Readers Write

Northern Advocate, 5 September 1939, Page 4

Readers Write

[Readers are invited to send letters for publication in this Column. A letter shoidd be written in ink on one side of the paper, and imist bear the name of the writer, not necessarily for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith.]

We extend a warm welcome to the .Summary Penalties Bill, which was introduced into the House of the Honourable the

SUMMARY PENALTIES BILL.

Minister of Jrustice. Proof of the necessity

for this long overdue measure is given by the Controller-General of Prisons in his latest report where he states that during 1938 no less than 540 persons were automatically imprisoned in default of fines. It is certain that the immense majority of these, and possibly all of them, will have defaulted through poverty.

It seems logical to suppose that our| Government will now go on to inves-' i tigate our whole present penal policy ■ which, if one is to believe the evi-i dence of the Year Books, appears neither to deter nor to reform. Taking the available figures over four consecutive years, 1934 to. 1937, we find (excluding the 2592 first offenders) that out of a total of 5721 persons imprisoned during that period, no fewer than 3091 had had four or more than four previous convictions, while no less than 2630 had already come under our penal system on two or three occasions.

It seems a fair deduction from these; figures that a great waste of both hu-1 man and financial resources is here l disclosed. Part of this is certainly due! to the wretched system of “short imprisonments” which is far too often preferred by our Courts to the various alternatives of probation, binding over, deferred sentences, etc. Thus the. 1938 Prison Report tells us that 60 per cent of the imprisonments in New Zealand last year were for less than three months, nearly 40 per cent being for even less than one month. If our courts would recognise that a prison sentence is the greatest social disgrace possible and should therefore be reserved for really serious offences, and if our prisons could be organised for curing, instead of merely for punishing, then our human material would respond and our Prisons bill, now relatively far too large, would show a sympathetic decline. Experience, we submit, amply proves that scientific methods are cheaper as well as more effective.—N.2. HOWARD LEAGUE FOR PENAL REFORM.