CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 165, 15 July 1930, Page 6

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.

As the originator of the present correspondence 011 the above subject, may I reply briefly to one or two of the surprising statements that have been made in defence of the existing methods? It was, of course, to tie expected that one would be branded as a sentimentalist, but I should like to ask your readers which they think to be the more sentimental view, that which demands revenge •by a life for a life, or that which treats crime as a problem to be solved by scientific methods? If it is true that other countries have found other methods more effective for murder than capital punishment, does not cold, common sense suggest that we should try these other methods, too?i For the benefit of one correspondent who quotes Chicago and American lawlessness generally, as warnings against abolition, it should be pointed out (1) that the. death penalty has never been abolished in Chicago, and (2) that of the eight States of the U.S.A. having the lowest murder rates five are abolitionist; while of the eight having the highest murder rates all retain the death penalty. Another correspondent asks me to state the alternative to capital punishment. There is nothing mysterious about this—it is to treat the murderer as we do others who show anti-social tendencies, i.e., shut him up and do what he can to make him fit to return to society. Is the murderer so much worse than other criminals that we must by hanging him admit our failure to. deal with him? "None of those released," says the chief of the Swedish prison administration, speaking of convicted murderers set free after long terms, "have ever teen reconvicted of murder or manslaughter. They have almost always, after release, lived as good citizens, earning their living by the craft they have learned during their long period in prison." But perhaps we should do better to stick to the old ideaafter all, no one attempted to make a good citizen of Cain, and what was good enough.in those days it would be presumptuous to improve upon. N. M. RICHMOND.