The Press FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1967. Training Prison Officers

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31499, 13 October 1967, Page 14

The Press FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1967. Training Prison Officers

A year ago senior officers of the Department of Justice and the Minister of Justice (Mr Hanan) supported an application by the Public Service Association for increased salaries for prison officers. The Government Service Tribunal fixed higher salaries; and its chairman, Mr J. F. Keane, S.M., said the aim of the tribunal’s decision was not only to ensure full staffing of prisons but to permit the proper selection of the type of officer needed to carry out duties under a modern penal policy. In his latest report to Parliament the Secretary for Justice, Dr J. L. Robson, said that the improved starting salaries had attracted more inquiries for employment; resignations from the prisons service had declined. Proper training is essential to maintain and improve the service. Mr Hanan has said he Is pleased by the success so far of the first course for cadet officers. The use of the new Wi Tako prison near Trentham as headquarters for staff training, and particularly for training cadets, ought to improve the whole system of instruction. It should relieve the older, overcrowded, and understaffed prisons of the burden of training: and it may encourage the establishment of a school of criminology at the Victoria University of Wellington. Other universities may give instruction in criminology, as Auckland University now does. This will be valuable to many persons other than prison staff.

Although a school of criminology in New Zealand is likely to remain small it would raise the status of the subject to a level warranted by the problems already being faced in the community and in the prisons. Some prison cadet officers are now taking university courses as well as following a programme in the practical and theoretical study of crime, punishment, and reform. Work in prisons may never offer a widely popular career for young persons. Yet its importance is clear and should become more evident as the results of better training and more satisfactory prison accommodation and practices become known. Comparatively few people have the inclinations and talents needed by the department: and it must be able to exploit these to the full. The Wi Tako plan for training will equip the department better to do this. The need for an adequate prisons service is apparent to anyone who has studied the disturbances in prisons, the frequency with which some prisoners return to crime, the heavy duties of prison officers, the problems of applying policies on probation and parole, and the need, in the interests of reform and rehabilitation, to classify and treat prisoners according to their individual characters and records.