GOOD TRAINING

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 109, 10 May 1943, Page 4

GOOD TRAINING

REFORMATIVE DETENTION

EXPLANATION BY JUDGE

(OC.) HAMILTON, this day. When sentencing Clifford Fox, aged 20, labourer, in the Supreme Court, Mr. Justice Blair pointed out that the penalty was reformative detention, which was quite different from gaol with hard labour. Reformative detention meant that Fox s case would be considered by the Prisons Board approximately every three months, said his Honor. If there was evidence of good behaviour the term probably would be reduced, just as it had been when he was sentenced in 1940 to four and a half years' detention. "Gaol is the most expensive boardinghouse you can stay at. You have a lot of attention- there at the expense of the country. Actually the country would be better off if nobody was in prison. I want you to realise that crime does not pay. Statistics show that about 98 per cent of criminals are ultimately caught and that the police get their man. In a place for reformative detention you are taught a trade. I suppose you will go to Waikeria. That place is like a school and small boys who misbehave get good training. The superintendent at Waikeria is a very humane man. He hopes, to make you and others good citizens, and thus prove that the institution is a success. I know that many young fellows who are sent there make good."