The Daily Southern Cross.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXIV, Issue 3365, 29 April 1868, Page 2

The Daily Southern Cross.

LUOBO. NON URO. If I hara botn •xtlnguishid, y»t tb«i* rin A thounnd biacotu from tha'ipark I bort.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29.

The gaol at Mount Eden has recently received its share of attention. A commission, appointed by the General Government to inquire into the condition and management of the gaols of the colony, sat for several days for the purpose of ascertaining its merits as a house of correction and penal establishment. On the termination of the Commissioners' labours, his Excellency the Governor visited thejdace. and we have no doubt that his acquaintance with the management of gaols elsewhere enables him to perceive the grave and numerous defects in the treatment of criminals at the Stockade, as well as to observe the good conduct of those who perform so well the onerous duties which devolve upon them. It is sincerely to be hoped that the Governor and his responsible advisers will be enabled, from the information that has been and that

may be laid before them, to deal wisely with the important question of the management of the criminal population of the colony. The Visiting Justices have also been engaged in elucidating the circumstances connected with the escape of two prisoners — an event that is not to be wondered at when it is considered that the number of persons keeping watch and ward has been considerably reduced to meet the diminished income of the Provincial G-overnment. There is now one class of individuals at Mount Eden who are certainly condemned to hard labour, and were it not for a few trifling considerations the warders and constables might be willing to change places with the prisoners under their charge. We are given to understand that about 20 officers are now employed at the Stockade, and that 10 warders and 3 constables are on duty at one time ; and if we are rightly informed, they are employed 18 hours one day and 12 hours the next, with 20 minutes each for breakfast, dinner, and supper ; and from this incessant duty there is no relief. Formerly the men used to get one Sunday out of every seven, so that they, might clear up arrears in religious matters ; now they have no Sabbaths, whilst the prisoners work short hours, have a half-day holiday during the week, and a whole Sabbath. Only two prisoners have escaped since the warders were compelled to to mount guard for eighteen hours at a stretch, and only one escaped during the previous year, so that, all things considered, thera is nothing to complain of as regards the safe custody of criminals. It is indeed a matter of surprise that the attempts at escape are not more frequent when it is considered that men condemned to penal servitude for life, or for a long series of years, are confined in cells formed of one or twoinch planking. There can be no question that the safe custody of the convict population of the colony, or at all events of the long-term men, devolves upon the G-eneral G-overnment — that it is a colonial, not a mere provincial, affair. On previous occasions, we have alluded to the enormous cost of the Mount Eden establishment, — to the misdirected and wasted labour of the prisoners, — and lastly to the extravagant dietary of the gaol, for the purpose of showing that the Stockade, bo far from being a place that the criminal population would avoid, held out an attraction for them. As regards the employment of the prisoners, we are glad to perceive that an improvement has taken place, and that they are employed to some better advantage than was previously the case. Still there is extensive ground for improvement in this respect. At the present time there are 174 prisoners, of whom about 135 are sentenced to hard labour. Their daily employment is something like the following : — Quarrymen, 64 ; road-makers, 19 ; cooks, 6; cleaners, 15 ; washermen, 2 ; bakers, 1 ; hospital nurse, 1 ; whitewashes, 2 ; wood-cutters, 2 ; clerks, 3 ; carpenters, 3 ; shoemakers, 6 ; tailors^ 2 ; blacksmiths, 2 ; water-carriers, 5 ; in hospital, 2—135. It has been frequently remarked that the objects of an institution like that at Mount Eden are undoubtedly three-fold — the protection of society, the punishment of criminals, and their reformation. The first of these is, to some extent, secured, but it is at an enormous cost to the province. With regard to the second, there is little or no discipline at the Stockade which can be looked upon as of a punitive character, except the deprivation of liberty ; and so far from being a reformatory, we have only to refer to the fact that, out of 141 male prisoners now in confinement, 40 of them have been previously convicted — 18 of them once ; 8, twice ; 6, three times ; 2, four times ; 2, five times ; 3, six times ; and Ino less than seven times. There are 10 female prisoners, and all have been previously convicted, some as many as twenty and thirty times : in fact, " they are," to use the language of our informant, "continually the same lot over and " over again.' ' Considering the present state of the provincial finances we are of opinion that, under provincial management, nothing better than this can, in justice to the honest part of the population, fairly be expected. To deal more harshly with the prisoners — which some of them most richly deserve — would neither be judicious nor safe, with the inadequate means at the disposal of those in charge ; and to hope for reformation when there are no means of classifying and separating criminals is simply an absurdity. The prisoners incarcerated in the Auckland gaol are sometimes placed two and three in a cell ; they are thus suffered to indulge in the society which they preferred when at large, and their fellows in captivity are to them the best of all good company. A novice in crime by this means comes out an expert. In order to remedy this there must be classification ; whatever else may be deemed necessary, this, and the safe custody of the dangerous class of criminals, are imperatively required. The management of prisons and the treatment of the criminal population have for many years engaged the attention of good and wise men in the old country, and volumes have been written on the subject. Various systems have been adopted in her Majesty's gaols and penal establishments at home and abroad, and those gentlemen who have been commissioned by the Government of the colony to inquire into the subject will find no difficulty in deciding upon the merits of each. The different systems that have been proposed and tried are as follow : — "(1), The classification of prisoners; " (2), the silent associated system ; (3), the " separate system ; (4), the mixed system ; " (5), the mark system." Each of these possesses excellencies, but the carrying out of them separately, arbitrarily, and^ independently, has been attended with evil. Amongst the various systems we have enumerated, the last does not appear to have had a fair and complete trial, Its distinguishing feature is said to be "that it substitutes labour sentences for "time sentences." "Under this method, instead of condemning a man to hard labour for a number of years, he would have to perform a certain amount of work, the labour being indicated by " marks.'^This would convey to the mind of a prisoner a feeling that his fate was, to a considerable extent, still in his own power. It has been rightly argued that "The man serving a " fixed period has no object but to kill time. " An absolute disregard of the value of time " is thus begotten in the mind of the convict " — time becoming associated with the idea "of suffering and restraint. The time " sentence puts the offender under restraint " for a term, but does not force him to do anything to make any active reparation to " society for the crime ; and it takes away {( all stimulus to exertion on the part of the

" criminal, who knows that, idle or indus- " trious, dissolute or orderly, he must still " serve out an inexorable number of weeks " and years. The labour sentence, on the " other hand, induces a habit of hard work, " and the habit which is thus made to earn " for the man his liberty will afterwards " become the means of preserving it."