LOT OF TRANSGRESSORS

Taranaki Daily News, 3 June 1933, Page 7

LOT OF TRANSGRESSORS

COMFORT IN POLICE CELLS. ELECTRIC HEATING APPLIANCES. The Chester police-station will soon be the envy of every wrongdoer, and the temptation to have themselves locked up on cold nights may prove almost too much for some of the town’s weaker citizens. If this proves the case the chief constable will only have himself to blame, for the new cells he has had built are the nearest approach to a “home from home” that ■ any prisoner could desire, says an English writer. ’ , , x , The cells are all electrically heated by the latest scientific means available. The roofs are lined with * warmer wallpaper,” containing electric wires no thicker than the hairspring of a watch. These wires generate heat at the discretion of the constable or turnkey on duty by simply operating a switch outside the cell door. As soon as a prisoner is brought in the temperature of his cell is regulated to suit his particular circumstances. If he is shivering when he is locked up he soon begins to feel the blood tingling in his veins. Another few seconds and he wants to throw off his overcoat or jacket because of the heat. All he has to do then'is to knock on the cell door and tell the constable to switch off the current. On the other hand, if a drunken man with a tropical temperature is brought in, his cell can be cooled down to zero almost instantly, thus ensuring that the occupant is soon brought back to sobriety again. The new cells were just completed when the writer entered them—voluntarily, of course. Nothing of the electric heating and cooling system is visible to the eye, and no part of the apparatus can be damaged by a prisoner who is in an obstreperous mood. Chester is the first police-station to have this new installataion, and the job has been done with extraordinary thoroughness. Each cell can be regulated independently according to the whims of those inside. The chief constable of Chester, Mr. T. H. Griffiths, is a man with a warm heart for those under his charge, and he has seen to it that the new cells shall be as comfortable as official generosity permits. They are 12ft. square and 9ft. . high, and tiled from top to bottom. There are also two large windows in each cell which allow the maximum amount of sunshine to enter. But the invisible heat is definitely the last word in cell construction.