GAOL CHAPLAINS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 22, 20 July 1911, Page 8

GAOL CHAPLAINS.

SOME GLIMPSES OF PRISON LIFE. Christchnrch, July 17. In connection with the discussion ;it the meeting of the Christchurcli Presbytery last week, on the question of the payment by the Government for the services of gaol chaplains, a reporter interviewed the Rev. Canon Coates, vicar of Holy Trinity Church, and Anglican chaplain to Lyttelton Gaol. Canon Coates said he thought the subsidising of gaol chaplains by the Government was out of the question. He had been appointed by Bishop Julius as Anglican chaplain for Lyttelton Gaol, and he received an allowance in this connection from diocesan funds. It had never occurred to him to expect to receive any monetary assistance from the Government.

"There is no doubt at all," added Canon Coates, "that little as one can do for the prisoners by means of religious intercourse and holding of services, it is the best influence that can be brought to bear on them, and indeed is almost the only reformatory influence. Lyttelton Gaol, as it stands, is obsolete, and classification is impossible. Prisoners of all ages—first offenders and hardened criminals —must, by reason of the cramped conditions obtaining, come in close contact with one another . I have known men sentenced for the first time who for the first few weeks or months have felt most keenly the ignominy of their position, and who have been deeply repentent, but by reason of their surroundings have become hardened and callous, and their feelings of shame and repentance have worn oil.

"The female prisoners' section of Lyttelton Gaol is such that one almost despairs of reform. It is small and cramped, and altogether unsuitable for reformative treatment at the present time. Two young women sentenced for reformative treatment are detained in Lyttelton Gaol. They live and move in the same small, confined yard with old offenders and depraved creatures. Such a state of things is essentially bad, as it is manifestly impossible to'carry out prison reform under these conditions."