MODERN PRISONS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 31, 5 August 1925, Page 5

MODERN PRISONS

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE CHANGES IN BRITISH SYSTEM PAROLE REPLACES IRON BARS. (fNItU MESS ASSOCIATION—COMBIOT.) CSfDNBX SUN CABLE.) (Received sth August, 10 a.m.) LONDON, 4th August. An international prisons conference is being held in London. The delegates were given a reception by the British Government at Lancaster House, at which there Were a thousand guests, including many representatives of the Dominions. Sir W. Joynaon-Hicks, Home Secretary, in welcoming the delegaleß, said there had been a striking decrease in crime in Britain. Whereas ten thousand' people were undergoing ponal servitude in 1875, there were now only sixteen hundred; other prisoners had declined from twenty thousand to eight thousand, and ,the number of prisons .had been reduced from 126 to 34 in the same period. The decreases were due to better education, and the improvement of the standard of sobriety and conditions of living, and to the exercise of the discretion given to Judges and Magistrates in employing alternatives for detention. The Government, he laid, was experimenting with the segregation of first offenders, for which the huge Wormwood Scrubs prison was solely equipped. The Wakefield prison, which was devoted to giving long-term prisoners industrial training, had practically abolished separate confinements, and the prisoners were placed on their honour during the educational classes held in all the prisons, in the absence of the warders. Cell windows were now made to open, atid prisoners were able to see visitors without bars between, thus carrying out the Government's desire to promote self-esteem, avoid unnecessary degradation, and make the atmosphere of the prison one of hope rather than of despair. - . ■