PENAL REFORM IN U.S.

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27090, 13 July 1953, Page 3

PENAL REFORM IN U.S.

IMPRESSIONS OF MR

S. T. BARNETT

ADVANCES IN PROBATION SYSTEM (New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, July 12. After studying “excellent work being done in the fields of probation and parole” in the United States, Mr S. T. Barnett, Under-Secretary of Justice and Controller-General of Prisons, who returned by B.C.P.A. plane tonight, said he was more than ever convinced that the best work to be done in controlling crime lay in those fields. Mr Barnett was invited to visit America by the United Nations, and he was a member of a five-man committee chosen to advise the Social Defence Section on a programme for crime prevention and the treatment of criminals.

“It is well known that some of the penal systems in the United States are far from admirable,” said Mr Barnett, “but there are others that set world standards.”

Mr Barnett said he saw some remarkable advances in diagnostic ,vork and vocational training, and also some excellent modern designs for prisons, which would be most helpful when new institutions in New Zealand were being considered.

“By and large, the things I saw are beyond us, because we have not the professional services or the plant which these States are able to afford,” he said. However, he had seen advances overseas that would encourage New Zealand administrators to improve the penal system in the Dominion.