TREATMENT OF PRISONERS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 46, Issue 14127, 26 May 1920, Page 5

TREATMENT OF PRISONERS.

FLOGGING NOT FAVOURED. BY THE CHIEF JUSTICE. ' (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WANGANUI, Tuesday. The treatment of prisoners and the New Zealand prison system generally were the subjects of interesting remarks by Sir Robert Stout (Chief Justice) when addressing the grand jury at the Supreme Court to-day. Referring to the recommendation by the Auckland jury that flogging be administered to those guilty of sexual offences, Sir Robert Stout said he considered flogging was a brutalising method, only suitable to brutal types, The responsibility did not rest wtih the judges, but on the juries, who should be careful in the administration/ of justice to see that feelings of mercy did not influence them to acquit when the evidence was clear. If they sternly, but humanely, carried out their duties, crime would decline in their distnct. Jurymen had to see that the law was carefully and humanely administered, as thereby crime would decline. If it were possible to get the people to realise that prison was not a place of honour, but an ethical hospital, then would they realise the task before them in trying to reduce-crime.-