MAGISTRATE'S CONFESSION.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 147, 23 June 1928, Page 3 (Supplement)

MAGISTRATE'S CONFESSION.

ADMIRATION FOR CRIMINALS.

A confession of his admiration for criminals was made by Mr. Horace Marshall, a Leeds stipendiary magistrate, at a meeting of the Leeds Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society. "I always think," he said, "that even with the old hand, the man who will probably spend a considerable amount of his life in prison, there is something rather attractive about him. Personally, I like the criminal class, and I see a good deal of them. There is good nature, a kind of sporting sense, about them. If you consider, even that old formula, 'It's a fair cop,' that shows you the kind of way the prisoner looks upon what is perhaps his natural enemy, the policeman, but the prisoner, or most of his class, Is not a bad fellow at heart." Turning to prison reform, Mr. Marshall said there was a danger of which -we must not lose sight. It would be an exceedingly bad thing for this country and for the criminal population, if the restorative side of prison was subordinated to its deterrent sides. "Prison must be a place of punishment. It must be a place to w'hich prisoners do not desire to go and if it is not, then the administration of criminal justice becomes virtually impossible. There is no question that there are numbers of people who would much sooner be in prison than in workhouses. I hope those who , have the discipline of the prisons in their hands will always see to it that the prison is a place of punishment, quite as much as, if not more than, a place of education. The two are not inconsistent, and can be carried on side by side."