BORSTAL ESCAPEES

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 160, 2 April 1931, Page 11

BORSTAL ESCAPEES

Hard Labour Cancelled OBJECTS OF SYSTEM Crimes While at Large A term of hard labour should not be imposed to take effect at the end of a period in a Borstal institution. This is the ruling of the Court of Appeal which, while holding that there might be exceptional cases requiring other treatment, laid it down that the object of the Borstal system would be defeated if detention were followed by a term of hard labour. In the particular case under consideration two men named Bryant and Broughton escaped from detention, committed several offences and, brought before Mr. Justice Ostler at Napier, charged on three counts of breaking and entering, pleaded guilty and were sentenced to two years’ imprisonment with hard labour, to be concurrent with each other but cumulative on the period of detention in Borstal. Court Has Bower. After a lengthy discourse on the law affecting the case the court said that it did not doubt that in such circumstances as existed in the present case the court had power to do what was done by Mr. Justice Ostler. “Nevertheless,” the judgment added, “without attempting to lay down a rule applicable to all cases, we have no doubt that, speaking generally, it is undesirable to impose upon an offender who is detained in a Borstal institution a sentence of imprisonment to follow upon the determination of the order of detention. Undoing the Good. “Such a possibility could not have been contemplated by those who were responsible for the establishment of the scheme of Borstal institutions, because to send a youth to prison on the completion of a term of detention in a Borstal institution might well be calculated to undo all the good that the offender has received ftom his instruction and discipline in the Borstal institution. We have said that no general rule should be laid down because there is always the possibility of an exceptional case arising. "But if such an exceptional case did arise, that is to say, a case where an escapee from a Borstal institution commits serious offences for which he is again brought before the court it might be advisable to sentence him to a straightout term of imprisonment, but only if the term to be imposed is longefe than the unexpired residue of the term of the original order of detention. The alternative, we think —and the proper course, speaking generally—is to increase his period of detention in the Borstal institution. In this case the court ordered the accused to be committed to the Borstal institution for an additional term of two years, in place of the sentence of two years’ imprisonment with hard labour. The last-mentioned sentence would be set aside.