"STRIKE" IN GAOL

Evening Post, Issue 98, 27 April 1936, Page 11

"STRIKE" IN GAOL

OX ANZAC MORNING

MOUNT EDEN PRISONERS

WORK OBJECTED TO

Objecting to carry out any duties on Anzac Day prisoners at the Mount Eden Gaol, Auckland, staged a brief "strike" on Saturday morning, and it was found necessary to augment the start of warders by a number of constables in order to quell the disturbance. In an official statement regarding the incident, the Minister of Justice (ths Hon. H. G. R. Mason) stated:— "On the morning of Anzac Day some of the prisoners in Mount Eden Gaol made themselves a source of considerable trouble to the prison staff. It is usual on Saturdays for prisoners to shave, bath themselves, and change their clothes, the clothes being distributed by men assigned to the task. On Saturday some of the prisoners objected against, having to shave on the ground that it was Anzac Day and that, as no work was being performed outside the prison, nothing should be done inside it. They further refused to deliver any clean clothes to their fellow prisoners and all the other prisoners joined in this 'strike.'

"Not thinking fit to have the prisoners resume dirty clothes after their baths, members of the prison staff distributed'the clean clothing themselves. As it was Anzac Day there was only a reduced staff on duty and the distribution took the greater part of an hour, as. against the few minutes that would have been taken if the prisoners themselves had distributed the clean clothes.

"There was a consequent delay in letting the prisoners out into their exerci§> yard and they took advantage of their knowledge that there was only a reduced staff on duty by refusing to come in at the ordinary time. They held that as they had been let out late they should have extra time for. exercise.

"The men were warned of the very serious nature of the offence they were committing, but still persisted in their refusal. The police were at once communicated with, the skeleton staff of warders was reinfitreed with a detachment of constable!:, and the prisoners were given the op ;ioir of walking into their cells or of being put in forcibly. Thereupon they all went quietly to their cells.

"An inquiry by the visiting Magistrate will be held into the origin of the mutinous conduct of the prisoners concerned."

Mr. Mason added that under the present system of classification of prisoners, Mount Eden was the gaol in wJfch all the worst offenders from the whole of New Zealand were confined.