Revision Difference

Convict Conditions

Image 74

Revision as of 01:25:47, Apr 12, 2018
Edited by 101.0.82.66
Revision as of 01:40:07, Apr 12, 2018
Edited by 101.0.82.66
Line 20: Line 20:
 
990. FARES OF DISCHARGED PRISONERS.—In Queensland the Government makes us the medium through which the fares of discharged prisoners are paid to any part of the colony. That is a practice which I should strongly urge here. If you have an agency without any home or system with it, the man will, nine times out of ten, sell his ticket. It is an important point to give the man the ticket through the agency of the home which receives him, knows him, and has a pull on him generally. Nearly all the prisoners who come out of (St. Helena) Queensland, pass through us. We get to know prisoners not only of one colony but all of them. If a man comes out of Brisbane and goes on to Perth, we are able to go on with him where he left off before.
 
990. FARES OF DISCHARGED PRISONERS.—In Queensland the Government makes us the medium through which the fares of discharged prisoners are paid to any part of the colony. That is a practice which I should strongly urge here. If you have an agency without any home or system with it, the man will, nine times out of ten, sell his ticket. It is an important point to give the man the ticket through the agency of the home which receives him, knows him, and has a pull on him generally. Nearly all the prisoners who come out of (St. Helena) Queensland, pass through us. We get to know prisoners not only of one colony but all of them. If a man comes out of Brisbane and goes on to Perth, we are able to go on with him where he left off before.
  
991. WEST AUSTRALIAN PROPOSALS.—Last year I put a scheme before the Government of Western Australia. We want a piece of land not too far away from Perth. Our Collie land is too far from the city. I want a tract of 100 acres or so, well watered. It is very necessary that the men should see the products of their own labour as soon as possible. If he puts a crop in and sees nothing coming up he becomes dissatisfied. With a crop coming up he gets a beneficial interest. then we ask for many grant. In Sydney we get £300 a year; in Brisbane £250. We should prefer an amount per head. I would say about 10s. a week per man whilst the man is in the home, which would be upon the land. We might raise pigs on the land, and go on for various industries. The men would go straight from the gaol to us. I would advise that the Governor of the gaol should be empowered to let men out on probation to us. Of course free men who come to us could not be detained against their will. I think, if we had the land, we could do on £200 a year, which would enable us to meet the deficiency between what the men would earn and what they would cost us. We would be prepared, if permitted to do so, to appoint an officer to visit the prisoners regularly before they leave gaol. This is allowed at Melbourne Gaol, but not at Pentridge. People urge against us that ours is a proselytising institution, but really our work is not sectarian, and we do not want to be the chaplains of the gaol. I contend that a drunkard or a criminal is, for all practical purposes, not a member of any Church. We take Catholics into our institution whom the Catholics will not receive into their own. In the United States our offers go about the gaols like the chaplains do. With long-sentence men we could do a great deal if allowed to visit them in prison. When you have to do with short-sentence loafers or drunkards you have a different class to the long-sentence men. You can do very little with the former, whereas the latter are usually men of pluck and some sort of ability and force of character and there is some hope of doing good with them. We would , however, be prepared to deal with inebriates on the same terms as the others. We accept no responsibility in regard to the custody of the men committed to our care.The great thing for the Government is to get the men out of prison as soon as possible into an institution which exists for their reformation, nut we can do nothing with them unless they come to us free men. My experience throughout the world is that any society which exists merely to help a man materially is of little use.
+
991. WEST AUSTRALIAN PROPOSALS.—Last year I put a scheme before the Government of Western Australia. We want a piece of land not too far away from Perth. Our Collie land is too far from the city. I want a tract of 100 acres or so, well watered. It is very necessary that the men should see the products of their own labour as soon as possible. If he puts a crop in and sees nothing coming up he becomes dissatisfied. With a crop coming up he gets a beneficial interest. Then we ask for a money grant. In Sydney we get £300 a year; in Brisbane £250. We should prefer an amount per head. I would say about 10s. a week per man whilst the man is in the home, which would be upon the land. We might raise pigs on the land, and go in for various industries. The men would go straight from the gaol to us. I would advise that the Governor of the gaol should be empowered to let men out on probation to us. Of course free men who come to us could not be detained against their will. I think, if we had the land, we could do on £200 a year, which would enable us to meet the deficiency between what the men would earn and what they would cost us. We would be prepared, if permitted to do so, to appoint an officer to visit the prisoners regularly before they leave the gaol. This is allowed at Melbourne Gaol, but not at Pentridge. People urge against us that ours is a proselytising institution, but really our work is not sectarian, and we do not want to be the chaplains of the gaol. I contend that a drunkard or a criminal is, for all practical purposes, not a member of any Church. We take Catholics into our institutions whom the Catholics will not receive into their own. In the United States our officers go about the gaols like the chaplains do. With the long-sentence men we could do a great deal if allowed to visit them in prison. When you have to do with short-sentence loafers or drunkards you have a different class to the long-sentence men. You can do very little with the former, whereas the latter are usually men of pluck and some sort of ability and force of character, and there is some hope of doing good with them. We would , however, be prepared to deal with inebriates on the same terms as the others. We accept no responsibility in regard to the custody of the men committed to our care.The great thing for the Government is to get the men out of prison as soon as possible into an institution which exists for their reformation, nut we can do nothing with them unless they come to us free men. My experience throughout the world is that any society which exists merely to help a man materially is of little use.
  
 
992. COLLIE LAND. — We have taken up 15,000 acres, and we are trying to get another 5,000. We ask for a condition enabling the land to be held in trust for social purposes, thus obviating the present necessity for holding the land in fifteen names, which places the General in the position of being a mortgagee to his subordinate officers.
 
992. COLLIE LAND. — We have taken up 15,000 acres, and we are trying to get another 5,000. We ask for a condition enabling the land to be held in trust for social purposes, thus obviating the present necessity for holding the land in fifteen names, which places the General in the position of being a mortgagee to his subordinate officers.

Revision as of 01:40:07, Apr 12, 2018

988. DRAKESBROOK.—The best place which the Government has, in my opinion, is at Drakesbrook. It was bought to cut up into small areas. Within an area of eight miles there is a population of some 3,000 people I think should think. The land is being sold to selectors at £18 an acre. On a block of 200 acres I think a man to the acre could be kept all the year round at intense cultivation. I see no reason why a prison should be put there. I do not think the employment of prisoners in that way would have any prejudicial effect upon the occupation of the adjoining lands.

(The commissioner adjourned)


TUESDAY, 28TH FEBRUARY, 1899.

[At Perth]

Present: DR. ADAM JAMESON, Chairman. Mr. F. Craig, and the Secretary.

Commandant Booth, of the Salvation Army, examined.

989. PRISONERS' AID SOCIETIES.—This is a branch of work in which the social wing of the Army has been very successful during the last five years. In London we have the worst class of criminals to deal with in the world. We have a home opened by Mr. Herbert Gladstone, who was Chairman of the Penal Commission in England. We have an average of about 80 men in the home, with accommodation for 120. We have passed about 2,400 men through the home, of whom 1,200 or so have been permanently reformed. We have found them such employment as our limited means would enable us to do. We have found 90 per cent. of the men willing to co-operate with us in their temporal and spiritual emancipation. There are among them people of all classes: broken-down lawyers, doctors, mechanics, and all kinds of skilled men, especially among the long sentence men. To the extent of 50 per cent. they eventually become merged in the general community. We have prison-gate homes in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide, where we are doing exactly the same class of work in London.

990. FARES OF DISCHARGED PRISONERS.—In Queensland the Government makes us the medium through which the fares of discharged prisoners are paid to any part of the colony. That is a practice which I should strongly urge here. If you have an agency without any home or system with it, the man will, nine times out of ten, sell his ticket. It is an important point to give the man the ticket through the agency of the home which receives him, knows him, and has a pull on him generally. Nearly all the prisoners who come out of (St. Helena) Queensland, pass through us. We get to know prisoners not only of one colony but all of them. If a man comes out of Brisbane and goes on to Perth, we are able to go on with him where he left off before.

991. WEST AUSTRALIAN PROPOSALS.—Last year I put a scheme before the Government of Western Australia. We want a piece of land not too far away from Perth. Our Collie land is too far from the city. I want a tract of 100 acres or so, well watered. It is very necessary that the men should see the products of their own labour as soon as possible. If he puts a crop in and sees nothing coming up he becomes dissatisfied. With a crop coming up he gets a beneficial interest. Then we ask for a money grant. In Sydney we get £300 a year; in Brisbane £250. We should prefer an amount per head. I would say about 10s. a week per man whilst the man is in the home, which would be upon the land. We might raise pigs on the land, and go in for various industries. The men would go straight from the gaol to us. I would advise that the Governor of the gaol should be empowered to let men out on probation to us. Of course free men who come to us could not be detained against their will. I think, if we had the land, we could do on £200 a year, which would enable us to meet the deficiency between what the men would earn and what they would cost us. We would be prepared, if permitted to do so, to appoint an officer to visit the prisoners regularly before they leave the gaol. This is allowed at Melbourne Gaol, but not at Pentridge. People urge against us that ours is a proselytising institution, but really our work is not sectarian, and we do not want to be the chaplains of the gaol. I contend that a drunkard or a criminal is, for all practical purposes, not a member of any Church. We take Catholics into our institutions whom the Catholics will not receive into their own. In the United States our officers go about the gaols like the chaplains do. With the long-sentence men we could do a great deal if allowed to visit them in prison. When you have to do with short-sentence loafers or drunkards you have a different class to the long-sentence men. You can do very little with the former, whereas the latter are usually men of pluck and some sort of ability and force of character, and there is some hope of doing good with them. We would , however, be prepared to deal with inebriates on the same terms as the others. We accept no responsibility in regard to the custody of the men committed to our care.The great thing for the Government is to get the men out of prison as soon as possible into an institution which exists for their reformation, nut we can do nothing with them unless they come to us free men. My experience throughout the world is that any society which exists merely to help a man materially is of little use.

992. COLLIE LAND. — We have taken up 15,000 acres, and we are trying to get another 5,000. We ask for a condition enabling the land to be held in trust for social purposes, thus obviating the present necessity for holding the land in fifteen names, which places the General in the position of being a mortgagee to his subordinate officers.

993. GOVERNMENT REFORMATORIES AND SCHOOLS. — The Victorian system has abolished all Government Reformatories and Schools. There is nothing but a central depot. The children are committed to the department, and lodged in the depot. The children are committed to the department, and lodged ion the depot until the officer in charge allocates them. The neglected children are boarded out, and the criminal children, and certain proportion of the neglected children who are not suitable for boarding out, are sent to semi-Government institutions, controlled by private persons. we have thirty boys at one farm. They are warded to me, as constituted head of the Salvation army, until they are 18. While they are with us, we get 10s. a week for each boy, and £5 for an outfit for him when he leaves the home. The children practically gradually merge into the ordinary population. We have 260 children under our charge in Victoria. We would be prepared to take charge of the children here at 10s. 6d. a week from the reformatory, and 7s. 10½d. from the industrial schools. The weak point of the Victorian system is that the Government brings pressure to bear to get the boys out of our farm, and into private families as soon as possible. It is folly to send a young pickpocket to us for six months, and then place him out in a private family. In Queensland the children are committed to us for a term of years. We would be prepared to take charge of the Western Australian reformatory children at 10s. 6d. a week, and 7s. 6d. for the industrial children. In the other colonies the homes are under the inspection of the Government, and the balance sheets are submitted to the Government. We would put both boys and girls on the Collie land, and we only ask to be paid for the time that they are with us. We should expect free railway passes for our officers. Our agents would know the parents throughout the colony who were best fitted to be intrusted with the care of the children after they left us. (The Commission adjourned.)

WEDNESDAY, 15th MARCH, 1899 [AT PERTH.] Present: DR. ADAM JAMESON, Chairman. Mr. H. Stirling, Mr E. W. Mayhew, and the Secretary. James Longmore, Inspector of Charitable Institutions, examined.

994. PENAL INSTITUTIONS. — Out of the seven institutions under the control of my Department, Rottnest, the Subiaco Industrial school, and the Glendalough Industrial School for Roman Catholic Boys, specially deal with offences. 995. INDUSTIAL SCHOOL AT SUBIACO.— This school was originally built for girls. I do not think it is dutiable for both sexes, for which it is used. We hope eventually to make the institution self-supporting. The Superintendent is a carpenter, and workshops are being put up now. At present Subiaco is receiving home from where the children can be drafted to other places. I approve of the boarding-out system, especially for the younger children, but then the trouble is that the colony is not sufficiently settled yet for the thorough working of a system of that kind. The magistrates have power to commit to any of our orphanages, but, in practice, they rarely do so. They usually commit the children to Subiaco, and let us draft them out. 996. MOUNT ELIZA DEPOT. — There are 274 old men at Mount Eliza, of whom two-thirds have usually been convicts, and at the Female Home there are 80 inmates to-day, including children. For older soldiers we get 9d. a day, but for old convicts who go to Mount Eliza we get nothing to feed or to bury them. 997. SALVATION PROPOSALS. — I approve of the Salvation army colonisation system generally, and have reported on Booth's colonies in other places, but at present we do not exactly know what it is that the Salvation Army proposes to do in West Australia. and the Army has not yet had time to show fully what it can do in Victoria. There would be a difficulty here in handling over all the children to them, including the Roman Catholics, but , no doubt, if they started an institution they would get a certain proportion of the children.

998. ROTTNEST. — At present some of the children go to Rottnest for absurdly short sentences (six months or so), and when they come out we lose all control over them. The best thing would be to send the children to an Industrial School, and there should be power to commit them, as in England, for detention up to 18 years of age. In the case of short sentences, it is impossible to teach a boy a trade properly, 

999. SPECIAL COURTS FOR JUVENILE CASES. — I approve of the Victorian and South Australian system whereby children are tired before a special court or on special days. (The commission adjourned.)