NEW ZEALAND PENAL METHODS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20989, 28 September 1931, Page 11

NEW ZEALAND PENAL METHODS.

Sir,—l trust that you will be able to find space for this brief protest in youi valuable paper in reply to a recent statement of a "responsible official" from the Home Oifce, in which ho says that in "New Zealand of those men and women sentenced to imprisonment between the years 1911 and 1929, 72.6 per cent, are known to have become happy and honest citizens." This is, most unfortunately, simply not true. Mr. Weldon was completely mistaken: the figures cited are true only of one small and special class of "those men and women imprisoned" during the time mentioned. _ Further, ho seems to have remained in ignorance of two other facts that should have led him to a very different conclusion. First, the testimony of our Year Book for many years past, which shows that over 60 per cent, of those convicted each year have been convicted before; and, secondly, the size of our daily prison population, which is some four times, proportionately, that of England. Such a visitor had a right to the fullest ana the truest information as to our present penal system. Did he get it ? For the honour of New Zealand we must enter our protest, against his having been allowed to make so grave an error, and we beg that the Minister of Justice will'see that it is corrected where it was published. C. R. N. Mackie. Acting Hon. Sec. N.Z. Howard League for Penal Reform.