OUR TREATMENT OF CRIME.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 134, 6 May 1933, Page 2

OUR TREATMENT OF CRIME.

(To the Editor.)

Dear Sir.—We feel that it would be in the public interest to make known

the following facts which emerge from a comparison between English prison statistics as revealed in the latest report to hand and our New* Zealand prison statistics covering approximately the came period. (1) The "total receptions" into English orisons during 1930 numbered 59.936. (English Prisons Report. 1932.) Our own "total receptions” for that year were 5761. (New Zealand Yearbook, 1932.) Our figure was thus nearly one-tenth of the English although unr populations is only or.etweniybsixth. (2) The "daily average’’ in prisons shows us in still worse a light, our average being about one-eighth of the English (1466 ar.d 11.346 respectively). (3) The number im-

prisoned "after conviction" ’ was in England 9.77 per 10.000 of general population, compared with 19.19 in New Zealand. (4) Of the above, about 35 per cent, in New Zealand were first offenders, as against 25 per cent, in England, where probation is much more extensively used. (5) The ' net average cost per prisoner was in England £-52 Os 3d. about £1 per week as against some 30s per week iu New Zea-

land. where the net cost per prisoner per annum was about £77 (ir the cost of "prisoner's wages ar.d dependants" be deducted from the total, which is

given as £55 11s 4dL These figures can be checked by anyone who cares to study the English report referred to. our own prisons* ro per; for 1931 , and the Yearbook for 1932- The position mav be summarised by saying that, had the New Zealand daily quota of prisoners beer, that of the Old Countrv" (in proportion to general population} New Zealanders would have nan to pay for the daily upkeep or 43-prison-inmates onlv instead of for rhat of 1466: and hau the cost been on the English scale instead of the New Zealand', the "departmental upkeep to- rhe wear 1930 would have oeen oulv £22.429 9s 3d. instead of wnat it sciiialtv was. namely. £180,090 9s. Id. We submit that the situation to which these figures point is one wcich can- ! no; but disturb the complacency _ cr | snv thinking citizen in tne ettective- ' ness o f our treatment of crime and the criminal in New Zealaml. Tne excessive cost of cur svstem mignt be .e» disturbing if we could point to tetter ; results than the English in diminishing j The number of "criminals. * _instead \ of which our prison ccures increase ; eve-v vear (thev were rar mgner ror f 1933") ‘and the" latest prisons report; tells us that "the prison population r of tiro Dominion is largely or j ! oeitv recidivists, who are repeatedly j iSLand out of Prison "-surely a clear I I confession that the sysrom I fails to reform these people. M e sub- : ir. that some system less obsolete than : U-a: which our Courts stul in ■ using would both cost. us less auci pay ; us better. And m particular we . lv --ge that imprisonment sterna oe only for. major o*e*c«. ***[ thlt our probation c ew fauures ana its ran grower ovo r cmv.* should be much more extensively , used. —Yours faithtiniy. j ; N. M. RICHMOND. Chairman. Dc"minioc. Executive. Howard Lea-p gue for Penal Reform.