NOT SUCCESSFUL

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 63, 12 September 1945, Page 9

NOT SUCCESSFUL

DEFAULTERS IN GAOL

VIEWS OF CONTROLLER

"With the passing of time one is constrained to conclude that the transter , of military defaulters to criminal prisons has not been an altogether ; satisfactory or happy arrangement, for < the reason that many of these prison- i ers have constantly laboured under a sense of grievance and injustice~-in many cases for so long a period that it has become obsessional," said the Controller-General of Prisons (Mr.B.U Dallard) in his report for the year 1944-45, tabled in the House of Representatives yesterday afternoon. At the end of the year there Mere 48 defaulters in prison. "Their altitude of mind bus conduced to difficulties o£ their own creation," continued the report. "A number have not been amenable tv the discipline that is essential to the smooth and harmonious running of a penal establishment. Some have taken up an obstructive attitude, allegedly on principle, and others would appear deliberately to have set out to embarrass the administration. In many instances acts of insubordination and other infractions of discipline have been overlooked by controlling officers because of the obviously warped mental outlook of the offenders, it being simply a i'orm of exhibitionism. "In some cases offenders have flagrantly persisted in refractory conduct, apparently in a desire to seek notoriety or to bask in the sunshine ot martyrdom, in the result that controlling officers have been obliged to have recourse to Justices and punishment to maintain discipline among the general body of the prisoners. GRIEVANCE COMPLEX. "The offenders repeatedly assert that their grievance is not against the prison authorities, but against their continued detention. A person labouring unaer a perpetual grievance complex is a disturbing influence in a prison. The ceneral run of criminal prisoners are more inclined to adopt a philosophical outlook and take their punishment , stoically, but many military defaulters! . strive to rationalise their attitude. ' In 1942 the number of military de- ■ faulters transferred from detention ■ camps on Magisterial orders or under ■ direct sentence of imprisonment was ! 28 for the duration and 11 for a defi- : nite term, in 1943 two and 11, and in ; 1944 18 and 38. Prisoners sentenced by 1 courts-martial and received into prison " from the Army and Air Force were: 124 5 in 1942, 105 in 1943, and 52 in 1944.