LETHAL CHAMBER FOR CRIMINALS

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 160, 1 April 1939, Page 6 (Supplement)

LETHAL CHAMBER FOR CRIMINALS

Au English country doctor, Mr. 11. M. Stephenson, who spends his lime giving life to villagers in the quiet Dorset countryside, advocates death in the lethal chamber for criminals. Not merely for murderers does he suggest this fate, but for perverts who terrorize women and children. For those found guilty of attempted murdei lie suggests hanging. These proposals come at a time when they offer a striking contrast to the growing demand in the House of Commons for abolition of the death penalty. Dr. Stephenson, in private life a kindly man. with a family, told a London pressman: “A lethal chamber should be provided in every prison. Without waiting to give I hem another chance of terrorizing women and children, I’d put sex perverts in it for their first offence. “I'd use it also for incorrigible criminals. And I’d hang people who tried to commit murder but failed. “Why should a fellow get off just liecause he’s a bad shot? “Leniency is becoming a menace to law.” he said. “There seems to be a growing idea that if one is sweet and gentle enough to a thug he will shed a few tears and cease to be a thug. “A greater mistake could hardly be made. Eor erimes of violence there should be flogging. “I would not punish incorrigible criminals and sex perverts. I would say to them: ‘l’m sorry. I hope you will have a better time in another world, but we cannot keep you in this.’ “Then I would put them in the lethal chamber. It’s immeasurably kinder than shutting them up in gaol for the rest of their lives.” He said that when the oxygen in a lethal chamber was exhausted and the carbon dioxide was not increased, any person inside just dropped to the floor. The prisoner, he said, should be put in the lethal chamber before the verdict was brought in. If he was iruilty the oxygen in the chamber should be cut off without his being told the verdict.