CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 64, 16 March 1944, Page 4

CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS

DOMINION PRISONS , • ; i To the Editor. It is unfortunate when one's remarks are quoted in the Press out of their general context. Although I would not wish to go back on my statement on the evils of the prison system reported in last Saturday's Star, I feel that some explanation is necessary to avoid misunderstanding. In the first place, I spoke front personal experience, with ten years of practical work among social misfits, delinquents, problem children, and problem parents to back up my statements. I spoke of "criminals" I had known who through scientific treatment were now good citizens. Many of these would not have been reclaimed without the kindly help of members of the police force or those directly concerned with the "prison system." This is my point of view. Children are born to well-meaning parents who, through ignorance, fail to give constructive early training. A mental diet of cheap radio programmes, lurid films and literature, carries on the work begun unknowingly by the best-intentioned of parents, as often as not. Our schools with large classes and a bias towards scholastic prowess rather than adjustment to life's problems cannot often help the misfit. He fails at school, worries his overworked teacher, hates his school-fellows, and creates emotional stress at home. Everywhere he is punished. He becomes an outcast, graduates through the Children's Court, to the Borstal, then to prison. Because his illness is emotional we regard him as an animal to be punished, and we, the public, pay our prison officials to do our dirty work for us. That is what I meant when I said that our prison system was "the greatgrandfather of the very evils it seeks to prevent." BRIAN KNIGHT.