PRISON REFORM.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 211, 6 August 1937, Page 6

PRISON REFORM.

Sir Samuel lloare, who succeeded recently to the post of Home, Secretary in the British Cabinet, besides possessing- _ a high intellect admirably adapting him to seek reforms in a Cabinet which though Conservative in its outlook has shown a commendable desirability to meet changing conditions at Home and abroad, inherits a family trait -which should stand him in good stead in at least one direction. That is prison administration. This department falls directly under his jurisdiction, and already—he has been but a few months in this office—be has shown a desirable inclination to make changes deemed necessary". The Prison Commissiohers of England, with a view to bringing out what is best in the malefactor —and there is none -who does not possess some goodhave decided, by way of experiment, to promote good conduct by rewards as a principal measure of policy instead of threatening added punishment for the continually wayward. By this means the complex is created that while a kind of basic degree of punishment must be adhered to as a deterrent to crime, the keynote of prison administration shall not be to further penalise those -who do not seek to reform themselves, but to offer rewards, in better treatment, so as to encourage all to lift themselves above the criminal class. That is to say, they shall be reformed —not merely punished. Sir Samual Hoare is a descendant of Mrs Elizabeth Fry, the noted English prison reformer, whose work is still remembered gratefully by all who have this subject at heart. It was in 1813 that, on paying her first visit to the notorious Newgate Prison, she saw the horrors of the conditions there and determined to devote herself to improving them —especially the lot of the female prisoners. In 1817 she formed an association for their improvement and extended her interest to Continental prisons. Earlier, the first to call attention to the terrible conditions of prisons in England and Wales was John Howard (after whom the noted League of Penal Reform is named), and largely as a result of his campaign a big change toward more humanitarian treatment was made; but it was also largely due to Mrs Ery that the public* conscience -was awakened. In 1839 a Bill providing for the separate confinement of prisoners was passed. It is not generally known that, though prisons as places of detention are prehistoric, prisons for the reception of criminals as apart from political prisoners are comparatively modern; the prison system of punishment is chiefly a product of the nineteenth century'-. Dickens was another -who, referring especially to debtors’ gaols, stirred the public mind.. Hie “abandon hope” attitude in the mind of the wrongdoer the minute he enters gaol has given way largely to the system of making bacf or partly bad men and women good enough to takes their place in honourable society, and any method which does that is commendable. >