PRISON DEVELOPMENT

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20086, 15 November 1930, Page 10

PRISON DEVELOPMENT

■ ■■■■.. i . . . i ADDRESS BY MR DALLARD. 1 (PBESS WELLINGTON. November 14;' I Prison development in New Zealand was traced by the Controller-Generul oi Prisons,. Mr B.' L. Dallard, in an address last evening before the - Wellington brarnth of the Howard League •for Prison Reform, after which be referred to the presetit-do.v treatment. Mr Dallard -said that the idea underlying t-lie right •• to remove an .offender from the midst ot 'society had given place to the realieation that although sopietv . tuighi be protected whilst' the offender was in prison, lie was a greater menace than ever before, it he emerged worse than when he : entered, craftier rhan • ever, and 1 embittered hy the experience, or if he were hardened by the treatment in, prison rather than ■ socialised in- his attitude. The classification of offenders wav now recognised as an important fundamental and the general trend ' was for a decrease in the prison popula-" tion. The number committed to prison last vear was filty per cent, less per 100.000 of the. general population than it had been twenty-five years ago. The drop since the immediate pre-war years had been from 31 per cent, per 100,000 to 17.5 per cent, per 100.000 last year. , > Greater attention was now being given to the question ot after care and the Department had associated with probation officers voluntary committeemen to the extent of several hundred, throughout the . country, who-assisted i those who: had made a slip-to re-estab-lish themselves as useful units of ' society.. . i