SUPPRESSION OF NAMES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19086, 3 August 1925, Page 9

SUPPRESSION OF NAMES.

A MAGISTRATE'S OPINION. The subject of probation and the magisterial power to order the suppression of the names of wrongdoers were referred to by Mr. Wyvern Wilson, S.M., in an address in Christchurch last week. Probation must be exercised with considerable thought and after careful inquiry, said Mr. Wilson, and must not be too frequent." If it was abused the probationer must be properly punished for the crime originally committed. A • new power given to magistrates was an important one. They had been given power to suppress offenders' names. Tho publication of a convicted person's name had a most healthy effect on public morality. The speaker seldom exercised tho power to sttppross names. He exercised it in cases where tho offenders wero young, practically only children, certainly on the young side of twenty years, and whero they were old and had lived' honourable lives. Mr. Wilson said that he did not suppress a name whero tho offender was sufficiently old. to know the nature of wrong-doing and to realiso tho dishonour brought on family and friends. Probation should not be granted out of consideration to the offender's family, but only where it was hard on the individual that tho name should bo published, because it would retard him in life, if young, or would dishonour his closing years, if old.