SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES

Evening Star, Issue 19437, 21 December 1926, Page 4

SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES

In concluding this report it will perhaps not he out of place to quote from an address given by the late Sir C. E. Matthews when Controller-General of Prisons, to the Wellington Justices’ Association in July, 1923, showing that the procedure and policy outlined above are in accordance with the definitely established practice of v,hc board":—“ The board’s powers in regard to Us recommendations for remission of sentence, either by release on probation or complete discharge, mo very mrgo. In it the Government has vested its authority to review all direct sentences. . • • Usually the hoard’s powers of recommendation are exercised only on a definite system as to the proportion of his sentence a prisoner must serve before ho is eligible for consideration, but in cases that appear to merit earlier attention, owing to special circumstances, the board is always prepared to review a sentence, and, if it deems it wise to do so, to recommend immediate release on probation or discharge—even if a long scur tpucc has only run for a lew months. There are occasions when such a course is necessary in the interests of justice juui Humanity, and the board never hesitates to exercise the discretion given it in dealing with such cases.”