Gaol sentencing scrutinised

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32707, 9 September 1971, Page 1

Gaol sentencing scrutinised

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, September 8. Some socially disapproved conduct and victimless crime could be removed from the criminal justice system, the Secretary of Justice (Mr E. A. Missen) told the Justices of the Peace Association in Wellington today.

He asked what was achieved in New Zealand by the imprisonment of girls who frequented ships, that could not be better achieved through an appropriate service and treatment agency.

“I am concerned, too, about the numbers of persons sent to prison for short terms,” said Mr Missen. Last year 962 offenders were imprisoned for a term of less than a month, which represented just over onequarter of the total number sentenced to prison. Another 885 offenders were sent to gaol for between one month and three months, he said. "In my view we cannot, as a society, in any way justify the use of short terms of imprisonment to this extent, nor can we afford to do so,” Mr Missen said.

An offender sent to prison costs the country $2975 annually with the addition of serious social costs to the offender’s family and the loss of his services to an already seriously short labour market.

Measures other than imprisonment for dealing with

short-term offenders had to be strengthened. Periodic detention was a most significant advance, but had been circumscribed in its application so far.

With further periodic detention centres being made available this year Mr Missen said he hoped to see an appreciable reduction in the number of offenders sentenced to short prison terms. To divorce the probation service from prisons would oe against the best interests of offenders and the community, he said.

Both probation and prisons were essential parts of a unified penal service, and more was to be gained from their closer integration within one department than in drawing them apart, he said. Reports from Scotland, where the probation service had been integrated with a new social welfare department, indicated that the probation service was unhappy with the change, said Mr Missen. •

Progress in a reformative programme could be made only through the combined skills of probation officers ■and prison officers as partners in a common task, he said. ’