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efficient deterrent and reformatory Gaol discipline can be established on a firm basis. As the building of a new Gaol seems unlikely to be undertaken for some time, I can only repeat my suggestion of last year that short sentence prisoners, that is, men sentenced to 6 months and under, should be removed to some other building, or perhaps to a hulk; this would leave space enough in Victoria Gaol to accommodate long sentence prisoners on the separate system, and also give more space for industrial work.
34. I would also repeat my suggestion that habitual criminals and others who have earned remission of sentence should be placed by legislative enactment (as in England) under Police supervision, so that, if found returning to a criminal career, they might at once be sent back by the Magistrates to prison.
35. While the Gaol is as now so greatly overcrowded, I think the Government might take into consideration the case of the large number of prisoners mostly belonging to the criminal classes who are confined for want of finding security for good behaviour. I am not allowed to make these men work. They are well fed and live comfortably in associated idleness. I brought this subject to notice in paragraph 21 of my Report for 1885. I am sorry to say, I believe many of these men rather like their sentence and will not find security even when able to do so. And it seems an incongruity that while honest destitutes who are provided with food and lodging in Gaol are compelled to do a daily task of work, the criminal security men are freed from the obligation of performing any labour whatever beyond cleaning their own cells. 479 men were imprisoned during the year for want of finding security.
36. The overcrowding of the Gaol might also be to some extent reduced, if other punishment than imprisonment could be found for the persons now imprisoned for gambling. 399 men have been committed to prison for this offence during the year. The great majority of these men do not belong to the criminal classes. They are mostly hard-working men, rice pounders, and coal porters. They overcrowd the Gaol; they are neither deterred from gambling by imprisonment nor are they improved. It is too much to be feared that many of them are deteriorated and corrupted by compulsory and constant association with the criminal classes they meet in Gaol.
(A.)
VICTORIA GAOL.
Return of Reports for talking, &c., in the years 1884, 1885 and 1886.
MONTH.
1884.
Daily average number in Prison, 532.
A. GORDON,
Superintendent.
1885.
in Prison, 530.
1886.
Daily average number | Daily average number
in Prison, 674.
January,
February,
March,
April,
May,
June,
July,.
August,
September,
October,
November,
December,
14
55
119
17
25
135
32
44
248
24
23
330
31
252
197
70
362
298
77
289
297
72
344
232
50
254
318
64
174
209
35
148
183
43
162
93
Total,......
529
2,132
2,659
A. GORDON,
Superintendent.
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