PRISON REFORM.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 145084, 8 September 1916, Page 4

PRISON REFORM.

GLEAMS OF SUNSHINE ” FOR PRISONERS. CHIEF JUSTICE URGES MORE HUMANE FEELING. ■Sir Robert Stout, Chief Justice, in his' charge to the Grand Jury at the opening of the Supreme Court sevuons in Napier on Tuesday, spoke in favour of more prison reforms. *‘A great change.” he *aid, according to the repot! tss tiie Hawke s Hay Herald. “ has lieeti made in tlu: class of orisons to which prisoners are sent. We" have two prison farms, one at Waikuria in the Waikato, and another at Paparua. not for iron) Christchurch. The prisoners work on the farms and their continual exercise in the Open air has greatly bcnchted their health, and. 1 believe, their conduct. Then there art? two prison camps w-here the avocation of the prisoners is tree planting. They arc in a fine climate in the centre of the North Island. Tbev live in little houses, amidst gardeni. There are no sombre prison walls to enclose them. They have done at great work for the future of New Zealand, and their labour is worth more than their food, lodging and supervision have cost. They have planted about ,50,000,000 forest tree*. have bad no sickness in any ol these prisons, and this cannot he said of onr soldier enmiw. “Then we have a Reformatory Prison in Invercargill, where a great reclamation work has been and is bom}; clone. VMunblo laiul thut will be suitable for intensive fanning has boon reclaimed. The labour _ those prisoners perform at Invercargill is more onerous than free workers perform. Tho prisoners work in the open air and they generally gain in weight, in health and in strength. They nave school and debating classes, etc., in the. evening. Many have been marie industrious and law-abiding citizens, and the land they have reclaimed is most valuable. One of the causes of crime is tho lack of the industrial habit, and this is being created in all these oiK-n-air prisons. No doubt as the habit of good conduct will get engrained in them in such institutions and they will learn to labour, and their lives will be brightened. “We have ninny citizens in our mental hospitals, and it is accepted by all that to give them their Ireedom would bo a menace to tho lives of onr citizens. Well, the boundary lino between crime and insanity is often difficult to define. It was said by one of our old poets ; Genius is to madness near allied. And thin partitions do their bounds divide. “We might with • truth substitute the word 'crime’ for ‘genius.’ And if persons have shown a disregard of the sacrediiess of human life, it would Ik? on injury to the whole community to let them loose in a civilised society At the same time a prison need not. and I think should not, he necessarily, a place of punishment. it must provent interned ones from straying bovond certain bounds, but oicn into the lives of prisoners gleams of sunshine should come. And os our humane feelings increase, wc will sec our people taking an interest in our interned ones and more and more efforts mode io give them happiness, whilst at the some time thev are prevented from injuring their .follow-men and women. We should realise what in a humorous way Samuel ttutlor pointed, out in his wellknown work ‘■Rrewhon.’ Ho says that criminals should b 6 sent to a hospital and sick people to a gaol. "Well, we have changed the wonls ‘ Lunatic Asylum ’ to * Mental Hospital. Could wo"not change the word ‘ gaol,’ with all the bad meanings it had in days gone ljy ) -to some other word that did not have anv such implication ? Wo might coll it tho place of internment. If wc changed our outlook towards persons violating our laws, perhaps juries would not be so ready, as they sometimes are, to think they are doing a good ftonvee to accused persons and to society by acquitting persons who ought to be convicted.”