THE PRESS MONDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1985. Carrots and sticks

Press, 2 December 1985, Page 16

THE PRESS MONDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1985. Carrots and sticks

Prisons, by their nature, have a great potential for violent trouble. Criminals whose serious, often violent, offending has required that they be locked away from society—for society’s protection and their own possible rehabilitation—are shut up in conditions that are often strained and overcrowded. Control is guaranteed, in the final analysis, only by force and by the threat of extended imprisonment. To excite or restore self respect and regard for others, and contrive ways in which to prepare prisoners for what should be a lawabiding life outside prison, the authorities undoubtedly have to do what many people would think are things uncharacteristic of prison management. Last week this seemed to have gone too far. To let prisoners in a top security prison keep in their cells such readymade weapons as spears is almost unbelievable. This was the state of affairs in B block at

Paremoremo Prison. As might have been expected, the inmates were quick to use the taiaha, or Maori spears, on the wardens when a dispute broke out. Apparently the spears had some connection with Maori culture classes at the prison and originally were taken from the prisoners—very sensibly as events have proved—at the conclusion of each class. For the last year, however, the prisoners in B block had been allowed to keep their spears in their cells as a reward for arranging extra classes in the block’s workroom. After last week’s fracas, the spears were confiscated. A system of rewards may achieve as much as coercion in controlling and disciplining prisoners. The carrot and the stick both have a role to play, but common sense requires that the carrot is not a stick that all too literally can be used against the bestowers.