HARDENED IN CRIME

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 842, 10 December 1929, Page 8

HARDENED IN CRIME

Prison System Indicted

OUR prison system as it operates at present will never reduce the criminal population of New Zealand. The author o£ this indictment is the Rev Chas. Chandler, who leaves New Zealand for Australia at the end of next week, and who here makes some thoughtful and practice suggestions for better methods of gaol administration.

When Mr. Chandler speaks of prison reform, he does not imply that Mount Eden Gaol should become a miniature college, with its privileges and its traditions. Nor does he advocate the dislocation of a system which makes the punishment fit the crime. As prison chaplain over a number of years, he has studied the men and their manners, and decides in cold judgment that the grey walls of the gaol are permeated with thoughts of hate, fear and mistrust. __ These he wishes to replace by a system of character moulding which ultimately will have the effect of materially reducing crime. Let Mr. Chandler speak for himself: — “Without being stupidly Utopian, it must be frankly admitted by all who possess the slightest knowledge of human life and conduct, that the average prison built upon the pattern of our Mount Eden Gaol cannot possibly turn a man out better than when he came in. “Intimidation, crawling, cringing and pimping are words which aptly express the mental state of many concerned — from the meanest “lag” (prisoner) to the most important “screw” (warder). I am not blind to the innate goodness in all men, but the prison atmosphere is not conducive to any high spiritual attainment. HEALTH AND CLOTHING “Grotesque clothing, coarse and uninteresting diet, the absence of any opportunity for healthy social intercourse, ugly sanitary conditions and cells, all help to crush every decent instinct which even the most wicked prisoner must at some time have possessed. “Treat a man like a dog, and he will show his teeth. Place a sunflower in a gloomy atmosphere and it will wither and die. “Seeing that the Prisons Department is dealing with human life, and not merely with metal out of quarries, it is reasonable to expect that they should attempt to re-shapen character. To strengthen a man’s character is worth the expenditure of some money. Here I can sympathise with some of the departmental chiefs who are severely handicapped, because of lack of funds, in carrying out urgent re-

forms. A much greater sum of money should be budgeted annually for prisons.” - Mr. Chandler then suggests a daily, instead of a weekly, shave. Five or six days’ growth never yet helped a man to feel at. his best, he adds. The objection of the authorities to this request is that there are insufficient prison barbers to allow more than a weekly shave all round. And the men, of course, are not permitted to handle razors. For men who work all day in quarries, especially during summer, the prospect of sleeping in their working clothes does not appeal, and Mr. Chandler thinks there should be hygienic sleeping suits and a bi-weekly change of underclothing, instead of a weekly change. Properly organised sport on properly prepared ground, with sports committees, formed among the prisoners, whose conduct merit this consideration, are advocated by Mr. Chandler, who sees merit also in the appointment of a whole-time social welfare officer, who would take an Intelligent and even expert interest in the men’s hobbies and subjects for private study. BETTER results claimed He then goes on: —“All this may sound as though I wish to see the prison transformed into a kind of Oxford or Cambridge. Not at all. I am merely suggesting lines of procedure which are known to be sound in every other sphere where character building is the main consideration. That is how the prisons should be run. “In all humility I am of the opinion that I can get, and have got, bettef results in the past two years from the attitude I have adopted toward even the most hardened miscreants, than could a whole regiment of armed warders, however well disposed they may be as men, apart from operating the disciplinary machine.” Mr. Chandler confesses that he has worked up against great handicaps at the gaol—always in the interests of the men —and claims that his suggestions for reform, far from being made in a spirit of malice, are prompted by his sense of Christian duty, adopting the Divine attitude of hating sin, yet loving the sinner.