THE NAPIER PRISON.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12724, 20 August 1919, Page 6

THE NAPIER PRISON.

INTRVIEW WITH THE REV J. K. ARCHER. SOME SERIOUS ALLEGATIONS. '■* The replies made by the gaoier of the Napier prison, visiting Justices, and the Rev J. Hobbs, to the statements made by the Rev J. K. Archer concerning the Napier prison, were brought under the notice of Mr Archer to-day. It will be remembered that Air Archer, speaking at a meeting of the Council of Churches on Monday night, said that the Napier gaol, was '• a disgrace to civilisation. It, was positively abominable; it was a criminal manufacturing institution.” Air Archer expressed surprise that the gaol was still in use, saying that ho had been informed at the meeting of the Council of Churches that it was now closed. " Possibly since. .1 knew it a tew years ago,” he said, there have been great improvements, hut if not it certainly ought to ho closed. 1 can scarcely imagine that the improvements h ;l vo been sufficiently pronounced to justify its eoutinua-noe. lam gratified to find that my remarks, hare'created an impression in Napier, and I shall be satisfied it they help to initiate a. movement towards prison' reform. •“ Tire value of I ho testimony of vis.itmg Justices,'’ said Air Archer, in reply to the statement* made by them. depends upon their knowledge of actual conditions, and their ideals concerning prison lile. The visits of some Justices are of very little value; firstly, because they themselves have antiquated notions ol what a prison ought to he; and, .secondly, because they see the prisons when they are prepared for inspection. Prisoners, as wiil he understood, hesitate to make complaints to visiting Justices because comp hunt is, frequently followed by victimisation; not that I wish to make any complaint concerning the men in charge of the Napier gaol during my period ol visitation- On the contrary, it was one of the. men in charge who first of all drew my attention to the urgent need of reform.

V, As to definite allcgnl ions, they can qnit-e easily be made,” Mr .Archer continued. ’’Here arc three:- ‘ i'st of all. in regard to the size ■■vna equipment of tlm nri.-on cells. As T saw them, the.y were a positive disgrace- Some of the largest colls were only a few feet square. They had in them nothin" whatever in the shape of ft bedstead. Four prisoners were, at times, crowded into one cell, and the floor space was go small when their font mattresses were laid down that there were only a. very few feet of spare space. Into these cells the four men. would he t-unted immediately after tea, which was an early meal during the winter time at any rate, and there they would lie left under lock and key till about seven, oylock in the morning, file re was absolutely no supervision. r lhe only sanitary provision made was a. small tin provided for each man, and what this meant under the circumstances it is bettor to imagine tliim describe.

u The second definite allegation that can be made is that at that time there was no attempt in the Napier gaol to classify the prisoners. The unfortunate men were herded together irrespective of their past career or present character. This meant that a young fellow committed to gaol for the first time, perhaps ror a comparatively trivial offence, and coming from a respectable family, was lodged with two or three hardened old criminals fully versed in tiie theory of crime and absolutely at war with society. The natural consequence was that the young prisoner went into gaol as one wlw> had made a mistake, and came out corrupted with criminal thoughts and often saturated with criminal instincts. This largely explains the fact that most young men who once found their way into gaol returned after their release.

“The third definite allegation is that the way in which the prisoners were forced to work tinder the gaze of the public was shameful in itself, and exercised a deteriorating influence on the men. Just outside the prison premises the men were taken to work in a, quarry exposed to the gaze of the residents of the vicinity, and within a few yards of the main road leading from the city to the wharf. That, however, is not the worst. At certain times a number of prisoners in their prison garb were marched down to flic Napier Courthouse, which is on the sea front and in n very exposed position, and there employed cleaning windows and doing other kinds of work in full view of the public. The effect of this upon the men was _wholly bad. Let me cite one case. A Napier man (whose name I need not mention) was sent to gaol for a crime which he committed, but afterwards deeply regretted- Notwithstanding his crime, he was a man of refined feelings who liad lived many years in Napier, and was widely known among the inhabitants. He told me that nobody could tell the sense of shame and degradation in which he moved through the people parading about the beach when he was being taken to and from the Courthouse, As lie said, a senst-. of shame is one of the recuperative sources of life, hut that kind of treatment has a tendency to crush.that sense ont of a man and make him absolutely indifforont to public opinion. Mr Scanlon (who was not in charge of the Napier prison when Mr Archer was a visitor to it) says in his criticism of Mr Archer’s statements at Monday night’s meeting that “ if ho (Mr Archer) saw such'shocking sights he neglected his duty sadly in not making Tt public at the time.”

“ As a matter of fact,” said Mr Archer, “I was so impressed with the need for reform that I wrote an article to a Wellington newspaper giving a full description of the state of affairs there. The editor declined to publish it on the ground that it was controversial. T was visiting clergyman to the prison for three years, and had manv opportunities of interviewing prisoners, not only in the prison hut after they left. Not only did I write to the Wellington paper, hut I made complaints on the spot.”