PRISON DISCIPLINE.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1215, 20 January 1886, Page 5

PRISON DISCIPLINE.

A recent case in connection with the Duuedin Gaol has brought prominently before the public the difficulties that warders and overseer* in gaols have to contend with. It is so easy for. us to say when we' find we are in bad company — why don't the police put a stop to such practices 1 but we seldom consider the task that the police and gaolers have to perform when a number of , hardened villains. are collected together in their charge. In our prisons are a number of persons' who, in many cases, have exhibited such brutality that the law has deemed it expedient , to remove them out from society, their being at large among their fellow-men and women having been considered dangerous. We can picture to .ourselves how the people of Lawrence wvuld feel sapposing the present inmates of. J)tmedin Gaol were liberated in Lawrenctf. In spite of bolts and bars,revol vers and bulldogs, we should never feel at our ease until they were all again locked up Mcurelyr And yet if Lawrence with its one thousand inhabitants feels uncomfortable at the idea of these criminals being at Large, what must be the feeling of the i Wf-dozen ot so' of warders who have ci'oetaaal chargftof these men in the gaol ? Thi*» «■ * ol*** °f rae . B who are £or ever nrat/Bg humanitarianism about our prison method* The y are a class who seem t0 fancy v*i»at , thieves, rogues, vagabonds, rape'com'mitters, «w»d th°» e guilty of manslaughter ye P ufc i nto ff*°l *° nave a n ' oe easy time M it. They scarcely seem to ralisVthat imprisonment is intended as a puniihioenk ,When Captain Hume eanae to!lie,Kipecto.r.«^ p ris'ins, the best gaoler irithecQlpniesUiSfr Caldwell) was virtually r emoted,. »nd^im*aottariau s y ßtem

then held sway for a time. Now, how does it work ? in almost a subversion of discipline. When a man goeß to prison he may refuse to work and he will be put on bread and water, which .is a combination of the most nourishing food that can be devised ; but if he still refuses to do his quota in the public works of the Colony, he may be put in solitary confinement. But, let the surgeon examine him, and he has merely to find that the punishments inflicted are injuring the man's health, and the prisoner will be relieved from them all. In Mr Caldwell's time, before the advent of the humanitarians to control our prison system, it is said that a prisoner who misbehaved in gaol by refusing to do his allotted tack had always before him a prospect of the whipping- post and the dread probability of being flogged into his senses, even though within an inch of his life ; summary execution, or the word and the blow, is said to have been the method under the Caldwell rigime, and there can be no doubt that with men little better than brutes, brute force is the only deterrent from villany. It seems to me that if these scoundrels will comport themselves in such a way as to deserve incarceration, and if after being put in durance vile, they take the bit in their mouths, the result should be left with the gaoler to take it out of their hides, and tame them down by either " fair means or foul " as he feels inclined or sees fit. It is bad enough, in all conscience, to have some of these scoundrels walking God's earth, it is worse still to have to pay taxeß to keep up prisons and gaolers to house them, but the idea of their ri^ht to be pampered and to have their complaints of improper treatment considered is abominable. Kaipai.