CRIMINALS' MENTALITY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18348, 14 March 1923, Page 10

CRIMINALS' MENTALITY.

HELP FOR OFFENDERS.

VIEWS OF CHIEF JUSTICE.*

I [bt TELEGRAPH. ASSOCIATION.] DUNEDIN. Tuesday. In the course of an address at the annual meeting of the Patients and Prisoners' Aid Society, the Chief Justice, Sir Robert Stout, stated that investigations made had shown a considerable proportion of prisoners -were mentally afflicted. Ono could not have anything to do with prisoners without having that fact brought home. He did not take any Supreme Court session, but one or more accused were brought before him mentally weak. Prior to 1886, many proposals had been tried, but in that year they introduced a system of probation. The Prisons Board had recently resolved to ask people to form a society different from the Prisoners' Aid Societies, ! which -would give such persons sympathy and love, and enable them to gain moral strength and moral fibre, and thus perform their functions in life. Members of this society would meet prisoners after they came "out of gaol, and offer them help and advice. They had already done something of that kind in Wellington, where they gave men meals or fares to a destination, got them work, and gave them sympathy. They should strive to let these offenders know that they were not enemies of society, that society had soma hope for them. The speaker referred to the work Miss Baughan was doing at Lyttelton. She got into direct communication with prisoners, and he believed her work had been successful. Referring to mentally weak persons who followed one course of crime, Sir Robert Stout said one man had come under his notice who had not been in New Zealand more than a few weeks when he committed forgery. Since then he had been practically all his life in prison through different charges of forgery; in fact, never longer than six weeks out. It would have been better to put him in an institution where he would have been unable to commit crime. The speaker referred to the various open-air prisons in New Zealand, stating that these were proving very successful. The moral standard of prisoners had been raised, and these prisoners showed better results than in any other part of the world. They should provide an institution such as that mentioned for offenders who came back to prison time after time, more particularly for women. He believed, however, that, according to population, we had fewer female criminals than any part of the world.