the Hamilton Howard Reform League when speaking at the annual meeting last night. "Sentimentalism at its worst was," he said, "represented by the Prisons Board." He appealed for reform on scientific principles. "There is a belief," said Mr. De La Mare, "that the object of penal reformers is to make punishment easy for lawbreakers. This is entirely misleading." The term of the sentence was not considered by the league, which did, however, want certain definite things: —(1) Diagnosis before treatment; (2) treatment based on diagnosis; (3) reasonable protection for society before and after release, in the light of treatment. The reason they did not get these things was because of the inordinate cost, and the reason they should get them was because of the ultimate gain. "The name of Borstal, as it exists in New Zealand," continued the speaker, "is fradulent misrepresentation if it is supposed to represent the Borstal idea. If we do not want the Borstal we know at any rate where we arc. At present we are deceiving the public by a pretence." Those who sought prison reform wanted, in addition, the abolition or reform of the Prisons Board, which represented sentimentalism at its worst, because its appeal to the feelings was based on ignorance and the remedy was a spurious one. The only real protection society could have, if a revision were contemplated, was a scientific inventory of ' the character and social history of the intimate. Our prison system did not contain one officer capable of making such an examination. It was perhaps as well that we should sometimes regard the prisoner, not as someone else's child, but as our own, remembering that sentimentalism is equally bad in all cases. I