LESS BUSINESS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23161, 10 April 1937, Page 14

LESS BUSINESS

DROP IN PRISON POPULATION WOMEN'S WORK COMMENDED (Peb United Press Association) WELLINGTON, April 9. “This is one State department where a diminution in business is a criterion of success,” said Mr B. L. Dallard, Controller of Prisons, at the annual meeting of the women’s branch of the New Zealand Borstal Association, when referring to the fact that the prison population at present was lower than for several years. Mr Dallard said that the total number of inmates was a shade over 800—a few years ago it had been between 1500 and 1600. The authorities were finding it difficult to carry on the prison industries with the smaller total df inmates. The Minister of Justice (Mr H. G. R. Mason) expressed pleasure at the decline in the prison population. He emphasised the importance of caring for prisoners when they left institutions after serving a sentence. He commended the women’s branch of the Borstal Association for its efforts in this connection. Whatever was done in the prisons themselves in restoring the inmates to good citizenship was relatively nothing to the importance of caring for them at the moment when they stepped out as free men and women from the gaols and Borstal institutions.