THE BORSTAL INSTITUTE.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19805, 18 December 1929, Page 13

THE BORSTAL INSTITUTE.

TO TEB EDITO3 OF TEI FBKS3 ff.jj- j have read with considerable distress the statement made by Mrs Fraer in regard to the Borstals. It was the hope of many that a woman on the Prisons Board would take such a human view, as distinguished from an official view, that sorae patient investigation would have resulted. Mrs Fraers statement justifies a challenge to the Department. I hope the public will demand answers from the Controller-General to the following questions: (1) Can a boy entering a Borstal choose an occupation and receive instruction in it? (2) Is there any voluntary element whatever in. the work of an inmate? (3) When did these reforms take effect, and how many have taken advantage of them? I am aware that inmates specially good at milking are employed in dairy work, and I know that the necessary carpentrv, bootmaking, etc., is done by those skilled at the particular trades. I hfcve frequently endeavoured to find work for men discharged from one of these institutions, an institution devoted to farming, and it is frequently found that the men are unable to milk. I think Mr Dallard will not deny that forth e sake of the herds it is considered inadvisable to have a rotation of milkers. The men, at any rate, believe it is impossible to choose their occupations, and the sooner they know their rights the better. Censorship goes the length of preventing an inmate from getting a form of petition to the House of Representatives. These are facts the Department will not deny, and I personally regard it as an offence to have semi-official statements made which can only mislead the public. A Borstal in England is an institution which is a school first and a prison afterwards. Our Borstals are prisons. That may, of course, be a good thing. But do not let us be satisfied with shams.—Yours, etc., F. A. DE LA MAKE. Hamilton, December 14th, 1929.