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THE INTERNATIONAL PRISON CONGRESS.

By Wilhelmina Sherrifi 1 Bain. 11. While section 1 was labouring toward its decision, sections 2,3, and 4 were sailing through less troubled waters. Parole and conditional release secured unanimous approval. Prison labour was vigorously advocated, but such labour as shall primarily benefit, the prisoner; and here New Zealand : was quoted as having planted 20,000,000 forest trees since 1900, " timbering her waste lands and reclaiming her men." It was argued that inebriates, as diseased persons, should be placed in hospitals, with outdoor occupation during lengthy detention. Short penal sentences; it was agreed, have Droved a failure. The opinion was generally expressed that probation has reduced crime, and has changed the social attitude toward the criminal, but that competent supervision is • imperative.

Section 4, the section on children, was more largely attended than any other section of Congress. Some of the results achieved, may be shown in the following resolutions : —" To prevent habits of vagrancy and idleness among children in large cities there should be: (1) Laws making parents responsible for the wrongdoing of their children, and allowing children to be taken from unfit homes and properly placed for training and care. (2) Greater co-operation between school authorities and the public; better adaptation of school curricula both in interest and in practical use to the individual needs of the children, and that there should be more kindergartens and greater recognition of training. in handwork for the children. (3) Vast additions to playgrounds, wholesome recreation centres, gymnasiums and athletic fields as the surest preventions of Juvenile mischief and crime, and as affording young people places where they may learn to bear defeat with courage and success with modesty. (4) Lectures to parents on practical subjects that shall tend to make better and happier homes as the wisest way to keep children from the idle wandering life. (5) A. stronger influence oil the part of the press and pulpit to enforce the sentiment that the bes£ bulwark against juvenile delinquency is to care for the children in such a way as to prevent them from becoming vagrants and idlers." In this section M. Danjoy, . chief _ of the Bureau of Prison Administration, France, earnestly advocated the appointment of women on the bench or on commissions for the consideration of young women and juvenile delinquents. Among the eminent women who debated in section 4 were Ella Flagg Young, superintendent of the public schools of Chicago, and Mrs Emmons Blaine. The '•chairman"' of the section was Dr Katherine. Bement Davis, superintendent of the Stafe Reformatory for Women, Bedford, New York, her appointment being a recognition of the efforts American women have made for prison reform. The French and English discussions made no sinecure of this chairmanship ; but Dr Katherine was fully equal to the position. Another eminent woman conspicuous in the proceedings of Congress was Mrs Isabel C. Barrows. A true life-partner she had co-operated with her husband in his international prison work, as .in all other affairs. With him she had visited leading prisons throughout Europe, and on his death she was summoned to Paris to lay before the International Commission the plans which Mr Barrows had initiated and advanced for the Washington Conference. The preparations for Congress are elaborate and methodical. Each adhering Government appropriates funds, and appoints a representative on the International Commission, which meets every second year, and formulates the various questions to be debated at next quinquennial. _ In the fourth year of interval those questions are announced, and reports and monographs of them are invited. The articles thus received are published as "separates in French. They are not read in Congress, but are.accessible on tables in the supplementary halls for the occasion. For the Washington meeting Mrs Barrows was commissioned to digest and translate each paper, and the work is reported tG have been remarkably well done. Continental Europeans, if educated, at all, are always linguists; but the Eng-

" lish-speaking world—in Europe, America., and southern seas —knows its English alone. Consequently there is deplorable waste of time, talent, and purpose in the international meetings, which year by year mark human progress toward universal federation. October, 1910, illustrated this waste as uniquely as forcibly, for, exactly two months before, Washington City Had delighted in the sixth annual conference of Esperantists. Men and women assembled from every part of the globe; to debate and converse in the international auxiliary language. So easily learned, so adaptable to every need is Esperanto, that the International Prison Commission—" orderly in all other respects—may possibly decree its use at its next Congress itt London, 1915. I The commission has, of course, no legist i lative power. It is a diplomatic body,' i whose members make official reports to their respective Governments. The per* sonnel of the association is very high".-finely-formed! beads, keen, kind faces chareterised the Washington meeting.' The patriarchal Mr (Eilmiira) Brockway, had his compeer in Dr Guillaumc, chief j of the Bureau of Statistics of the Swiss ~ I Republic. The doctor has acted as secre*. ; tary of the International Prison Commis« | sion since the London Congress of 1870.j In the eightv-third year of his youth (he I is independent as ever of walking stickand spectacles), he continues to forward its endeavours, holding now the position > iof honorary president. Another Swiss— j Eugene Borel, —professor of international law in the Geneva University, rendered j invaluable service .as jurist and linguist, j Frederick Howard Wines, who pleaded! in Congress for a sacramental union of j love with law, is the worthy son of an j illustrious father —the initiator of the first International Prison Congress. Russia had strikingly contrasted repre-. senta fives—Mr Goldenweiser, with his spiritualised idealism; Professor Lublinsky, a man of 28 whose personal charm gains him friends everywhere; Mr Lontchinsky, chief of the Russian Bureau of Finger Prints; and the head of the Russian Prison Department, Mr Khrouloff. Twelve hundred prisons—Russian prisons —under the control of one man! Tbaft man was disagreeably astonished when his debonair statements concerning Rvesian prisons and prisoners were in the American newspapers by George j Kennan, by friends of Russian freedom, i and by personal friends of the whitej haired convict heroine Catherine Bresh-' kovskaya. i Lesser and Greater Britain made proper • I account of themselves :the president-elect, ■ Sir Evelyn Riggles Brise, had noble Eng- | lish associates; Mr Walter George Scott, I chairman of Prison Commission for Scoti land, Master of Polworth and inheritor of many other dignities, was a prominent worker; as also was Mr Gibbons, head the Irish prison system. Canada, Egypt» Cape Colony, "Queensland, New South Wales, and New Zealand, all had their spokesmen <n congress. Mra Scott was the only woman sect from Britain j but, as grand-niece of Elizabeth Fry and granddaughter of the abolitionist and prison reformer, Sir : Thomas Fowell §uxton, 6 h e was [ n herself a host. ..-. ■ . ' t The Hungarian group was- brilliant in ] I aspect and quality, and many another fine contingent came from Europe; but the most striking appearance in congrassi was that of Victor Nybergh, of Finland.- 1 Statuesque features, bright eyes which; saw the bright side of things, a nimbus of soft snowy hair, and a commandbigj. figure invaluably attracted admiration. Mr Nybergh loves to tell of his countrywomen : "They have obtained universal suffrage, and there is now ready a propo-i sition for prohibiting the sale of intoxi-) eating liquors" ; and ! most of. all he 'car-es> to describe the work of -Baaroness Matilda Wrede, Finland's Elizabeth Fry. • Takashi Sanagi, Commissioner of the Prison Bureau, Japan, was one of the pub- . lij lecturers at the Washington Congress.- j Describing the present day penal affairs of his country, Mr Sanagi told of tha ' Tokio school for training prison officials:! "Once or twice ©very year one or two of the chief gaolers in actual service are selected from every prison and admitted into the school, where during four months they receive instruction in law and other subjects useful to prison officials. Thua tha school is the means of obtaining men of special fitness for the work. Since last year two terms have passed, and 117 per-. sons have completed the course." All the world over there are suggestions of improved methods. Penalty has descended from the most primitive barbarisms—reformation is a modern concent—prevention belongs to our Dwn day. Each has its value; but the greatest of the threw is prevention. And no prevention can equal that of a truly human environment. Inestimable as are the benefits flowing from International Prison Con-, gresses. it may be that, in their highest and holiest function, they are helping to produce th* conditions which will maiko m icons and prisoners a remembrance of history.

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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/OW19110201.2.304

Bibliographic details

Otago Witness, Issue 2968, 1 February 1911, Page 77

Word Count
1,443

THE INTERNATIONAL PRISON CONGRESS. Otago Witness, Issue 2968, 1 February 1911, Page 77

THE INTERNATIONAL PRISON CONGRESS. Otago Witness, Issue 2968, 1 February 1911, Page 77