Sessional_Paper_1885-1886 — Page 151

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SUBORDINATE STAFF.

6. The Gaol staff, besides the Warden and Head Turnkeys, consist of 1st and 2nd class Turnkeys (all Europeans) and 1st and 2nd class Assistant Turnkeys (Europeans, colored men and natives). None of these have had previous training in Prison discipline. They have all been trained in this Gaol. The European Officers are zealous, painstaking and conscientious. The maintenance of Prison discipline has altogether depended upon them, and, although it would be better to have a proportion of Officers trained to the careful discipline of an English Prison, the services of the European Staff deserve in my opinion the acknowledgment of Government.

7. I regret I cannot, with one or two notable exceptions, say the same for the colored and native staff. At one time friendly and familiar with Prisoners, at other times harsh and exacting, almost always wanting in judgment and discretion, they are in my opinion responsible for much Prison crime. Many of them also have proved to be dishonest in so far as they have trafficked with Prisoners in tobacco, opium, etc., and have been open to bribery in conveying communications between Prisoners and outside friends. In fact at the time I took over the Gaol, any prisoner, whose friends would provide the money, could procure tobacco, opium, letters or anything he wanted, through the instrumentality of colored Turnkeys. Of these Turnkeys during the year 6 were invalided, 5 resigned and 10 were dismissed; most of the latter for illicit dealings with Prisoners, one of them having been tried and convicted in the Magistrates' Court. The vacancies so caused were mostly replaced by soldiers, His Excellency, the Major General Commanding the Troops, having kindly permitted soldiers from the Garrison to join the Prison staff on probation. These men, if found suitable purchased their discharge and permanently joined the Prison staff. They proved most valuable. Their habits of discipline raised the tone of the subordinate staff. Instead of quarrelling and arguing with Prisoners, like so many of the colored staff, they gave their orders quietly and reported breaches of discipline without noise or altercation, and gradually improved the subordination and discipline of the convicts. The soldier Turnkeys moreover are absolutely free from the slightest suspicion of trafficking with Prisoners. Their presence in Gaol I consider a great gain to Government.

PRISON BUILDINGS.

8. The Official Return shows that this Gaol contains 150 cells or wards, of which 49 only are separate cells. Last year there were only 46 separate cells, but 3 have been added during the year. The Prison is greatly overcrowded. During the year the Government sanctioned the removal of the Female prisoners to a house outside Victoria Gaol. This was carried into effect in October last, and placed at my disposal the late Female ward with 8 large cells and a separate yard, which relieved to some extent the overcrowding. Yet this is but a very small relief. Long experience at home has proved that, to make Prison punishments deterrent and reformatory, it is essential that Prisoners should be kept in separate confinement. The established principle is that Prisoners on conviction should for a fixed period be kept in separate confinement both day and night. This penal stage lasts in England for nine months. In the second stage convicts are employed at labor in association, but sleep and have their meals in a separate cell. It is quite impossible to carry out such a system in Victoria Gaol, with the very limited and unsuitable accommodation of the buildings, and I believe it has never been even approximately attempted, confinement in separate cells having in past times been chiefly used for punishment. I have however endeavoured, as far as the limited accommodation allowed, to follow the established principles, which I have carried out in the following manner. Prisoners sentenced to less than six months, I have, except in rare and special cases, entirely exempted from separate confinement, placing them at once in associated wards. Every Prisoner sentenced to six months or more I cause to undergo a limited period of separate confinement. Such Prisoners come in almost daily. Whenever the separate cells therefore are full, I examine the records of those occupying them, and transfer the best conducted amongst them to associated wards to make room for new comers. This has to be done about once a week. Since I have had the Female ward at my disposal I have used it as a sort of inter- mediate place of semi-separate confinement; four or five long sentence prisoners being confined in each cell there, and kept at work in separation from all other Prisoners, having their own separate yard for exercise. Long sentence Prisoners, on removal from separate cells, are now transferred to the late Female ward, but these on their turn must in a short time be removed to the ordinary associated wards to make room for others. By this system I am able to give every Prisoner, sentenced to six months or more, from two to three weeks separate confinement at the beginning of his sentence. A very poor result, but it is all that can be done, unless separate confinement were entirely reserved for convicts sentenced to Penal Servitude.

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9. The limited space of the Gaol tells equally hardly on industrial labor. Mat making, chair and basket making, carpentering, and even most of the oakum picking have to be carried out in narrow and limited verandahs. There is only space for a single loom of coir mat-making aud a single loom of grass mat-making; tailoring is carried out in a dark hall, shoe making is carried out in an ordinary cell. In fact there is no suitable work shop in the Gaol, nor space for one, except for the single in- dustry of washing clothes. Were the Prison provided with suitable workshops, it would be easy to discharge every long sentence Prisoner a trained and skilled workman at a remunerative trade; and