PRISONERS IN REVOLT.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17317, 1 December 1921, Page 8

PRISONERS IN REVOLT.

t KBMARKABEE HAPPENINGS JX * MELBOTJBNB OAOL. » (mom ora own cojOMsronraft) J • SYDNEY November 23. A remarkable condition of affairs hai < arisen at Pentridge gaol, in Victoria, where the prisoners, because of the at* . leged failure of the officials to remedy their grievances,, broke into open re- ' volt, and finally burned down one of' ' the prison workshops. A departmental inquiry is being held concerning the matter, out a move is * being made, in the State Parliament for > a Royal Commission of investigation. . . The spirit of rebellion first flamed several weeks ago, when a special Bearch of prisoners in the brusnware shop, for forbidden articles, was erdered. The work was so thoroughly , done that the place was. left in disorder. This did not meet with the approval of the prisoners when they came to the shop on the following morning, I and they refused to work. On the following morning the striko infection k spread to- a further 160 men belonging - to various occupational gangs. The ,' strikers were locked up for three days, and when the visiting magistrate cams, " he sentenced the ringleaders to seven : k days' imprisonment, cumulative upon < their sentences. 'The others werr given a month's "probation," that D, 1 the threat of punishment was held over i them to ensure their good behaviour. For eomo weeks the rebellion smotuderud, then last week it broke out i afresh. The overseer of the wire-nefc ; . ting factory had occasion to reprimand a prisoner for not doing his work pro* ' perly. The man refused to work at all and was locked up. The next day to* ; whole of the prisoners in the factory— ' i all indeterminate sentence men—refused • ■ to work. Other men in the indetermißr ate division also revolted. A day or* r later the visiting magistrate wntenceo . twenty-five men to 21 days' solitary war L finement. Tbey retaliated by breaking all the furniture in their cells, and j were, as a punishment, ordered to b» < . put into strait-jackets. Two osyi -, , later the fire broke out in the wire? . netting factory. Three men, suspected of being responsible for the outbreak, , were punished, and since then life a* Pentridge has been comparatively uneventful.