HOW PROBATION WORKS.

Evening Star, Issue 12900, 24 August 1906, Page 3

HOW PROBATION WORKS.

[From Our Parliamentary Reporter.] WELLINGTON, August 23. In his report on prisons and tb© operation of tho First Offenders’ Probation Act, i Colonel Hum© (Inspector of Bosoms) says! that 111 persons were placed on probation; last year, as against ninety-on© in I®4. | Of these, thirty have satisfactorily carried: out the conditions of their licenses, and / | have been discharged; four were re-; arrested; two absconded; two wore sent! to industrial schools; one to a mental bos- 1 prtal; and seventy-three stall remain under | the supervision of the probation officers, j The amount of costs ordered to bo paid by tho various courts before winch the offenders were brought was £SBB Us lOd, of which £522 18s 9d has been actually paid, and there is every reason to suppose the balance will bo forthcoming when due. The approximate cost of keeping these offenders, had they been sent to prison, would have been £3,551 18s, which sum,, added to the amount of costs actually paid, totals a saving of £3,874 6s 9dL Of tho 1,768 persons placed on probation since tho passing of the First Offenders’ Probation Act, 1886, 1,486 have been discharged.j After satisfactorily carrying out the conditions of their licenses, ninety-eight have been rearrested and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment, one committed suicide, two died, two were sent to mental hospitals, two to industrial schools, thirtyeight absconded, and 138 still remain, fulfilling tho terms of their licenses. It is more than satisfactory to find from the foregoing that a percentage of 84.05 have done well, while only a percentage of 2JL4i have eluded the vigilance of tho probation j officers and tho police, and escaped. There j is no gainsaying the fact that tbs Act, caxefnly administered as it appears to bo, is one of the best ever placed on a Statute Book; and if a percentage of upward of 84 can bo considered reformed, with a percentage only of upwards of 2 absconding,, it is thought that those who in 1885 op-, posed it as dangerous legislation must now admit that such opinions were erroneous. Tho pains taken in investigating the cases and the reports tendered to tho courts by the gaolers and police probation officers show a praiseworthy and judicious method of making inquiries, and deserve tho-thanks of the public.