Women Urge Capital, Corporal Punishment

Northern Advocate, 15 July 1949, Page 3

Women Urge Capital, Corporal Punishment

WELLINGTON. Fri. (P.A.). —Remits from almost every part of New Zealand dealing with capital and corporal punishment, life sentences and the treatment of persons and the treatment of persons convicted of sexual crimes were on the agenda paper at the Dominion conference of the Women’s Division of the Federated Farmers yesterday. It was agreed that the Government be urged to reinstate capital and corporal punishment.

“We have 13 persons at large in New Zealand at present guilty of murder." said a delegate. She moved "that life imprisonment be the whole of a person’s natural jfe and that no sentence of life imprisonment be reduced." This was carried. In the light of new medical knowledge, something could be done toward treating some people convicted of sexual crime, one speaker said. In Canada offenders were given an indeterminate sentence until a medical board, which sat in conjunction with the court, granted a clearance. fax

their release. A remit was passed which urged that such offenders should be given specialised medical treatment during their period of detention and that before they were released they should satisfy a medical board that they were mentally, morally and physically fit to be given their freedom. The conference passed a remit "that in view of the isolated lives country women lead, no boys with criminal records should be sent to the country without their employers being notified of the boys’ record*.”