Wairarapa Standard Published Tri-weekly. Price 1d. FRIDAY, JUNE 11, 1886. The Prisons Report.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XIX, Issue 1843, 11 June 1886, Page 2

Wairarapa Standard Published Tri-weekly. Price Id. FRIDAY, JUNE 11, 1886. The Prisons Report.

The report of the Inspector for Prisons for the year ending 31st December, 1885, has been laid before Parliament. Captain Eme says that the prisons in the colony are well conducted, a statement, tbe strict accuracy of which we very much doubt, in the face of certain letters and articles published in the newspapers daring the last year or two by ex-prisonere. Captain Hume gives an explanation of tbe cruel' practice which prevails of keeping remanded prisoners, and prisoners awaiting trial, locked ap in solitary confinement in cells lor twenty hours out of the twenty four. The inhuman practice of sending to gaol suspected lunatics, persons suffering from delirium tremens, and poor wretches dying of want and disease, is thus referred to by Captain Hume “ I must again record my annual protest against the prisons of the colony being utilised for tbe detention of supposed lunatics and persons suffering from delirium tremens. In former reports I have called attention to persons being continually sent to prisons for medical treatment, and pointed out the hardships of many such cases ; but I would draw your special attention to two somewhat glaring cases which have happened during the past s ear. In the one a prisoner was sentenced to one month's imprisonment for having no visible lawful means of support, and the committing Magistrate wrote as follows : —“ The man was employed some mouths ago on railway works, and, through overstraining himself, has almost completely lost the use of his eyesight. He has been in a hospital for some months, but not being cured of the loss of his eyesight, he has been returned to , and has been kept here by the Benevolent Society for one week, but, being unable to keep him any longer, he was banded over to the police this morning and sentenced as aforesaid.’ lam happy to be able to add that his Excellency, on your recommendation, was pleased to grant a remission of the sentence as soon as the matter was brought under his notice. In the other case the gaoler made tbe following report 11 A prisoner was sentenced at on the 11th inst, to three months’ imprisonment for having no visible means of support, and received at this prison at 3.15 o'clock p.m, 13th instant, was at once examinedby the prison surgeon, and admitted to the infirmary, suffering horn heart disease and dropsy. The surgeon recommended his immediate removal to the hospital which recommt ndation was acted upon on the morning of the 15ch instant. The man bad only a short time before been discharged from the Hospital, and, being without relatives or friends who could assist him, he, from sheer destitution, gave himself up to tbe police. The man has never been in gaol before, and the surgeon considers that he cannot live long, and may 'die at any moment. As I have already stated, this prisoner was removed to the hospital ou tbe 15th instant, where he died on the twenty- first of the same month.” There is something monstrous in this system of sending people to gaol who have committed no crime at all, but who are only ill, helpless and destitute. A Magistrate ought, in such cases, to send the sufferers to an hospital for medical treatment, instead of to a prison, where they are simply locked up, poorly fed and obtain only the slightest amount of medical care. As to sending sup posed lunatics and persons suffering from delirium tremens, to gaol, the practice is simply barbarous. The suspected lunatic should be remanded to an asylnm for medical examination; the delirium tremens patient should be sent to the same place, because, for the time being, he is certainly as mad as mad can be. But Magistrate’s, in their supreme wisdom, nearly always send such poor wretches to gaol. Tbe practice la a disgrace to humanity. There are very few other points worth noticing in Captain Hume’s report. The utt cost of maintaining prisoners during the past year was £4l 7s pet head. The classification system is almost at a standstill through want of sufficient prison accommodation, and the necessity for completing the new prisons at Auckland, Mount Cook and Dunedin is strongly nrged.