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The Chief Medical Officer. The Honourable T. Scott.

Mr. W. H. Read.

The Honourable Whampoa.

A. E. H. ANSON.

220

9. Those arrangements are as follows:-

1. To have at Singapore a large central gaol in which the most approved system of penal discipline that can be applied in this country shall be carried out.

2. At each of the other Settlements there is to be a similar gaol, but prisoners with a longer sentence than six months are to be sent to Singapore, where it is anticipated that the new system will be carried out more perfectly than can be expected at the smaller Settlements.

3. To meet the cost of altering the existing gaols the sum of 9,000 dollars has been granted on the current year Estimates for Singapore, and the following amounts are taken in the Supplementary Supply Ordinance No. 12 of 1872, viz.:—

Further improvement of the Singapore prisons

Ditto, and enlargement of prisons at Penang Ditto, ditto, Malacca

:::

Dollars.

15,700

40,000

9,000

61,700

73,700

Sir,

The Colonial Secretary. The Atttorney-General.

The Controller of Convicts.

The Senior Magistrate.

The Chief Commissioner of Police.

(Signed)

Government Flouse, Singapore, June 6, 1871.

Report of the Commission.

Total up to 1874

The total estimate for the work is, however-

Singapore Penang

Malacca

:::

:::

:::

Dollars.

98,600

71,600

9,000

179,200

There will therefore still remain a sum of 106,500 dollars to be appropriated for the completion of the work, and this it is hoped may be effected in the course of next year.

4. A large increase in the strength of prison officers is also approved, part of which is provided for in the ensuing year. The additional cost which this will involve cannot be given with any exactness, as it is impossible to calculate the expense which is now entailed It may by the almost exclusive employment of transmarine convicts as prison warders. also be noticed that the removal of these prisoners in 1873 renders it absolutely necessary to make provision for supplying their places with free warders.

5. It is proposed to place at the head of all of the prisons au officer styled Super- intendent, who shall be superior in position to any of the existing gaolers, but who shall reside at, and have immediate charge of, the central prison at Singapore. The second, or auxiliary gaol, at that Settlement, which it is proposed to retain, and the gaols at Penang and Malacca being under the charge of gaolers as at present.

6. An officer styled Inspector of Prisons is to be appointed, whose duty will be limited to inspecting and reporting from time to time on the condition of all the gaols, but who will have no authority in or be in any other way connected with them.

Lastly, An Ordinance, No. 14 of 1872, entitled "An Ordinance to amend and consolidate the law relating to the custody of prisoners," has been passed for the purpose of allowing the foregoing arrangements to be carried out.

I have, &c.

(Signed)

II. ST. GEORGE ORD.

Inclosure in No. 53.

STRAITS SETTLEMENTS.

Papers laid before the Legislative Council by command of his Excellence the Governor. June 4, 1872.

REPORT OF THE COMMISSION ON PRISON DISCIPLINE.

Minute by his Excellency the Administrator,

THE subject of our Prison Discipline and arrangements should form the subject of an inquiry, and I therefore appoint the following Government officers and gentlemen to form a Committee for this purpose:-

We, the Commissioners appointed by your Excellency to be a Committee to consider

Singapore, January ì, 1872. and report on the whole system of Prison Discipline at present in force in the Straits Settlements, have the honour to report to you as follows:-

1. We have received and considered the following papers on the general subject:

(1.) Report of the Royal Commissioners on Penal Servitude (1863).

(2.) Digest and summary on prisons in the Colonies, in answer to Mr. Cardwell's despatches of January, 1865, presented to Parliament in 1867.

(3.) Further papers on same subject, 1868.

(4.) Ditto.

(5.) Ditto.

ditto. ditto.

1869.

1870.

(6.) Reports of the House of Lords on Gaol Discipline, 1863.

(7.) Report of the Surveyor-General of Prisons on Rentonville Prison, 1844.

(8.) Imperial Prisons Act, 1865.

Our attention has also been specially drawn to the reports on Prison Discipline in Ceylon by Sir Edward Creasy's Committee in 1866, 1868, and 1869, and to the prison rules in force there.

We have also attentively considered the Secretary of State's circular despatch of the 15th April last, on the subject of the discipline and management of prisons in the Colonies.

Several of us have visited all the gaols in the Settlements, and we have all inspected the House of Correction and Transmarine Convict Gaol here.

2. The general result of our inquiries has led us unanimously to the conviction,-1st, that the present system of our prison discipline, as regards our local prisoners, is very bad,

and urgently requires reform, since it does not at present exhibit any one of the features enjoined by the Secretary of State's circular of January, 1865, viz:-

(1) The establishment of the separate system as the foundation of Prison Discipline.

(2.) The enforcement of strictly penal labour in short terms of imprisonment, and in the earlier stages of long terms.

(3.) The division of long terms of imprisonment (after the strictly penal portion) into stages of Prison Discipline progressively diminishing in severity, and with promotion from one class to another for industrial good conduct.

(4.) The ticket-of-leave system under certain regulations.

3. We are of opinion, however, that very considerable improvements may be effected,

in the spirit of the Secretary of State's instructions in 1865, as well as in the spirit

of the further instructions conveyed in the circular of the 15th April last, which enjoined,-

(1.) Attention to prison diet.

(2.) Classification other than by felonies and misdemeanours.

(3.) The separate system.

(4.) The importance of really penal labour.

4. We have not come to these conclusions without giving every consideration to the means at the disposal of the Colony, to the question of expense and to local circumstances as regards diet, class of prisoners, und their physical capacity for the sort of labour we shall recommend, and to the moral effect such discipline is likely to exercise on the majority of the classes who now form the bulk of our prison inmates.

5. The present state of our prison system appears to be very similar to the system of Ceylon at the time that Sir Edward Creasy's Committee was appointed, and we believe that we cannot do better than adopt generally the reforms which that Committee recommended, and which we believe to have worked well, as the Secre- tary of State, in his circular of the 15th April, says, "In the Colony of Ceylon (where

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