IMPRISONMENT FOR POVERTY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22403, 27 April 1936, Page 15

IMPRISONMENT FOR POVERTY

Sir, —lhe end of last year saw a new law passed in England—the Money Payments Act—designed "to reduce the number of persons sent to prison for non-payment of rates, fines, and sums fixed by maintenance orders." It seems at last to have been recognised, in the Old Country, that in this matter there has hitherto been one law for those with means and another for those without, and that this is a manifest injustice. "But," it may be urged, "there are cases where non-payment is not really due to poverty, but to wilfulness?" That is so; and where wilfulness is proved, this Act authorises imprisonment; proved, however, it must be. As soon as the Act was passed, the Homo Secretary addressed a circular letter to all magistrates asking for a sympathetic use of its provisions; and the London Spectator of January 31 last tells us that, "Magistrates up and down the country are holding special sittings to comply with if." And that it is keeping out of prison a great many people who would otherwise automatically have gone there." The alternative to a fine at present in use in England now, is a night in the police cells. Possibly a daily reporting to the police for a while might impress careless youth somewhat less dangerously and more deeply. But, at any rate, let us not lag long behind England in this matter. The 1936 Year Book states that in 1934 there were 946 cases of imprisonment in lieu of fine alone. May we not hope for the necessary legislation, even this session? For to many of us it is known that such imprisonment merely for poverty is far from uncommon among us, and that its manifest injustice often leacts badly alike on victim and society. H. Bentham New Zealand Howard League for Penal lleform.