The Northern Advocate Daily “NORTHLAND FIRST” SATURDAY, JULY 30, 1938. Prison Reform

Northern Advocate, 30 July 1938, Page 6

The Northern Advocate Daily “NORTHLAND FIRST”

SATURDAY, JULY 30, 1938. Prison Reform

Registered for transmission through the post as a Newspaper

DRASTIC changes, it is reported, are to be made in England to ameliorate the lot of prisoners and keep them in touch with the outside world. Apparently the efforts of reformers are at last hearing fruit. Convicts and wrongdoers are to be treated as human beings, and every icsson ot psychology is that there should be a response to such treatment. It is necessarily impractical, and even dangerous, to - extend leniency to men with warped or savage minds, in whom the criminal instinct rises above (‘.very decent characteristic. Such men are few and far between. The old, pestilential gaols, however, bred them in such numbers that these places were a training school for criminals, developing'their proficiency and hardening their prejudice against a disciplined social life. It is many years now since the days of Howard and Mrs Fry, when the first efforts were made to alleviate the barbarism of the English prison system in the middle of last century. Little by little the introduction of wholesome food and more rational methods of prison discipline removed the reproaches to the oldtime penal cesspits, but, even so, the prisoner was still treated as a creature apart —branded, segregated, humiliated and repressed. Nor is the New Zealand prison system completely free from reproach. Indeed, it leaves a good deal to be desired, so much so that it is to be hoped some of the changes announced by Sir Samuel Ho a re, a descendant of Mrs. Fry, the great worker for prison reform, will bo immediately followed in this country. It is not necessary to look further south than Mt. Eden Gaol, that grim old fortress in the heart of Auckland, to see many traces of the old penal system still in operation. At Mt. Eden, men who are imprisoned for the most venial offences may rub shoulders with hardened criminals. Youthful Maoris from the Far North imprisoned for sexual offences not recognised in their ancient tribal code, may be flung into the same yard as cracksmen and perverts. A man gaoled for a motoring offence, in which there is no hint of any deliberate viciousness or criminal inclination, is compelled to wear prison garb from head to foot. Let us take the case of a man who has perhaps been so foolish as to take an excess of drink and later drive his car. If sentenced to seven days’ imprisonment he is accorded almost identical treatment with a man who has “blown” a safe. On arrival at the gaol this man—possibly, as in a recent case, a young professional man—is divested of his civilian attire and thrust into ill-fitting moleskins. Prison shirt (colourless) and obviously cast off coat belonging presumably to a former inmate, prison underHe gets porridge twice a day for breakfast and tea. He wear, and prison boots complete Lis temporary wardrobe, receives letters only twice a week and only after they have been censored by the prison officials, who thus are able to pry into the most intimate affairs of a man who a couple of years ago, before the days of Mr. Semple, would probably not have been in prison at all. Friends may wisli to send him cigarettes and fruit to mitigate the Spartan prison diet, but such gestures are not permitted. If they visit him they may converse with him only across a broad counter in the presence of a warder, and they may not shake hands with him. If they have brought him some reading matter it must be handed in at the prison office. He is allowed to write letters only once a week. Anyone who comes into contact with a ease of this kind is forced to the realisation that there is much that is out-of-date and medieval and harsh in our New Zealand prison systems, failure to discriminate between the various types of offences, and in its determination to stamp out the self-respect of minor offenders by subjecting them to humiliations which are the more painful if they have done little to deserve them. When we read that it is proposed in Britain to allow prisoners to wear civilian clothes when interviewing their friends, and compare this and other proposed reforms with the practice at certain New Zealand gaols, and at Mt. Eden, in particular, it is obvious that much remains to be done before the New Zealand prison system can claim to be abreast of modern thought.