USE OF PRISON LABOUR

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 21019, 22 November 1933, Page 13

USE OF PRISON LABOUR

Department's Aim

VALUE OF USEFUL WORK [From Our Parliamentary Reporter.] WELLINGTON, November 21. "Where work is undertaken by prison labour the aim in New Zealand has been to avoid competition with private enterprise as far as possible," states the annual report of the Prisons Department, presented to the House to-day, in referring to criticisms of its quarrying and other activities. "The difficulty from the administrative point of view is, that whenever prisoners are placed on productive work the department is faced with protests about their competition with free labour," says the report. "The old forms of task labour, involving the use of the crank and treadmill certainly were devoid of this objectionable feature, but there was nothing more demoralising and dehumanising than the practice of compelling prisoners to repeat the same useless and soul destroying task over and over again. Even up till comparatively recent years, it was by no means uncommon in our local prisons to see prisoners using wheel-barrows to convey spoil backwards and forwards in profitless and useless tasks. Simple Industries. "There is the difficulty that prison labour is necessarily confined to avenues that require the minimum of capital outlay in plant and equipment, and in consequence, a greater number of persons is employed in simple industries such as quarrying. There is no industry so peculiarly suited for the employment of prison labour, particularly the class of prisoner that requires constant and close supervision. "In most countries it is now accepted as orthodox for prisoners to be usefully employed, and so long as the products of their labour are not sold at 'cut rate' prices, the marketing of prison-made commodities is not objected to. In some countries a policy of prison manufacture for 'state use' is followed. In America and Australia, for example, an extensive range of requirements of Government departments is manufactured in prison. In New Zealand the aim has been to avoid competition with private enterprise as far as practicable. Largely because of this policy, brickmaking and sawmilling were abandoned as prison undertakings, and with the exception of a comparatively small quantity of sales of quarry metal, the whole of the department's manufactured products are for departmental supplies. There has been a definite bias towards primary production, and in recent years farming and farm development work have been the main activities of the department."