INCREASE IN CRIME

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIII, Issue 16, 30 December 1932, Page 10

INCREASE IN CRIME

MR. JUSTICE McCARDIE’S VIEWS. REAL CAUSES OUTLINED. London, Nov. 17. “Poverty, drink, and gambling are only minor causes of serious crime in this country. The real causes are still to be found in the old and fundamental forces of Nature—greed, anger, jealousy, vanity, lust, and, perhaps, negligence—great negligence by drivers of motor vehicles.” This dictum was uttered by Mr. Justice McCardie, when charging the grand jury at Glamorgan Assizes in Swansea. “ This is a strange country of ours,” said Mr. Justice McCardie, “for while we are steadily closing our prisons the actual amount of serious crime is steadily increasing. First, I believe that very- serious injury is being done by the notion, that some people attempt to spread, that crime is some form of disease. It is not. “Second, I am satisfied that emotional tendencies w-hich are being shown in some quarters to-day are doing serious injury. The sufferings of victims are entirely overlooked in misplaced sympathy for the criminal. Third, I should like to say this: That we are drifting to an abuse of the probation system. Once a criminal gets it into his mind that, for the first one or two offences, he will only be bound over as a matter of course, thence the force of the criminal law has largely gone.

OBJECTS OF PUNISHMENT. “I should like,” his Lordship proceeded, “to speak in clear terms what I deem to be not the mere single but the main object of punishment, which is:— (1) To deter the criminal himself. (2) To deter others as well, who may be tempted. (3) To reform the criminal if it is possible. (4) To satisfy the public demand for the vindication of the law by the infliction of appropriate penalties. “Finally—and this I feel is the object too often overlooked —to protect the public for an adequate period of time from further offences by those convicted of theft ( robbery, and other types of crime. “I have dealt with this matter because I feel that the time is coming when this country must face this grave increase of crime, and ask itself what are the remedies we can apply to prevent a further increase and enlargement. ’ ’