CONCERNING CHILD ASSAULT

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 142, 16 June 1923, Page 18

CONCERNING CHILD ASSAULT

AX ENGLISH OPINION,

The public conscience is showing renewed signs of uneasiness on the subject of child assault, remarks a writer in "Time and Tide," and he addß that the administration of the criminal law is also a subject of special .consideration. "Recent cases in Leeds," says the writer, "Aldershot, and other placea seem to show that there are three aspects of administration which call for immediate consideration. Owing to this difficulty of producing clear and intelligent evidence a long time after the event, assault cases are frequently dealt with summarily, since, although the maximum penalty which can be awarded is comparatively light, convictions are said to be easier to obtain than in the higher Courts. This accounts for many of the apparently inadequate sentences often reported in the Press. A second problem, partly arising out of the fh'st, is the obvious"folly of dealing with the habitual offender by a series of shortterm sentences. Such persons obviously belong to the category of the diseased and dangerous, from whom society, and specially children, should be protected; common-sense, as well as common charity, would seem to demand that such people should be handed over to the medical authorities for treatment, and, if necessary, for segregation. A third problem is created by the anomalous and illogical condition of the law, thanks partly to amendments foisted upon the Criminal Law Amendment Act by its opponents. It is disquieting to be reminded by recent cases that the old defence, 'reasonable cause to believe,' can still be put up successfully by anyone under 23. The whole of this difficult question, so intimately connected with other social evils of bad environment, health, housing, challenges the complacency of every citizen, man or woman." It is very enlightening to find that the same trend of thought is going along in England and New Zealand on this momentous question. Just recently the matters of better preventive methods in cases of assault upon children were brought before Government, and await a decision, among them being the segregation of offenders, under medical supervision. The question of housing has also been raised in the same connection. It is to be hoped that in the near future there will some means be found to cope with a subject which has never been dealt with powerfully and adequately before. .