PRISON REFORM

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 85, 11 April 1945, Page 4

PRISON REFORM

Your leader and article in. the Star re recent happenings at Mount Eden gaol are timely, and call for public thanks and applause. A learned judge a short time ago gave his opinion that prison officers had exceeded their powers, and stated openly that he would present his protest to the proper quarter. It would seem that the officials at the gaol make and carry out their own laws, and owing to the fact that prisoners' reports are so frequently discounted, this vicious method is' allowed to go unchecked. In this country we have probably the most humane magistrates and judges of any country in the world, and when a penalty is inflicted on an offender our judiciary do not intend prison officials to supplement the sentence with either moral or physical brutality. Mr. Mason, as a lawyer, does, or should, know that his answer to your query re O'Brien is nothing short of humbug; in fact, his only answer should have been that if your facts were substantiated then the conditions at Mount Eden gaol would be immediately changed. S. JENNINGS. Your correspondent Isabel M. Cluett is inconsistent in her reasoning. She states "the fact that O'Brien was at Dunkirk does not affect the issue," yet maintains that he should have produced his Army papers in proof of his weak heart. Had O'Brien received a thorough examination at the hands of the gaol doctor the state of his heart must have been revealed, entirely independent of Army records. (This incident, coupled with others, points to the inadequacy of the medical examinations in general.) Isabel M. Cluett accuses Patrick Joseph O'Brien of being a rebel. Surely she is aware that the removal of social injustices (indeed, the whole fabric of social progress) has been very largely due to the noble band of men and women who have been imbued with the rebel spirit. As to her defeatist attitude—what are we going to do about it? The Howard League for Penal Reform (of which I am a member) will be happy to furnish her with valuable data—such, for instance, as the achievements obtained at Wakefield prison, England. STELLA O'HALLORAN.