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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Personal Volume

Report presented at a meeting of the Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society, Sept. 28th, 1916, held in Supreme Court chambers, Sir Robert Stout, Chief Justice, presiding

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The Wellington Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society

Report Presented at a Meeting of the Dis-Charged Prisoners' Aid Society, Sept. 28th, 1916, Held in Supreme Court Chambers, Sir Robert Stout, Chief Justice, Presiding

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"His First Offence"

From the Painting by Lady Dorothy Stanley (Widow of Sir H. M. Stanley, the great African Explorer).

From the Painting by Lady Dorothy Stanley (Widow of Sir H. M. Stanley, the great African Explorer).

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The Wellington Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society

Patron:

  • His Excellency Lord Liverpool.

President:

  • His Honour Sir Robert Stout. K.C.M.G., Chief Justice for N.Z.

Vice-President:

  • His Honour Mr. Justice Theophilus Cooper.

Committee:

  • Chairman: W. G. Riddell, Esq., S.M.
  • D. G. A. Cooper, Esq., S.M.
  • H. H. Ostler, Esq., Crown Solicitor
  • The Hon. T. W. Hislop
  • T. M. Wilford, Esq., M.P.
  • E. Arnold, Esq., J.P., V.J.
  • J. G. W. Aitken, Esq., J.P.
  • W. J. Kellow, Esq., J.P.
  • T. S. Lambert, Esq., J.P.
  • P. J. O'Regan, Esq.. Barrister
  • Brigadier Bray

Hon. Treasurer:

  • E. Arnold, Esq., J.P., and Visiting Justice H.M. Prisons

Secretary and Officer:

  • B. Cumings, Box 264
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Report of The Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society

The Prisoners' Aid Society has now been in operation in Wellington for about ten years. It has received kindly aid from private citizens and also from public bodies, and it has accomplished a great deal of good. It is necessary, we believe, that the public should be made more acquainted with its work, feeling? sure that if this is done even greater aid will be afforded to this institution.

There is no doubt that of late years the question of Prison Reform has been much discussed amongst all civilised peoples. Great steps have been taken, especially in the United States of America, to see if prisoners could not be reformed. In New Zealand this attempt reformation first received legal sanction in 1886, now thirty years ago, when the First Offenders Probation Act" was passed. Since then there have been several legislative measures, one providing for what is termed indeterminate sentences—that is, persons after two or more convictions, according to the crime, may be declared habitual criminals, and a Prison Hoard considers what shall be done with those who have been so declared. They may be let out on probation, or they may be altogether discharged from prison. There is also what is termed a Reformative sentence, and in such cases as these the prisoners are also placed under the control of the Prison Board, who can recommend His Excellency the Governor to allow them on probation or altogether to discharge them. There has also been in all the Courts a desire to deal leniently with first offenders or with those who cannot be termed habitual criminals, and if the sentences now passed on prisoners be compared with those passed, say, forty years ago, it will be noticed that there has been a great change. In New Zealand there has been now for many years a constant effort to try to reclaim prisoners. The Prisoners' Aid Society is a useful institution to effect this object. One has been established for a great number of years in Dunedin, and the services that it has rendered have been recognised by the people of Otago.

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The changed attitude of the community towards prisoners is manifest. The prison is beginning to be looked upon not so much as a place for punishment as a place for the discipline and reform of the offender. There are in New Zealand several prisons specially designed with that object, such as Invercargill, Waikeria (a prison farm), another prison farm in Canterbury (Paparoa), two prison camps in the Rotorua District for tree-planting, and the prison camp, road-making, on the Waimarino Plain. All those prisons are designed to aid in the reformation of prisoners by getting them work in the open air, giving them much liberty, and not confining them in stone walls in the cities.

To aid further in true prison reform, some institution must exist that will help the prisoner when he is discharged from gaol. This is the work for which the Prisoners' Aid Society has been instituted. The Government has no institution to which prisoners can go for assistance once they are discharged as prisoners, and what the prisoners need is not so much gifts of money or aid until they are able to find work, but kindly attention and assistance in obtaining work, and some light aid by paying fares, etc., until work is obtained. The records during the past ten years of this Society show that this help has been of service to many prisoners, and has enabled them to begin to live a new life. The numbers which have been aided since the beginning of the Society are as follows Prisoners assisted, 2,806; and the following will illustrate what has been done with this large number of citizens: 1,225 had beds provided for them, numbering 2,094 beds, and also 2,446 meals; 384 received monetary assistance; 167 had clothes, boots, etc., provided; 213 had fares paid for them; 284 had lodging and food; no had their "swags" released from pawn; 73 had groceries and meat, etc., etc. Prisoners were sent to various places mostly in the South Island; two went to Australia, 29 to the South Island—in all, 250.

The kind of aid given is that of lodging, meals, fares to obtain work, clothing, etc., etc., and in many cases where the prisoner has a family out of gaol some assistance, has been given to his family during his incarceration. The Society feels that the only hope for reformation of any prisoner is, after he has undergone his punishment, to treat him kindly, and to find him suitable employment. If he is not treated kindly, and if suitable employment is not found for him, he will inevitably return to his criminal work again. It is not, however, only kindly treatment that the prisoners require in giving them slight aid and finding them work, but something must be done to impress upon them that there are people in the community who care for them.

The Society has been fortunate in having as its Secretary Mr. Cumings, who has looked after many who have come from gaol; page break and Mr. Arnold, the Treasurer, has placed his services unreservedly for the benefit of those who have been discharged from prison. What is generally done is that when the prisoners are leaving gaol they are seen and advised as to what their future should be and what they should do, and aid is given them if aid is required. Sometimes money has been given to send young men to their homes, and the prisoners have often refunded the aid they have received. In other instances their relatives, sometimes in the Home Country, have been communicated with, and aid has been sent to the prisoners, who have thus been helped to start in life afresh. It would be unwise to give illustrations of what has been done in case the prisoners assisted might be identified.

The work of the Society has been mainly confined to the Wellington Provincial District. Sometimes prisoners come from other parts of the Dominion, and if they need assistance, and after investigation it is found that assistance should be given to them, the aid is forthcoming.

The Prisoners' Aid Society confidently appeal to the public for assistance in order that they may continue and also enlarge their work. In the absence of some institution to which prisoners can go after they are discharged from gaol, the Prisoners' Aid Society is a necessity if the reform work amongst prisoners is to continue.

Robert Stout,

President.

W. K. Riddell,

Chairman.

D. G. A. Cooper,

Vice-Chairman.

Edwin Arnold,

Treasurer.

B. Cumings,

Secretary, Box 264.

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Printed at the Evening Post Office. Willis Street. Wellington. New Zealand—63904