"MERCIFUL JUDGE."

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 85, 11 April 1931, Page 11

"MERCIFUL JUDGE."

MAGISTRATE'S REMINISCENCES. Sir Robert Wallace, K.C., who has become known as "the Merciful Judge," tried his last case at London Sessions, over which he has presided for 24 years. At the age of 80, with an association of. 56 years with the Bar, he has retired being succeeded by Mr. Cecil Whiteley, IvtC. . ' "In. the earlier part of my career the criminal system horrified me," Sir Robert confessed in an interview. "Why, people were sent to penal servitude for stealing a pair of boots even when it was a first offence. That kind, of thing lias gone for ever." Speaking of the effect of the Probation Act, Sir Robert said, in the years before the war • they found that nearly 95 per cent of, those placed on probation never returned to crime. "Even now, tracing the cases of the last few years, 'we find that 90 per cent do not. come back,", he added.

Asked what he thought was the most effective ■ way of dealing 4 with old criminals, Sir Robert shook his head. "We have occasionally experimented with real bad offenders," he said, "and in some instances with good results. It is necessary to take risks at times. The. harsh sentences of the past had a very brutalising effect upon criminals. 1 don't believe in what some people call the short-sentence system. If a man has to go to prison I don't believe in sending him for a month or two months. I say: 'Keep him out of it or give him an adequate and proper sentence for his offence.' To my mind the old criminal looks upon two or three mouths as a rest cure. It is only whtn a few months have passed and the monotony of not being able to go out begins to operate upon him that he begins to realise what prison means." Sir Robert, speaking of the present prison conditions, said: "I think you may go to a degree at which a man is. so comfortable that you create the impression that prison is an elaborate joke except that you cannot escape from it" He considers that useful and creative work is ( tlie best "cure for a prisoner. He added that lie had never been convinced that flogging was a successful deterrent. "I am not going to express any didactic opinion upon such punish - men," said Sir Robert. "I can only say that I have never imposed it myself. I have always tried to remember that 'the quality of mercy is not strained'" he concluded. "I hope I have been merciful, and I hope I have been just."