HONOUR SYSTEM

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 127, 31 May 1944, Page 6

HONOUR SYSTEM

NEW GIRLS' BORSTAL

IMPOSING BUILDING

Care has been taken to avoid any of the atmosphere of a prison in the construction of the Arohata Women's Borstal which is almost completed near Tawa- Flat and may be occupied this month. Inmates of such institutions are not sentenced for the purpose of punishment, but for training- and discipline, and in designing the new institution the Government architects, acting under the instructions of the Justice Department, have made the accommodation and surroundings as pleasant as possible compatible with the intention of keeping the inmates inside it. The ideal of the borstal as laid out in the regulations under which the offenders sentenced are sent there is further exemplified in the choice of a name for it. "Arohata" is the Maori name for "bridge," and adopted originally because of its proximity to the Tukapa road bridge, it is hoped that the borstal may prove the bridge between youthful misdemeanour for which the inmates were sentenced and a useful life as trusted and lawabiding members of the community. Considering that the buildings have been constructed under wartime restrictions and shortages of material, an imposing block has resulted. It is timber-framed, lined witli New Zealand wall-board and sheathed in asbestos which has been plastered in a pleasant yellow shade to give an appearance of concrete. The result is a building which looks bright and cheerful from the outside and whose interior design and fittings do nothing to mar the impression. The wallboarding of the interior has been painted in light and varied colours in a balanced scheme, and the windows throughout, including those of the bedrooms of the inmates, are of the ordinary type common in most houses, with no suggestion of iron bars or other impediments to egress that might be expected in such an institution. The complete block is, of course, surrounded by a high wiremesh fence with barbed-wire obstructions on the top, for it is not the intention that there should be an open invitation for the inmates to decamp, but it is hoped to run the borstal on a modification of the honour system and to teach the girls there that they are being trained rather than punished. ADMINISTRATION OFFICES. The administration block is of two stories and contains the reception and administration offices, dental surgery, board room, and staff kitchens on the ground floor, and accommodation for the staff and a small suite for the matron above. The block is connected by a t long corridor with the rest of the building. Accommodation for the inmates is in single rooms in three wings for the three grades of inmates. Each room contains a mirror, a box bed with drawers for clothing beneath, and a wooden shelf. Heating is arranged centrally throughout the building and in the corridors into which the rooms open. Each wing has a workroom in which sewing work will be done, and-, there is a well.equipped laundry in which the laundry for the institution and work for other Government Departments will be done. Outside work will include the maintenance of the gardens and the running of a dairy farm which is attached to the institution. The site is of 110 acres with a northerly aspect and an extensive view over Tawa Flat and Porirua to Titahi Bay, PaekaKariki, and the mountains beyond. It is almost obscured from view from the road by the slope of the land up to the plateau on which it stands. Although the borstal has accommodation for 100 inmates, it was designed to fill the needs for the Department for many years to come, and the number of girls at the present institution at Point Halswell now stands at less than 50. At one period recently, due to abnormal war conditions, the roll there reached 90, but this position has now improved and it is expected that it will soon drop to its normal average of about 35.