OUR PENAL SYSTEM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 230, 28 September 1936, Page 6

OUR PENAL SYSTEM.

PRISONERS AND AFTER-CARE. (To the Editor.) Your correspondent "Humanity," referring •recently to the above subject, is quite right in thinking that our authorities are strangely neglectful of its importance. He and other's may be interested to know that, in England, it has long been recognised that the burden of "after-care" is far too heavy to bo home by members . of the outside public only, and that, there, Departmental authorities have long since helped to organise (1) a Borstal ciatibn; (2) the Central Association for the after-care of discharged convicts; and (3) the Central Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society—all of them properly subsidised by the Govern-* ment. More than that, last year a Departs mental committee again went into the matter, recommending reorganisation, and now a committee has been appointed by the president of the Central Society to consider and report on the whole matter. Also every English prison has attached to it various aid societies, What about Xew Zealand? The few prisoners' j aid societies receive only the most miserable little subsidies, there is no Departmental help in organising and centralising, and our prisons lack any after-care committees. Some of us who have given years of personal service to after-care in these difficult circumstances are rather ruefully amused when sometimes urged by authorities (who really should know better) to "attend to after-care"! I agree most heartily with your correspondent that the lack of properly organised and efficient after-care is largely responsible for our largo proportion of reconvicted prisoners and would like to draw the attention of members of the present Government to the matter. B. E. BAUGHAN".