THE PENAL SYSTEM.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21102, 12 August 1930, Page 7

THE PENAL SYSTEM.

HOWARD LEAGUE’S CRITICISM. OTHER SIDE OF THE PICTURE. (Feb United Pbesb Association.) CHRISTCHUR9H, August 10. “There is nothing at all constructive in the criticism by the Howard League at Hamilton of the penal system. It is destructive criticism of the worst type, and that is the sort of criticism that nevet gets us anywhere. The league simply says: "\Ve are right and you arc wrong,’ but u that is so, bow is it that the results that the Prisons Board achieves are so good as is shown by the reports every year? These remarks were made to a reporter by a court official in Christchurch with reference to the statements of Mr F. A.de la Mare at Hamilton. “Mr de la Mare has said, that our Prisons Board represents sentimentalism at its worst,” continued the official, “but after a long experience of the board 1 cannot see that it is sentimental at all. If some men have been released for what might be termed sentimental reasons, the majority of them have taken advantage of the opportunity given them to make good. Those who come back to gaol are in nearly every case old offenders. The league simply does not know what it is talking about. The board does nbt appeal to the feelings of the men at all. They are not treated like babies. An appeal is made to the best in the men, and if they act like men and atone for the wrongs they have done, they are given the chance to make good; and I say the majority of them do make good. The prisons of to-day are very different from the prisons of the past. Often when men are sent out from their camps to work, there is plenty of opportunity for them. to escape, but when a man goes back every evening to camp he is acting like a man, , and not on his feelings. To say there is no protection to society under the present system is quite wrong, as is shown by the fa'ct that released prisoners do make good. What the league is hammering at all the time is the scientific treatment of the inmates of prisons, but we don’t believe in that. We - want practical treatment. They believe that if a man succumbs to temptation he should have bis “ head read,” and no credit is given for the frailty of human nature. Very possibly our prison system does not contain an officer capable of making the 'high brow' examination the leagne wants, bqf I say emphatically that we have men capable by reason of their long experience of summing up human nature also. Besides .running the prison, the superintendent of the Faparua Prison is also a man of commercial ability. He does a huge turnover every year of the prison products, and the superintendents cf the other prisons are the same.

“ Whether our Borstal system is different from that in England, I don’t know,” continued the official, "but I do know that dozens and dozens of young fellows at the Borstal institutions in New Zealand have learnt that there is a stepping stone to something better when they leave. The Borstal in New Zealand is turning out a very good product^” He said the ratio o'f prison population in the D,ominion to every 10,000 of mean population over a period of four years had shown a decrease of about 3.6. In 1925 the ratio had been; about 21; in 1926, 19.5; in 1927, 19; and in 1928, about 17.4;. with a corresponding increase in population.

“Yet Mr de la Mare says that the efforts of the Prisons Board are not protecting society,” he concluded. Mr It. M. Laing, president of the Christchurch branch of the Howard League, agreed to a {arge extent with Mr de la Mare's criticism. “The Borstal institutions in New Zealand are poor imitations of those at Home," he,said. "They do not conform to the main principles that should guide such institutions. The Prisons Board has no opportunity'; of judging the character of the prisoners dealt with and the. conditions tbit have brought them to gaol. It is absolutely necessary that social workers should investigate the surroundings of all prisoners."