PRISON AFTER CARE

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21977, 29 December 1936, Page 11

PRISON AFTER CARE

10 TH« EDITO* 0» TBI PRMS. Sir—The point of your correspondent'"Penal Progress," is well tajjen. "I feel" recently wrote one who has much to do with one of our courts, "that a good many of these men might be saved if they could be fitted in to a stable economic position." Why is not such a- policy adopted by our authorities? They surely cannot be ignorant that without after-cafe, the discharged prisoner is likely, through helplessness, even without ill intention, again to fall into orime and again to injure societv? At such a disadvantage, as regards reputation, friends, employment, and social acceptabilityall must concede the average former orisoner to be, that it is difficult to understand how an intelligent community can leave him unhelped to reinstate himsslf—even from the point of view of its own protection. Take the far from uncommon case of a transgressor against honesty, who has paid the price ol being found out, and "done time" among others such (most of them comparing notes the while and putting each other wise as to criminal" arts). What happens when he is allowed "out" again? Who is going to employ him? Who is going to shake his hand as readily as before his incarceration? Who is going out of his own way to help him readjust himself to the habits of freedom? Everyone who reads this? Anyone' Yet without some such help, what is to keep the average offender from the bitterness of heart that comes of feel_ing unwanted, and is all too apt to end *in the "don't carishness" or helplessness that are. the main causes of re- < lapse into crime? Where is our common sense? But there are surely some agencies in New Zealand for helping discharged prisoners? Very few, and totally inadequate. The Salvation Army does what it can; so do some aid societies. But here is the State's confession, printed in the 1936 Probation Report: "Practically the whole of this work" (after-care of discharged prisoners) "is carried out on a voluntary basis, the department making comparatively small grants to the prisoners' aid societies" —a total of £174, in fact, last year, as against £450 for the peregrinations (alone) of the Prisons Board! Has the department any reason for satisfaction with its attitude? Have we. who pay for it—in more ways than one? We want after-care put at least on as firm a basis as probation, which it resembles in being a recognised preventive of crime. We want a system properly organised by the State and properly subsidised, as in England, South Africa and other countries, more intelligent in this respect than we, where it has long been recognised that, like probation, after-care is far too heavy a burden for the unorganised efforts of a few charitablyinclined. Paid officials are needed, so are organised committees of voluntary workers who really will work. England is now just again reorganising her after-care system., because more and more clearly she sees its extreme importance. When is New Zealand going even to begin one? Can your correspondent, "Penal Progress" tell us anything of the practice of efficient system elsewhere? Our frightful prison figures point out our own need. —Yours. etc„ B. E. BAUGHAN. Akaroa, December 24, 1936.