Going To Prison Can Be Fun

In Tonga

By J. Edward Brown

BEING sent to prison is usually considered socially degrading; and I don’t suppose its very comfortable; or meant to be.

But being sent to prison in Tonga is a different proposition. For Tongans it means a full stomach, a little work, a good roof over their heads and no worries. It could even be a joyous occasion, for when having their photographs taken for the files the hardest job is to stop prisoners from smiling, and to make them look like criminals.

Tonga probably has the only prison in the world which has an annual picnic which is really organ ised and to which many guests are

invited, including prominent people

in the government, who feel ther is nothing incongruous in it.

The Judge complained one year that when he went to the annual picnic he was greeted at the gate bv a prisoner whom he’d sentenced to 15 years only the day before.

The prisoners have their own “army”. They are fanatics at drill ing and love every moment of it.

The Minister of Police donates an annual prize (a six-pound tin of bully beef) for the best display of drill by a platoon of prisoners.

They love to display their march ing in Nukualofa, the capital of Tonga. With wicked looking machetes at the slope, they march proudly down the street, heading for a job of work such as cutting the grass around public buildings and in the parks.

As they pass the police constable on point duty in the mam street, they give a smart eyes right at the command of the prisoner in charge, while a Tongan police guard, com pletely unarmed and unconcerned, marches along behind.

The prison farm helps the coffers of the Tongan Government by sell ing produce in Nukualofa. I was sit ting at a house on the beach-front one day when the prison depart ment truck rolled slowly past with one of the prisoners—not a warder —yelling out that they had bananas and kits of toro for sale. There was a warder lounging in the back, plus 10 prisoners and a couple of kids who were just along for the ride.

The woman of the house shouted and the truck stopped. She bought two bunches of bananas for 2/-, and a kit of taro and on rolled the truck to hawk its produce elsewhere.

Of course, the prison is main tained out of government funds, and one item on the estimates of expenditure for the department which appears every year is not tied up in complicated words. It bluntly

says, “Maintenance lunatics, £25”.

Prison is even good enough for a honeymoon. It is recorded that many decades ago a prisoner wanted to get married, so he borrowed the prison department’s horse and cart and jogged the ten miles to Nukualofa, got married and took his bride back to prison for the moneymoon.

The prisoners, according to law, are not allowed to have any money.

But what the law says doesn’t seem to make much difference. Prior to last Christmas, the prisoners at the side of the road cutting grass would stop work when somebody passed and rattle a collection box under their noses.

A few days before Christmas, there were several prisoners in one of the biggest stores doing their Christmas shopping. Several were at the drapery counter, and others were at the fancy goods counter.

Another two were at the main door getting the necessary cash by rattling collection boxes at the customers as they entered and left the store.

The normal gaol uniform is khaki shorts and shirts, but some have white crew-neck shirts which they decorate themselves. One I saw had a skull and crossbones on the back.

Another had his name, and under neath that, “7 years”.

Another had proudly written on his, “20 years for murder”.

It is said that years ago there was a notice outside the gaol which stated: “Any prisoner not in by 6 o’clock will be locked out.” Well, apocryphal or not, it sums up the Islands at titude towards prisoners.

Not that there are not some lapses from grace. A few years ago there was a public outcry that prison discipline should be tightened. This followed several incidents.

On the island of Haapai one prisoner appeared in the dock in irons after he had broken out of gaol, broken into a store and after hiding his spoils under the prison, had let himself back in again. He was considered an incorrigible rogue and sent to Nukualofa to the main prison, still in irons. Another escapee tried to sail a stolen yacht to Fiji.

Then there was the case of the Tongan who stowed away on an overseas vessel. He was sentenced to a term in gaol and appealed. He freely admitted that he was guilty, but he wanted to finish out the football season as a free man. When the football season was over he was quite nrepared to go to prison, because, as he said, he had “nothing else to do anyway”.