THE INDETERMINATE SENTENCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13357, 11 December 1906, Page 5

THE INDETERMINATE SENTENCE.

A TERROR TO CRIMINALS. [by telegraph.— correspondent.] Wellington, Monday. "The Habitual Criminals Act is one of the finest Acts as far as crime is concerned ever brought into force in New Zealand," remarked a well-known detective in conversing with a Post reporter. He stated that many of the criminals in Wellington were giving up their career of crime, and to use his words, " tumbling over one another to get work, and they don't forget to let you know when they do get work." Only the other night he saw a criminal who had served a sentence of 10 years. He walked out of the place without recognising the man, and had not got 10 yards along the street when the criminal caught up on him, told him where he was working and living, and where he could be found. Another criminal to whom he spoke the other day, said he had given the game best, and was not taking any risks with indeterminate sentences. The difficulty of the police at the present time, the detective said, was in dealing with criminals who came here unknown to the police, and were only discovered when arrested for some crime and their ringer prints taken. Only recently five prisoners went before the Supreme Court for sentence, and four of them were Australians. There is an Act in force in New South Wales relating to habitual criminals, similar to the New Zealand Act, and many of the criminals, according to the detective, are making themselves scarce and coming to New Zealand in order to get away from the officers of the law who have them under observation.