PENAL REFORM.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20477, 1 December 1934, Page 23

PENAL REFORM.

Annual Meeting of Howard League. Mr R. M. Laing presided at the annual meeting last evening of the Christchurch branch of the New Zealand Howard League for Penal Reform. The annual report stated that in looking back over the past year, the league had undoubtedly cause for congratulation. Time had shown that its continual efforts at reform in the penal system had been recognised by the authorities, and the executive hoped that further importunity would eventually bring much fruit. In the Prisons Department Report, definite reference was made to criticisms levelled at the system by the Howard League, and an attempt made to justify the departmental position. The league’s criticism was in connection with the relative largeness of New Zealand’s prison population as compared with that of England. The report claimed that the league’s deductions were at faxilt. The executive had drawn up a lengthy statement traversing the conclusions of the report, and this was issued for publication in the newspapers. Patient Persistence. “ We must face the fact,” the report continued, “ that the attainment of penal reform can come about only by the change from an old-established system, any attack on which was viewed with resentment by those concerned. “ The demolition of a firmly rooted structure is far harder, in human society, than the erection of a completely new model, on entirely unbroken ground, where prejudices and precedents are absent. Nothing but patient persistence can win.” The questions upon which the league must still insist on reform were the habitual criminal sentences, hard labour | and reformative detention, provision of i half-way houses for the feeble-minded, in-care and after-care, scientific treat-

ment of prisoners, the medical expert examination of all prisoners before sentence is passed, and the scientific ! classification of prisoners. During the past twelve months the executive had been in communication with the Ministers of Justice and Health upon the need for establishing a criminal investigation department and the provision of a clinic for Christchurch. The Justice Department had been communicated with in respect to the method of dealing with the payment of fines. These matters were still under consideration. Election of Officers. The following officers were elected:— President, Mr R. M. Laing; vice-presi-dents, Bishop Brodie and the Rev J. K. Archer; secretary-treasurer, Mr C. R. N. Mackie; committee, the Revs J. K. Archer and F. R. Rawle, Mesdames Richards and Tomlinson and Miss Batt; delegate to National Council of Women, Mrs Tomlinson. An address, entitled “ Some Criticisms of Our Penal System,” was given by Mr Laing.