Birching 'not a deterrent’

Press, 9 January 1981, Page 4

Birching ' not a deterrent’

NZPA correspondent Washington! Restoring the birch for crimes of violence, as advocated' by the Minister of Police (Mr Couch) would be “one way to returning to the Middle Ages, or the jungle,” according to a leading American penologist. - [ "Brutality has never been! a deterrent to crime.” Mr William Nagel, an expert on prisons and consultant on crime and punishment to several states, told NZPA in an interview.

Another prominent prison expert said. “I don't think vou would find one administrator of a correctional institution in the United States who would advocate restoring the birch or any other form of corporal punishment.”

Asked to comment on Mr Couch’s proposal, Mr Nagel said, “Such proposals usually come from people who try to control crime but don’t know a thing about crime or criminals. The fact is that deterrents may be a factor with normal people but they are not with people who commit violent crimes.

■‘"ln the history of penology, 'everything possible has been dreamed of in efforts

to deter crime in the .most horrible ways. They have not worked.” Mr Anthony Travisono is executive director of the American Correctional Association, an organisation of [prison and detention centre [administrators and officers. , I “Not one. correctional 'administrator in the United States would advocate such a thing,” he told NZPA, "although we would welcome any chance of reducing tne incarceration rate by some form of positive community humiliation of criminals.” Mr Travisono said he favoured such sentences as enforced community work for convicted criminals.

Corporal punishment has not been used as part of a convicted person’s sentence in the United States this century, according to Mr Al Bronstein, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s prison project. It was outlawed in institutions by the United States Ccrjrt' of Appeals in 1968, he said. The court ruled that the practice, which was common in the nineteenth century, violated the United States Constitution’s eighth amendment which forbids “cruel and unusual punishment.”