Prisoner aid progress

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32612, 21 May 1971, Page 15

Prisoner aid progress

The last financial year had been one of the best on record for the Prisoners’ Aid and Rehabilitation Society of Canterbury and Westland, the annual meeting was told on Wednesday evening.

[ This was in spite of the fact that the society’s success rate continued to be low, said the report of the president (Mr P. B. Cosgriff). However, the report said, prison visitors need not feel responsible, nor must they become despondent. “We are safe in the knowledge that we can only do our best,” it said. The report said that it was refreshing to be reminded that the role of the voluntary worker in prisoner rehabilitation was still of paramount importance in a community that had come to expect government agencies to become increasingly involved in fields that were at once the exclusive domains of voluntary organisations. “It is, and has been, the view of successive governments that the rehabilitation of the offender is one for the whole community,” the report said.

"At a time of economic restraint, when our grant from the Justice Department seems very likely to be severely pruned, it becomes more than ever important that we endeavour to increase our membership considerably. “Our goal should be to increase our own funds and to gain growing public awareness of the needs and type of assistance we can give, and also of the role we play in assisting the men in our institutions to readjust to their return to a normal life.”

The report said that with the co-operation of the Methodist City Mission, the St Vincent de Paul Society and the Red Cross Society, the society’s work in the personal field had increased considerably. “It said, however, that there had been a lack of activity in the women’s committee during the year in

spite of a ‘new look’ rapidly developing through an influx of working members from both individuals and the Maori; Women’s I Welfare League. There were now 15 members of this committee throughout the city. Although general labouring jobs had been hard to find for men without any kind of training, offers of employment had been reasonably good. The grant from the national society had been increased from $11,500 in the previous financial year to

$12,500, although incomes from sources such as donations and subscriptions had dropped by $4O. However, the society showed a surplus of $715.

The post-release hostel, Norman House, financed separately by the national society, had a working loss of $2497, but this was within the estimates, the report said.

The board owed by residents, which was received in full, represented half the society’s operating costs for the house.