PRISONERS IN REVOLT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18417, 1 December 1921, Page 5

PRISONERS IN REVOLT

REMARKABLE HAPPENINGS IN MELBOURNE GAOL. (From Odr Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, November 23. A remarkable condition of affairs has arisen in Pentridge Gaol, in Victoria, where the prisoners, because of the alleged failure of the officials to remedy their grievances, broke into open revolt, and finally burned down one of the prison workshops. A departmental inquiry is being held concerning the matter, but a move is being made in the State Parliament for a Royal Commission of investigation. The spirit - of rebellion first flamed several ■weeks ago, when a special search, of prisoners in the brushwaxe shop for forbidden articles wag ordered. The work was so thoroughly done that the place was left in disorder. This did not meet with the approval of the prisoners when they came to the shop on the following morning, and they refused to work. On the following morning' the strike infection spread to a further 150 men belonging to various occupational gangs. The strikers were locked up for three days, and when the visiting magistrate came he sentenced the ringleaders to seven clays’ imprisonment, cumulative upon their sentences. The others were given a month’s "probation,” that is, the threat of punishifaent was held over them to ensure their good behaviour. For some weeks the rebellion smouldered, then last week is broke out afresh. The overseer of the wire-netting factory had occasion to reprimand a prisoner for not doing his work properly. The man refused to work at all, and was locked lip. The next day the whole of the prisoners in the factory—all indeterminate-sentence men—refused to work. Other men in the indeterminate division also revolted. A day or so later the visiting magistrate sentenced 25 men to 21 days* solitary confinement. They retaliated by breaking all the furniture in thejr cells, and were as a punishment ordered to be put into straight-jackets. Two days later the fire broke out in the wire-netting factory. Three men suspected of being responsible for the outbreak were punished, and since then life at Pentridge has boon comparatively uneventful.