BRIGHTER GAOLS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3132, 28 August 1922, Page 2

BRIGHTER GAOLS.

"Osborne of Sing Sing," the wellknown American prison governor and penal reformer has been visiting. It was his experience as a voluntary .prisoner for short periods, and ciation with criminals, he told a Press representative, which had convinced him that criminals arc just like other people—only brighter. It was a fel-low-prisoner, -Jack Murphey, a New York gunman, doing twenty years, who had suggested that prisoners should govern themselves. "The only man a man can reform is ■ himself,''' said Mr Thomas Mott Osborne (to give him his full name), "and so we formed the Welfare League, through which, by their own courts of police, the prisoners looked after one another. This developed in each a sense of personal responsibility and of the rights of the community, the first of which is entirely absent in the ordtnarv prison regime, while it is a lack of recognition of the second which makes a man a criminal.' Mr Osborne gave instances of how effectively this plan worked. __ One winter be took a party of 9o prisoners, including "life" men. to give a concert at a town 6o miles off. I here were onlv four guards in charge. On the way back half the char-a-bancs took the wrong turning, and were lost in the woods all night. Everyone returnecll safely the next (morning, one party having inquired at a small town ii they could be accommodated in the gaol till ihev could continue their journey. "'When Portsworth Naval Prison. | said Mr Osborne, "got over-crowded during the war. and accommodation bad 1 to he found outside, the authorities wanted to put a high steel fence round the area. 'This will just make the boys want to get out,' I said, and so all we bad was a low wire fence across which any fool could get—and no one wanted; t'o'he thought a Fool." When he went to the prison there were ISO guards in charge of 170 prisoners. Later there wen- 2000 prisoners without a guard. "Whereas in America." said Mr Osborne, "it is the corrupt politician who hampers the change of the present system, in England .1 think it is officialdom which is slow to act. But if finance is one of the main obstacles I can assure them that the 'trust the prisoner' system is much cheaper."