OUR PENAL SYSTEM.
NOT A REAL HELP. CHRISTIAN SOCIALIST'S VIEW. Whether or not our present penal system performs any real service to the community was a subject of discussion last night at a meeting addressed by tho Christian Socialist candidate for Eden, Mr. O. E. Burton. "I cannot help feeling," said the candidate, "that our penal system is really of no permanent benefit to us. When a man is.hanged—to take the most exrerne form of punishment first—all that is accomplished is that a little more fear is instilled into the community; a little more cruelty is fostered; a little more superstition is bred. Do you think, for one moment, that hanging a man is of any value either to us or the victim? Do you think that the thousands of men and women who crowd the Supreme Court to hear murder trials are uplifted by the procedure? If a man is definitely anti-social, punishment will not make him any better. If a man is imprisoned for theft he may not steal again, but the anti-&oeial tendency is still in him, and will break out somewhere else. Students of sociology realise this, and there is a gradual tendency toward.jless punishment for crime, and better methods for dealing with those who are anti-social.
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Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 258, 31 October 1928, Page 9
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211OUR PENAL SYSTEM. Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 258, 31 October 1928, Page 9
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