"Too Leniently”

Honiara Offenders Treated "Too Leniently”

a Special Correspondent in Honiara

-ight sentences by magistrates

s been coming under fire in

liara.

E police force is inadequately staffed as it is, and local people ire sympathetic to their dif ties when, as has happened, fes with previous convictions been let off with what are re ed as nominal sentences, e Honiara station police force iprises a European assistant rintendent, together with a sub ;ctor, a station sergeant, s i x >rals and 48 constables, all Mel ian. They have a job of keeping md order in a town of 800 Euro s and Chinese, and up to 2,500 nesians. seems to many people here that ly a week elapses before there eport of Melanesians being dis d in a European house—to or for other reasons, lanesians themselves are fre tly the victims of local crime, some of the sentences handed o those convicted are not always ;errent. lanesian civil servants are fre tly the victims of organised s who thieve regularly from food gardens, which they have ed in an effort to supplement rations. This is a serious and ng problem. e gardener recently caught an der red handed with a potato s hand. The thief was fined t’s not unexpected that punish did not prevent further thefts that particular garden.

More Drinkers

? European planter lost 30 which he had imported from alia. Three men were caught, idmitted taking one fowl each, man was fined 30/- with 30/ensation. shoplifter who took four tins at valued at 18/- was fined £3. a charge of drunkenness, there ‘standard” fine of £l. drinking charges have in id considerably since the re on of drinking permits. were four in 1959 and 60 in Charges of trespass increased eight in 1959 to 18 in 1960 and es of assault and malicious je from 17 to 41 in the same L iara people are wondering portion of all these increases ? attributed to the big increase inking since the restrictions relaxed, and what proportion iency sometimes shown in the