AN EXPERT'S OPINIONS.

Evening Star, Issue 7911, 20 May 1889, Page 2

AN EXPERT'S OPINIONS.

[From Our Own Correspondent ]

CHRISTCHURCH, May 20.

Mr John Gale, who after thirty-eight years' prison experience in Victoria, has just resigned the position of Go ernor of Pentridge penal establishment, was interviewed here while on his way to England. He said that the colonial gaols were positively valueless for reformatory purposes. This effect he attributed to want of classification and to the hereditary character of the criminals. He was also emphatic in his condemnation of mixing the children of virtuous and vicious parents as we did in our reformatories. Such a system made these institutions the nurseries of crime. The worst prisoners ever under his control at Pentridge were those educated in re formatories. It was a great mistake, in his opinion, to march prisoners through the public streets as he saw was done at Lyttelton. That familiarised persons with crime, and led the criminally disposed to think that the gaol was not such a bad place after all. The practice which prevailed in this colony of trying prisoners in public for offences committed against the gaol regulations was a direct encouragement to insubordination. In Australia the larrikins were taking the place of the old prisoners, and were even worse than they. The chief cause of crime was that it was hereditary, but he thought the political system in the colonies tended to encourage it. The First Offenders Act was a good measure, but should be used with great discretion, j