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Prison Reformers Can Learn From The Past
DUNMORE PUBLISHING LTD
Prison Reformers Can Learn From The Past
Criminologist Greg Newbold’s latest book shows what history can teach us about how prisons work. The Problem of Prisons: Corrections Reform in New Zealand Since 1840, which was released today, gives a unique insight into prison life in New Zealand.
It describes how inmates have been dealt with in prisons throughout New Zealand’s history. Newbold says “the history of corrections has been a succession of mostly fruitless attempts to find a remedy for crime”.
Prisoners in the nineteenth century endured floggings and misdemeanors were punished by being confined in a dark cell.
By the 1940s prisons were more humane and inmates could train for a trade, join prison sports teams or read the daily newspapers.
Later clamp-downs on privileges led to unrest among inmates and resulted in the 1965 Mt Eden prison riot, which left the prison almost uninhabitable for days.
Newbold also describes prison life from a personal perspective. He served seven and a half years in Paremoremo in the 1970s. He began studying criminology while in prison and is now an associate professor in the School of Sociology and Anthropology at Canterbury University.
The Problem of
Prisons: Corrections Reform in New Zealand Since 1840
By
Greg Newbold
Dunmore Publishing Available from 20 March 2007 RRP $45.95
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