Page:Report of the Commission Appointed to inquire into the Penal System of the Colony.pdf/6

 Aliens, or prisoners hailing from the other colonies, should have every inducement and encouragement held out to them to return to their native homes. Your Commissioners have examined a number of prisoners, who comes from India, Africa, or South America. They have rendered themselves subject to our laws, of whose principles they usually understand little or nothing. They are usually persons whose ethical code, if any, is not in consonance with Australian ideas, and their antecedents do not point to the likelihood of their ever becoming desirable Australian colonists.

Many of these men have the means to leave the country, and are extremely desirous of doing so. Your Commissioners do not consider that, in the interests of the community, it is at all desirable to discourage this wish. On the contrary, it would be wise policy to facilitate the departure of these persons by remitting the balances of their sentences conditionally on their leaving Western Australia.

Your Commissioners strongly urge the complete abolition of the "ticket" system. Every prisoner when he leaves the Gaol should be a free man.

These regulations are altogether obsolete, dating back from April 26, 1870, and are no longer in many ways adapted to the requirements of the colony. The ticket-of-leave system, as practised, throws far too much power into the hands of the police, and your Commissioners have evidence that this power is frequently indiscreetly used by officials, so as to make it almost impossible for a ticket-of-leave man to obtain employment in open competition with free labor.

Trial prisoners are now brought to Fremantle and marched through the streets from the railway station to the prison handcuffed. This is an indignity to which no presumably innocent person should be subjected. A van ought to be provided for the conveyance of such prisoners, and the same vehicle might doubtless be utilised for the conveyance of any sentenced prisoners as well. As far as possible, all prisoners should be handed into custody at the Gaol at approximately some fixed hour of the day, so as to facilitate the work of inspection by the medical officer.

The practice of referring persons of weak mind to the Gaol for observation is one to be deprecated. Such persons should be sent to the Lunatic Asylum, and prisoners who, subsequent to their incarceration, develop symptoms of mental aberration should be similarly disposed of.

There are now in the Fremantle Gaol about a dozen youths, whose ages range from 17 to 21 years. As far as the structural arrangements of the Gaol will permit these lads are kept separate from the other prisoners. But the punishment inflicted cannot in their case be said to be either sharp enough to make itself unpleasantly felt, or to be in any sense reformative. There is no work on which they can profitably be employed, and, though for the most part they belong to a deplorably ignorant class, with the exception of one hour's schooling in each week no machinery is provided for their education. The fact is that the Fremantle Gaol is structurally not adapted for the reception of prisoners of this class. In this connection your Commissioners submit for consideration the desirableness of a careful review of the case of each individual youth upon its merits. There are some cases where, from the nature of the crime, it may be necessary that these youthful prisoners should be kept in close confinement; but in the majority of instances your Commissioners are of opinion that the interests of society would be best served and adequately protected by releasing the youths altogether, and placing them under a species of police supervision, such as is contemplated in the "Prevention of Crimes Act 1898."

For instance, to take a typical case, where nothing but the youth of the offenders calls for special sympathy, we would direct attention to the case of the two brothers Leader, who are undergoing sentences of seven and ten years respectively for an offence which, in England, is deemed to be adequately punished by a sentence of two years with hard labor. In such a case as this the only person really punished is the taxpayer, because he is called upon to support in unproductive idleness and for a long term of years two young fellows, who prior to their incarceration were able to earn and did earn excellent wages. As a matter of fact, these two boys up to the time of their trial were the main support of their widowed mother and younger brothers and sisters.

As was perhaps only natural, almost every witness had something to say upon thesubject of the prison food. The majority asserted that during the latter part of the year 1897 the food supplied was exceptionally bad in quality. Unless the whole of the evidence of the prisoners upon this point is to be disbelieved, there is no reason to doubt that this condition of things, although in a modified form, continued until quite recently. It is, nevertheless, generally admitted, even by the prisoners, that there is at the present time, no ground for complaint in the matter of the quantity or of the quality of the food supplied. Among the female prisoners no complaints have been made respecting the diet. The better or more careful cooking practicable among a small body of female prisoners has doubtless done much to lessen the probability of complaints as to the quality of the rations. A small minority of the male prisoners also—mostly short-sentence men, or new arrivals—found no fault with the food.

Your Commissioners will submit some suggestions on the whole subject of the food supply and the dietary scale when they have completed their examination of the Gaol officials and of the contractors for supplies. Meanwhile, they desire to record their opinion that it is altogether impracticable to adopt the same dietary scale—as is now attempted to be done—to the requirements of prisoners undergoing sentences which vary greatly in length. For the requirements of short-sentence men the quality and quantity of the food are of a higher standard than is necessary. On the other hand, there is too little variety in the food to meet the necessities of those who are compelled to eat nothing else for a long term of years. The inevitable result is that many of the long-sentence men develop dyspepsia in various aggravated forms, which, under a proper system of diet regime might be entirely avoided without any increased cost whatever, in fact, with economy to the State.