Youth prisons to be abolished — penal bill
Parliamentary reporter Youth prisons will be abolished in the Penal Institutions Amendment Bill, a companion measure to the Criminal Justice Bill and makes changes as a consequence of that bill. The Government, instead, is setting up three kinds of penal institution — prisons, corrective training institutions, and police jails. There were three reasons for the changes, said the Minister of Justice, Mr McLay in introducing the bill to Parliament. It was no longer realistic to make separate provision for youth prisons in the light of the Pilot Regional Prisons Scheme, now under way in Southland. The traditional wisdom that younger prisoners should be kept apart from their seniors because of the fear of contamination was being questioned increasingly, both in New Zealand and overseas. The existing legislation was complicated and had proved to be difficult to apply in practice. The bill also repeals the provision requiring separate buildings or parts of a building to be used for the detention of male or female inmates. Mr McLay said that this was being done in anticipation that i at some future date regional prisons would accommodate both male and female offenders, who might mix on some occasions. Provision is made in the bill for the appointment of local release to work committees, and the streamlining of release-to-work procedures generally, to aid the Regional Prisons Pilot
Scheme by decentralising decision-making to some degree. The bill revises the procedures dealing with forfeiture of money, as a disciplinary measure for people who behave unsatisfactorily while on work parole. The sum that may be forfeited is increased.
Changes are made to the provisions dealing with the transfer of corrective trainees considered unfit to undergo the remainder of their sentences. It is not intended to run pre-release hostels as part of the custodial system once the Criminal Justice Bill has come into force.
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Press, 15 December 1983, Page 31
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312Youth prisons to be abolished — penal bill Press, 15 December 1983, Page 31
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