PRISON REFORM.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCVIII, Issue 11446, 8 December 1897, Page 4

PRISON REFORM.

We have frequently remarked that in no department of the- public serried is reform more difficult to achieve than in the treatment of eniximals. The innate conservatism of official humanity seems at once to rise in arms against any suggestion of change in prison management and methods of working. : A fresh exemplification of this truth is provided by the reply of the Premier to the request of the Canterbury Women’s Institute and other bodies that women official visitors to prisons should have more extended powers \ conferred upon them. Mr Seddon—writing, we presume, after consultation with the prison authorities and tha Crown law officers —promises that the matter shall receive consideration, bub adds that “ before the request could be granted, the law wonld require to he amended.” it is to he regretted that there is no expression of approval of the suggested change, and' no promise that the legislation stud to be necessary will be proposed by tha Government. One would have thought that so simple a matter as extending the powers of official visitor* to prisons, so that their usefulness might be enhanced, could have been managed by a departmental regulation, or by order of the Gorernor-in-Council ; but, if that is impossible, the short Act of Parliament neeesr sary to give effect to the proposal could have been ■ prepared and passed in a very few days. There is hardly likely to be any parliamentary opposition to a reform so microscopic and so unexceptionable, and which would not necessarily involve the principle of making women Justices of the Peace. We trust the cold and guarded reply oi the Premier does not mean that a change desired by many Political Associations all over the country, as well as by the Women’s Institute, is looked on with absolute disfavour, but is merely intended to convey that the present is an inconvenient season to take up the matter. It would he a thousand pities if the legitimate and praiseworthy ambition of women to render service to the body politic should be damped by official inertia or Ministerial delay. It must be recognised that a corollary of womanhood suffrage is the freer entrance of women into all spheres of public activity, and we would impress upon the Government the importance of giving early and favourable con- ■ sideration to the proposal to provide facilities for utilising the honorary services of philanthropic women among our prison population.