Minister hits out at Mt Eden gaol

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33967, 7 October 1975, Page 2

Minister hits out at Mt Eden gaol

(New Zealand Press Association) .WELLINGTON, October 6. ' The Minister of Justice (Dr Finlay) said in a letter to an inmate of Mount Eden Prison that it was enormously frustrating to "sit here and know that the penal system is busy grinding people down rather than building them up.”

Excerpts from Dr Finlay’s i letter were published in a i Sunday newspaper yesterday, and today the Minister made , a full copy of the letter avail- j able for publication. : He described his letter to : the prisoner as a personal I one, and said: “l am most dis- i tressed that my trust, and confidence, has been betrayed, and that the letter has been made public property, and is apparently circulating in a typed form.” The letter was written to Mr L. J. Vercoe, a former Auckland solicitor, who was 1 convicted for misappropriation of clients’ funds. Mr Vercoe wrote to Dr Finlay about some of his prison experiences, and referred to the age, and unsuit- ' ability, of Mt Eden, the opportunities for young offend- ! ers to become more familiar with the techniques of crime ■ through association with ex-: perienced offenders, and the I lack of creative purpose to! much of the work done. He; i also spoke highly of prison, I officers he had encountered.[Dr Finlay said. In the letter of reply Dr; iFinlay said he was familiarI with most of the points Ver-1 coe raised. He could have! written a stiff formal letter; but felt that would not dot any good for anyone. "I only wish we could put a bomb under Mt Eden but until we've got something else to replace it we have to put up with it as it is with all its inhumanity, and lack of sanitation, because it would cost just as much to put that! right as it does to put up; something new, and at least - habitable, even if its rehabili-’ tative effect is minimal,” he said, "I think prison practice., and public attitudes, are moving in the right direction but truly at a glacial speed — but then that’s as fast as you can expect the public to move, and if you get too far i ahead of them you'll drivel

them back to where you started, and beyond.” In his statement accompanying the release of the letter, Dr Finlay said that while there was nothing novel or startling in what he had said, he would have expressed it differently had he thought the letter was going to be published. All inward and outward mail in Mt Eden prison was opened only to check for contraband, and the letters were not read, said the superintendent (Mr J. Rogers) today, “The Minister usually keeps his superintendents informed of correspondence to inmates,” he said. “I have not been informed officially but, no doubt, Dr Finlay ’would have done so,” Mr Rogers said.