“AN UTTER FARCE"

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 19861, 26 July 1934, Page 13

“AN UTTER FARCE"

REFORMATIVE DETENTION ielegraph—Press Association WELLINGTON, July 25. There was an interesting, if unorthodox, interlude in the Magistrate’s Court this morning when Mr C. F. Maunsell, the Magistrate, and a self-con-fessed thief named Thomas Joseph Donald Lawry entered into a solemn discussion ,of the merits of reformative detention as opposed to hard labour. Speaking as “one who knows,” having hud six and a half years experience, Lawry declared that reformative detention was an Utter farce and said that there was no difference in the treatment afforded the two classes of prisoners. “I always consider that reformative detention is only a way Magistrates and Judges have of giving longer sentences. I never got a day off my periods of detention, though they say it is possible to get remission up to half time.” The Magistrate suggested that in that case accused’s conduct in gaol could not have been good, but accused assured him it had been excellent. Accused also pleaded that he had not been in trouble for the last .six years, during all of which time he had gone straight. The Magistrate Anally conceded that there was a good deal in accused’s argument and sentenced him to six months’ hard labour, “I think there is a good deal of force in what this man says,” he observed, “It is really farcical to impose reformative detention ’’