THE SCIENTIFIC SENTENCE.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 65, 27 February 1911, Page 5

THE SCIENTIFIC SENTENCE.

While not believing in mawkish sentiment in connection with the punishment of offenders against the law, we cannot help realising that considerable good may result from the treatment of criminals upon scientific and humanitarian lines. Harsh, brutal treatment of those who have weakly yielded to the temptation to do wrong does not' always pay. It provides little in. the shape of a deterrent to further* crimes, and certainly goes not one single step towards teaching the sinner the evil of his ways or giving him the opportunity for reforma-; tion. With some warped and hardened natures we know it is impossible to expect either regret for wrongdoing or effort to overcome the temptation to do evil. It is, obvious, however, that a chancel given will sometimes save an err-' ing fellow creature from being hardened into a hfe-long criminal. Excellent examples of the operation of this principle are afforded in the sentences passed by His Honor the Chief Justice in Napier. Sir Robert,hud before him offenders of widely different characters last week. Two men were undoubtedly of the pure criminal type. Although " comparatively young men, they had already served several sentences for various offences. One man had been sentenced seven times in ten years, and the other had spent thirteen months out of the two years he had been on these shores inside prison walls. Clearly a “chance” would be thrown away on shch men as these, and Sir Robert wisely sent one man to do five years hard labour for the State and the other he sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment and declared him to be an habitual criminal. At the same sitting he dealt with a case of a widely different nature, where a man, unhinged by drink and domestic trouble, fired a revolver at a fellow citizen. Unquestionably this was a grave offence, involving as H did the probable loss of human life, but evidence showed the offender to-be'a hard-working, honest, kind-hearted man when sober, but unfortunately the victim of evil passions when under the influence of drink. The Judge decided to give this man a “chance,” and instead of sending him for a lengthy term to gaol, he ordered his retention, for one year in a reformatory, giving him, as His Honor remarked, an opportunity to get the drink out of his system and work out his redemption. Probably this man will learn , his lesson and an no more.