CORPORAL PUNISHMENT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22047, 1 March 1935, Page 13

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT

Sir, —The women of New Zealand are unlikely to rally to the call of " A Parent " (in the Herald of Tuesday morning) to prevent corporal punishment being banned from the penal code for sex offences, for many of them recognise that, dangerous as such offenders are at any time, they are ten times more so when freed into the community after flogging and a term of imprisonment. Until we can supply for such abnormal offenders suitable treatment and suitable segregation (permanent if they cannot respond to treatment) we should surely refrain from aggravating their' condition, as corporal punishment is bound to do. In the near future the flogging of sexual offenders will be looked back upon in much the same light as the burning of witches is viewed by our generation. M.M.

Sir, —The alleged deterrent effect of flogging has been disproved by experience. Thus the Prisons Act of 1898 (England) greatly diminished the number of offences punishable by flogging. It was argued at the time that the result of the Act would bo a great increase in the number of offences. The falsity of the contention is shown in the report of the Prison Commissioners for 1902, which reads: "The yearly average number of offences against prison discipline decreased from 147 to 131 per 1000 prisoners (over a period of four years). There was as well a notable rise in the number of the offences for which flogging was still inflicted, from which it may be inferred that corporal punishment is not the only or even a sure deterrent against serious offences." In England there have been no floggings for sexual offences for the past 20 years without apparently endangering the community. The experience of other more enlightened countries has shown that the deterrent effect of flogging is not sufficient to merit the retention of this barbarous torture. With regard to reformation we quote Sir Henry Dickens, K.C.: "A hard, unfeeling judgment is far more likely to remove any feeling he may have of contrition or any good resolution he might have formed to wipe out the past." Reformation based on fear is bound to fail, for fear is the greatest destroyer of personality, for what fear suppresses is almost certain to find another outlet possibly even more harmful to the individual. Love (or, less sentimentally, respect for personality) is the greatest creative force. Reformation based on reason is impossible until we employ trained psychologists in the Courts to understand and treat the criminal mind, as is done in more civilised and enlightened communities, Excelsior.