PENALTY FOR MURDER

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25740, 28 February 1949, Page 8

PENALTY FOR MURDER

FULL LIFE IMPRISONMENT ADVOCATED DISCUSSION AT JUSTICES’ ASSOCIATION MEETING From Dur Own Reporter TIMARU, February 27. According to statistics, since the abolition of the death penalty in New Zealand in 1941, there had been an increase in the number of murders committed of more than 61 per cent., said Mr A. J. Haub, of Dunedin, president of the Federation of Justices of New Zealand, speaking at a dinner held in his honour in Timaru last evening by the South Canterbury Justices’ Association. In the set en years before the removal of the penalty there had been 54 cases of murder, said Mr Haub. while in the subsequent seven years there had been 87, an increase of 33. Nearly every grand jury dealing with murder was asking the judge to bring before the authorities the desirability of the supreme penalty being restored, and many letters to newspapers expressed similar sentiments, said Mr Haub. At conferences of the Justices’ Association resolutions had been passed asking that, failing the restoration of the death penalty, a murderer should be detained in prison for the duration of his life. *We have not succeeded in getting anywhere yet,” he continued, “but we will no doubt try again.” Supporting the principle of full life imprisonment Mr George Strapton, registrar of the Otago Associaton, recalled that a women had recently been murdered and frightfully ravaged by a young man in Wellington. The man. who had been in trouble since he was 10 years old, had been out of prison only a short time, and if a beneficent Government allowed him out again in 10 to 15 years time he might repeat the action Mr E. A. Lee. S.M., said that New Zealand s population had become very much bigger and this country was at present passing through .a R en ° d of unrest following the war. If these factors were considered the proportion of crime would not be very great, he believed.

Mr George Dash (Waimate) said that never before in the last 30 years had there been so great a need for mo r a L assistance to youth. He suggested that the association could give • le? r m this direction.