Prison Reform

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 85, 1 July 1927, Page 13

Prison Reform

NEW ZEALAND CRITICISED HOWARD LEAGUERS are not a body of cranks and mere idealists,” said Mr, E. C. Cutten, S.M., opening his address last evening at the branch of the Howard League for Penal Reform, which has recently been formed in Auckland. The league aimed at establishing a correct treatment o£ criminals, the prevention of crime, and the rebuilding of the moral fibre of the delinquent. The Howard League's efforts in England had resulted in that country leading the world in >rison reform and crime reduction, said Mr. Cutten, who sur -orted his view by statistics. Crime in New Zealand was on the increa.se, convictions for serious offences increasing from 853 in a pre-war year to 1.923 last year. Mr. Cutten instanced the huge, dull stpne prison for women at Mount Eden, as a sample -f what should not be. The deadly monotony of duty there was not conducive to good results. Mr. A. J. Stratford, president of t.he Auckland branch of the league, gave an account of the life of John Howard, the founder of the movement, and his work throughout the world for prison reform. , Dr. Mildred Staley condemned the uselessness of undiscriminating penal severity. The New Zealand prisons were depressing, ugly and demoralisThe league believed that the abolition of prisons was not an impossible objective. Speaking as a solicitor, Mr. J. J. Sullivan said that New Zealand had lagged behind Britain, and he instanced many points on which the treatment and trial of prisoners could be better conducted. M