CO129-534-3 Report of Retrenchment Commission 4-5-1931 - 19-2-1932 — Page 124

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4.

Government to Legislative Council on 23rd September, 1929,

(vide Hansard 1929 pages 240

-

245), in support of the

proposal to erect a reinforced concrete printing shop in a

prison, which obviously should be shortly torn down.

Printing

unlike other prison industries requires an European technical

supervisory staff there are five such posts at Victoria

gaol), and expensive machinery.

10. Reduction in the prison population is desirable from

many points of view, including that of effecting an economy in

the running of the Prison Department. The Commissioners

consider that a sot inconsiderable reduction could be effected,

if the Police were to devate less time than they do at

present to the arrest, detention, and charging of offenders of

such petty "crimes" as crying out wares in crowded streets

(where pandemonium already reigns), and touting for motor

care provided that a real public nuisance is not being

committed. The sentences imposed on such persons are

trivial, a few days at most, but whether it be one day or

one year, the prisoner has to be entered on the prison

records, washed, given a suit of prison clothes, etc., all

of which takes up the time of more than one officer. Then

again an extension of the system of binding over by Magistrates

in the case of first offenders might also relieve the prison,

without leading to any increase in crime. There appears to be

no provision in the Magistrates' or any other ordinance to

require a person who has been bound over on first conviction

to report himself to the police at stated intervals. The

insertion of such a provision might incline the Magistrates

to use this power of binding over more frequently than they

do at present. The two suggestions made in this paragraph

should be considered by the Inspector General of Police and