QUITE HOMELY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 173, 23 July 1936, Page 15

QUITE HOMELY.

BRITISH PRISONS.

THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE GAOL

CONCERTS AND DANCING.

LONDON", June 17.

Friendly co-operation between staff and prisoners has taken the place of strict discipline in Britain's gaols. Nowadays, there are debates, lectures, concerts and evening classes, and the prisoners are provided with notebooks and pencils.

There is a printed weekly news slieet, libraries have been extended and improved, and the cells are fitted with a new and more comfortable type of furniture.

Not so long ago men prisoners could be shaved only when they were about to be released or before making an appearance in Court, and, up to 1922, a close hair crop was the rule. Now prisoners* may have their own safety razors and shave as often as they wish; and the close crop lias been abolished. Talking Encouraged. Talking is not only allowed, but encouraged under certain conditions. Physical training has taken the place of the usual walking exercise round a ring, and there are gymnastic classes for a large number of the younger prisoners. Officer instructors for these classes are themselves trained at the Army School of Physical Training.

Miss- SI. Size, Deputy-Governor of Holloway Prison, speaking at the Sisterhood session of the conference in London of the Brotherhood Movement, said that in Holloway they had evening classes in country dancing, gardening, Spanish, English literature, handwork and cookery.

"Since the introduction of these classes the whole atmosphere of the prison has changed. The very rigid atmosphere of discipline has died out," she said. "Blow It Up!" Prisons to-day might be regarded more as hospitals for individuals who were misfits; they were hoping soon to have a psychologist working with them at Holloway.

Miss Margaret Bondfield wondered how soon the time would come when they co.uld blow up Holloway Prison and have it rebuilt on modern lines. •

In the men's section of the conference, the problem of clergymen settling disputes in an English village was discussed by the Rev. B. W. Owen, of Gamlinpy, Cambs. "When the League of Nations has satisfactorily settled the Abyssinian problem," squared with Hitler and Japan, and wonders what it is to turn its hand to next, I can give it a job or two," he.

"There is little veneer in the country; there is very little make-up either oil the face or in character. You cannot get away from people if you happen to be unfriendly with them."