MONEY OR MORALS?

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 50, 27 August 1925, Page 9

MONEY OR MORALS?

PAYMENT OF PRISONERS

AN INDUCEMENT TO EFFORT.

One of the greatest difficulties encountered by the Prisons Department is that of finding suitable remunerative work for, prisoners, owing to the difficulty, experienced in disposing of the. prison-made products.

" On the one hand," states the annual report of the Controller-General of Prisons (Mr. M. Hawkins}, "we hare those who constantly demand that prisons should be made self-supporting, while on the other are those who strenuously object to the sale of anything produced by prison labour. The question is, Are the prisons to be run solely as a moneymaking concern or in the best interests of those committed there? It is not likely that the former method should find favour when the moral and not the financial value of the men comes to be considered, and when—to quote Sir Ruggles Brise— 'the principal aim of imprisonment is to secure moral reform of the prisoner, and not to make money to enable the Treasury to meet the expenses of prisons." It is only of recent years that the theory of a self-supporting prison has ceased to be attractive."

"It would appear that useful remunerative work is one of the greatest agencies in connection with the rehabilitation of men and women who have been sent to prison; and, after forty years' experience m prisons and amongst prisoners. I have formed the same conclusion. There is no use, however, in providing commodities if the sale of such is prohibited. Many years ago I myself have seen men breaking road metal which was after; wards wheeled into pits and covered up with clay. I have also seen heaps of clay—loo yards of it—wheeled for 50 yards and stacked, and the same clay wheeled back to its former position again, just for the saka of giving the men something to do. The baneful effects of such action upon both officers and prisoners can be readily imagined." Discussing the payment of wages to prisoners, Mr. Hawkins observed that it is clear that the prisoner has no right to payment as against the taxpayer who is heavily taxed in contributing to his support, but the idea of some definite reward following effort was generally accepted in , all prison systems. In this respect New Zealand led the way. Taking the system as a whole, in the payments to prisoners, and especially to their dependants tha New Zealand system was one of the most humane. Last year about £7000 was paid to prisoners' wive 3or mothers for the support of their families, while about £4500 was paid in the form of earnings to the prisoners themselves. This arrangement had been found necessary in the interest* of the prisoners themselves. "The payment of wages has come to stay." he concluded, "but the greatest care has to be 1 exercised that only deserving casKja are helped, as otherwise abuses are liable to occur."