CRIMINAL PRISONS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21816, 12 September 1945, Page 6

CRIMINAL PRISONS

MILITARY DEFAULTERS “TRANSFER A FAILURE" (P.R.I WELLINGTON, Sept. 12. “With the passing of time one is constrained to conclude that the transfer of military defaulters to criminal prisons has not been altogether a satisfactory or happy arrangement, for the reason that many of these prisoners 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 con-troller-general of prisons, Mr. B. L. Dallard, in his annual report, tabled in the House of Representatives yesterday. He reported that at the end of the year there were 48 defaulters in prison.

“Their attitude of mind has conduced to difficulties of their own creation,” continued the report. “A number have not been amenable to the discipline that is essenlial 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 the controlling officers because of the obviously warped mental outlook of the offenders, it being simply a form of exhibitionism. “In some cases the offenders have flagrantly persisted in refractory conduct, apparently in the desire to seek notoriety or to bask in the sunshine of martyrdom, with the result that the controlling officers have been obliged to have recourse to justices and punishment to maintain discipline among the general body of prisoners.”