PARADING PRISONERS.

NZ Truth, Issue 89, 2 March 1907, Page 4

PARADING PRISONERS.

The practice, far too common m Wellington, of parading prisoners, either those convicted or on remand awaiting trial, through the public thoroughfares, cannot be too strongly condemned. Sometime ago, m Wellington, the ukase went forth to cease the practise of marching prisoners aibbut to be tried, handcuffed and ironed together, from the gaol to the court. This command seems, to have * beetf obeyed as the prisoners are generally conveyed from gaol to court and vice versa m a cab, though the gaol authorities fell from grace the other •lay when a Maori, against whom no true hill, on a charge of murder, was found by the. Grand Jury, was marched, handcuffed, m the custody of a burly warder, from the Terrace Gaol to the Supreme Court to be formally discharged. Mention was made of the matter at the time m these columns and ,there is good reason to believe that nothing of the kind will happen again m a hurry. Almost daily, however, along some of Wellington's busiest thoroughfares gangs of browncoated, arrow-marked convicts are to be met with, either coming from the railway station, or on the tramp to the. Mount Cook depot ; and the public have get to learn that it is part of a convict's punishment to be thus paraded before the gaze of idle onlookers, some of whom are so deyoM of ; decent feeling as to .- make jeering remarks to or anent ttie unfortunate wretches. Surely the Prisons or Police Department can lay claim to a "Black Maria," and if they do not, one ought to be procured with which to convey the prisoners/ to and from the gaol: When the gaol authorities themselves are so dead to all feeling for the' misguided wretches under their control it is hardly likely that the police should be over particular. An incident occurred -last Wednesday evening week that should be taken notice of by Inspector Ellison, who is m charge of Wellington district, and he should see that a recurrence of what happened that evening is prevented m future. There were two prisoners, one a man and the other a youth, handcuffed on the wharf. Their destina^was presumably Christchurch, and if so, that is no reason why the .pair should have been kept standing fully a quarter of an hour at the gangway, and another ten minutes on the deck ere they were taken below. There wer<s two constables m charge of them ; but the cops seemed to prefer, to stand yapping at each other the while the pair of prisoners were being gaped at by the crowd on the 'wharf and boat, than ■ tp. considering the feelings of two victims of an inexorable law. This public parading of prisoners is becoming damnable, and a nuisance, and the authorities had better see that some change is made m future.