PROBATION AND PRISON.

Evening Star, Issue 19327, 13 August 1926, Page 6

PROBATION AND PRISON.

“ Abandon hope all ye who enter here ” might have been written not so long ago above all prisons. Wo have progressed a long way from that system in New Zealand in the last twenty years, and most notably in the latest years. The object now might be said to be not to lot men into prison if there is any chance of their redeeming their errors out of it, and not to keep them there, when they are in, any longer than is absolutely necessary for the protection pf their fellows. The probation system has become hardly less important than the prison system, and it works in two ways. It may be a substitute for 'gaol, when offenders (who need not, since 1920, be first offenders) are given the benefit of it, or it may be a sequel to gaol w r hen habitual offenders or those who have been awarded determinate sentences are released under it by the Prisons Board. Naturally it works better for the first class and for young offenders than for a proportion of the second. It was stated by the Minister, when the report of the Chief Probation Officer was before the House this week, that in 85 per cent, of the cases which are dealt with under the Offenders’ Probation Act, being spared even a first visit to gaol, there is no fresh appearance before the court—at least during the period of their probation. The statistics are imperfect, since they do not reveal what may happen after that, but the records of those released on probation under the Crimes Act indicate that 72 per cent, show a permanent gratitude. The Dunedin probation officer waxes eloquent over the results of the system. “It is a most inspiring thing,” he reports, “to see men make an heroic effort to make good. Under the humane system of probation I am able to say with certainty that men not only struggle, but really win, and become most respected citizens.” The Controller-General of Prisons records that of 1,363 youths who passed through the Invercargill Borstal Institution for reformative detention during the five years ended December last less than 7 per cent, have been reconvicted after discharge. Those are encouraging figures. It is inevitable that others, which deaj with habitual criminals released after showing signs of reformation, should be not so good. Rather more than half of those have been returned to prison, either for non-compliance with the terms of probation or for committing later offences. A further proportion, having left New Zealand, may have found their way to prisons elsewhere. But the percentage is substantial that does not offend again. On the whole, the work of the Prisons Board, even when it deals with habitual offenders, would appear to be justified. Sometimes it makes mistake, and judges are scornful. It would make fewer, probably, if it worked in a different way. Prisoners are released on the reports of their gaolers that they have put off the old Adam. But the gaoler is not necessarily a psychologist; ho may he deceived by appearances. It has been aptly pointed out that the “good prisoner ” may bo something very different from the good citizen. He may merely be one who has learned, from long experience, how to make the best of gaol. The members of the Prisons Board can have little time to study for themselves the development of character of those of whom they are tempted to hope the best when they arc reported by their keepers to be giving no trouble. The suggestion has been made that local committees, helped by a psychiatrist who might be appointed for all New Zealand, would be an invaluable aid to the board ■in deciding who should and who should not be made beneficiaries of its clemency. That suggestion, so far as we have seen, has not received yet any notice from authorities, but it is in line with modern tendencies that are at least theoretically approved. The Con-troller-General, for example, in his report on the prisons, quotes Sir Ruggles Brise, an eminent English authority, as stating that “it has become more and more recognised in recent years that the personality of the offender must enter into the legal conception of the degree of guilt.” The Controller goes on to say: “ Dealing with this matter, the suggestion has frequently been made that a psychiatrist should be associated wdth the courts administering criminal justice, but this would involve many practical administrative difficulties.”

We are doing better than we did, even despite tho statement, which has been’ made by authority, that there is no reformative treatment, properly so called, in New- Zealand prisons—apart, we presume, from the Borstal institutions for youths. At least, there is an active humanity, unthought of in earlier days, in their system, which is to be welcomed so long as it does not degenerate into foolish and perverted sentimentalism treating prisoners better than many out of gaol are treated. Delinquents have their chance of being reclaimed. There are schools to-day in the gaols, and such subjects as civics, elementary economics, and history have recently been added to the curriculum. There is a modicum ’even of entertainment, so that routine may not be too oppressive. The need for better classification, so that first offenders who are too old for admission to Borstal institutions, but may he only “accidental criminals,” may be separated from “ old timers,” is pressed in the report, and should be viewed as a matter for earliest action. Perhaps tho most gratifying statement which the report contains is that “ crime among New Zealand-born has shown practically no increase during the past few years, and in relation to population there is an actual decrease.”