OUR PENAL SYSTEM
(To the Editor.)
Sir,—Our 1935 Police ■ and .Prisons" Reports provide- in some respects such pleasant'reading 'that, tas a citizen, I am moved.to thank your paper for Its share in; helping to bring about the facts therein recorded. Our committals to Borstal have gone down from 242 in 1932 to 120 in 1934! Our prison receptions have declined, by-29 per cent, since 1931! And our"; crime ratio, though :it"sh'ows a'much smaller improvement, still:-shows a quite' decided one,' so: that evidently we need not fear that our fewer committals will increase-our crime. Now, what has effected so striking a success? One must always be careful in such matters to avoid confusing sequence with consequence. But may I recall a few facts that were duly reported in your columns at the time? In 1931 the Howard League, through the mouth of one of its members, Mr. F. A. de la Mare, attacked the pretence of "teaching trades" in our Borstals; the Minister of Justice hotly rebuked him, and the Press presented both those facts and.allowed subsequent correspondence. Then again the Howard League, from 1931 onward, published the English prison and Borstal figures as contrasted with our own. Again the Department disputed, and again the Press helped on publicity. As a result, our courts were put into possession of true facts and information ! proving that we do not need for the protection of the public to imprison and Borstalise so freely. And does it not seem that they have been convinced?
There is yet much to be done to free us from so much spreading of crime through imprisonment. We still imprison over 25 per cent, more than England; we still have a daily prison, average some three times larger than it should be; we still send too many first offenders to those modified boys' prisons that we miscall our Borstals. And we still use probation far too little, imprisoning over five times as often—while Massachusetts, the "Mother of Probation," probates five times as often as she imprisons and possesses "about the lowest crime rate in the States." But we are moving. We are improving. Our Press has done New Zealand a signal service in helping to spread knowledge about our present penal system.—l am,, etc., ; B. E. BAUGHAN.
OUR PENAL SYSTEM
Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 91, 14 October 1935, Page 14
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