GAOLS OF INDIA.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19311, 24 October 1924, Page 11

GAOLS OF INDIA.

ANNUAL COST RUNS INTO MILLIONS. There is a certain amount of misconception regarding the functions of gaols in India and the methods of their administration, as is evident from the newspaper Comments and speeches on the public platform (says ths Bombay correspondent of the - Chrietian Science Monitor). To remove this, the Bombay Government lias therefore published recently a bulletin on the gaols in India. After pointing out that no Government, desires the gaols as part ,of its administration, it gees on to say 'that it has been calculated that the daily average population of the convict prisons in India is roughly about 10(1,000. If the net value of the labour of these prisoners when at liberty is oeti-; mated, at the low figure of 100 rupees per, annum, the loss to the country through their detention • in prisons amounts to 10,000,000 rupees a year. • The net cost of guarding, feeding, and clothing them cannot be placed at a lower figure than 10,000,000 rupees per: annum, the total loss to the community thus amounting to 20,000,000 rupees a year.; Thus it is obvious that even from purely financial .motives the desire of the Government would be to empty its prison and not to fill them. The prisons in India, aays the bulletin, have features which make them infinitely preferable to European prisons. The whole environment is more cheerful, open, and natural. The convict does not spend years of imprisonment surrounded by cheerless bricks and mortar, his sole glimpse of ths outside world being the sky that roofs ths exercise courtyard. Ones inside the gates, the Indian prison is more like a hospital or cantonment. In some of them the grounds ane full of trees and shrubs, and the prison kitchen garden) is a feature of every gaol. There is also spaciousness, light, and air. The prieanem work together, and sleep in wards, no* solitary cells. Moreover, prison food and the conditions of prison life are cleaner, .healthier, and more comfortable than those to which the great majority of the convicts are accustomed.