PRISON REFORM

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 87, Issue 274, 19 November 1943, Page 3

PRISON REFORM

FURTHER REPLY BY DR. McMillan

<p ; A - ) „ Dunedin, Nov. 18. A further reply to Sir Hubert Ostler s criticism of his statement on the subject of prison reform was made last night by Dr. D. G. McMillan. “Sir Hubert’s deductions that I was responsible for the Mt. Eden episode are so fantastic,” Dr. McMillan said, “that it is not surprising that he has had to give them tne semblance of reality, by statements quite contrary to fact. “His statement that I went to various prisons accompanied by only a stenographer sounas all right, and gives his story the right atmosphere, ■but the plain fact is that it is completely untrue. Similarlly, his lifting of my 1940 statement out of its context and background is as misleading as was his reference to my use of the word ‘Mr.’ in reference to a prisoner in a letter to a member of Parliament. My statement in 1940 was made in reply to suggestions that an escape was made possible by changes I had made in the prison routine originally laid down, which would, had it been followed out, have prevented the escape.

“I repeat,” Dr. McMillan said, “that Sir Hubert's effort to blame mo for the outbreak is unworthy of him. These sporadic bursts of prison trouble occur in prisons in all countries at times, e.g., the last riot at Dartmoor, and prison reform, provided it does not involve lack of vigilance, is the least potent cause of discontent. In his report on the Mount Eden episode the Controller-General of Prisons said the outbreak was a sporadic happening, an ever-present contingency in a jail such as Mount Eden. In reference to those concerned, the Inspector of Prisons said (I will use letters in place of the prisoners’ names): ‘A was a persistent escapee from a mental hospital. B has escaped many times (I wonder what Minister or what reforms Sir Hubert blamed on these occasions), and C and D are a type prepared to go to any length to secure their liberty.’ These reports fit in badly with Sir Hubert's contention that the episode was due to my administration, and his deduction is even more inexcusable for, as he says, he had access to these reports and Illes. “There is room for difference of the methods of peiial reform, but it is a pity that the discussion should be clouded with misrepresentation. Again, I did not say that the services ot psychiatrists were never availed of. I said that they were not used sufficiently, and the details of a case I quoted (one of many) would prove this to any but the most heavily blinkered. So, too, with common rooms and the uses to which they could be put. “It is ul.'less for me to enter into a long-range discussion with Sir Hubert on what he imagines I said at the meeting in Dunedin, but which in point of fact I did not say. Suffice it to say that in his report to me the superintendent of Mount Eden said: 'There is no common room at this institution which might be utilised for recreational purposes,’ and the Con-troller-General said: 'At Mount Eden, apart from the school and church, which would be unsuitable for the purpose, there is no common room.’ And similarly in other prisons. The rooms Sir Hubert would call common rooms are completely unsuitable for recreational purposes. “One familiar with the dates of the construction of the 'major prisons,” Dr. McMillan concluded, “cannot but be amused by Sir Hubert’s statement that in every prison erected since 1920 special provisions has been made for a common room.”