PAYMENT OF PRISONERS.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 17019, 16 December 1920, Page 7

PAYMENT OF PRISONERS.

4 EEGUIiATIONS APPROVED. (PRESS ASSOCIATION TELEGItAM.) "WELLINGTON, December 15. Regulations for tho administration of the legislation passed by Parliament last session, giving power to tlho Plriisons Department to pay wages under certain conditions to able-bodied prisoners, have been approved by tho Governor-General. The main principles of tho now legislation are payment of hardworking prisoners for their iubour, and to provide for the maintenance of their dependants. The scheme marks a further advance in tihe work of the Prisons Department, which in, recent years has been, remodelled for the bringing intu operation of modern reformative methods in the treatment of prisoners. Persons undergoing sentences of imprisonment, including those sentenced to reformative detention or declared habitual criminals, will be pafd for their labour at a scalo rate assessed under a marks system at Id per mark. Men who are skilled in any trade or occupation upon reception, or -who afterwards become so skilled, may be paid at tlho rate of ljd per mark when employed at such trade or occupation, upon a recommendation to that effect being made bv the controlling officer to tho During the first calendar month after passing out of the probationary grado, every prisoner shall bo allotted six marks per diem for each day upon which Qiis industry is exemplary and his conduct good. The numbeV may rise- gradually to a maximum of nine marks a day. Prisoners who have dependants shall be pa:d, in addition to an industry and conduct wage, a daily wage which will I be used as the Minister directs for t«ho i support of their dependants. The waee will bo from Is to Is 3d per mark with, eome payment for overtime.