INEBRIATES' HOMES

Evening Post, Volume XC, Issue 110, 5 November 1915, Page 5

INEBRIATES' HOMES

REFORMS IN MANAGEMENT.

While on his visit to the northern part of the Dominiou the Minister of Justice (Hon. R. M'Nab) spent a day at the Inebriates' Homes at Pakatoa and Roto Roa Islands. As a result he made the following statement: — "There was a good deal to be learned from contact with the men confined there," said Dr. M'Nab, "and as a result of what I have learned probably some few modifications will te made in. tho administration. There seems to bo no settled rule about the liberation of men. In the past it has depended on nothing in particular, and I propose to throw the responsibility for liberating inmates on the committee set up by my predecessor, which committee consists of the Auckland Magistrate, the visiting medical man, and tho local manager. I also intend to fey to arrange to have the public represented on the committee. My proposal is to throw on the committee the entire responsibility for advising when treatment has advanced sufficiently in particular cases to warrant liberation. I a]6O considered the question of classification of inmates. This can best be aehioved, I think, by the establishment at other centres of similar institutions, and putting different classes in different institutions. Owing to the present financial stringency this is not feasible just now.' Wo shall give information to magistrates who commit so that they may know exactly how the institutions are run. This is necessary, in my opinion, because there is always danger, although we have not fallen into it yet, that a criminal section will be put into these homes, and it was never intended that criminals should be sent there. I think that if magistrates know how we are placed they will be able to use judgment as to _ who they shall commit. If the scheme is ever afterwards developed, we shall have a special place in which to place men who otherwise would be sent to prison."

In conclusion, the Minister said the couutry was indebted to the Salvation. Army for the site and buildings and the general administration,' tuit the Government would not be justified in taking over the institutions, as they had not evolved a workable soheme for the curing of inebriety.