THE PENALTY FOR MURDER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26915, 29 October 1948, Page 4

THE PENALTY FOR MURDER

It could be broadly stated that the penalty for murder in New Zealand is a sentence of twelve and a-half years’ imprisonment. This, at least, is the average time served by life sentence prisoners, according to the statement of the Minister of Justice. It is this fact—in association with the general impression that crimes of violence are increasing in this country—which has led many people to raise the question whether the death penalty should be restored or whether, alternatively, the law should be amended to provide that a life sentence means imprisonment for the term of the natural life of the murderer. The average life sentence must seem to be a very light penalty for the gravest crime on the calendar, but the average term in England is said to be just over fourteen years and in Scotland just over thirteen years. The difference is hardly significant. It would perhaps be interesting to know how many in New Zealand have served less than the average term, and to what extent the figures were affected by the remainder and what circumstances were responsible for the longer detention. The Minister states that the likelihood of each prisoner offending again is carefully considered when sentences are reviewed, but the idea of any panel attempting to assess a man’s predisposition to commit murder does not inspire confidence in the system. During the recent controversy in England on the amendment of the penalty for murder, The Times commented: “Hanging is repulsive, so is murder. No humane man to-day, it may be assumed, would contemplate hanging a murderer if he were convinced that the lives of innocent men and women could be equally well protected by another system of punishment. But that is the question. Is death the only deterrent? Is it even the best? ” That is an excellent statement so far as it goes, but the question propounded was not given a satisfactory answer during the long debates in Parliament. Much of the abhorrence which the reformers feel for the death penalty is really directed against the system of execution and it is probable that more support would be forthcoming for a return to capital punishment if,a more scientific method were to be introduced. On the other hand, some people regard imprisonment “ for the term of his natural life ” to be a more barbarous sentence than hanging. Under humane penal conditions this contention has lost much of its force. But between hanging a murderer and shutting him up for twelve years there is a very great difference —much too great to be defensible. There must be many formulae between those extremes from which a code could be worked out which would provide the maximum deterrent with the least offence to human sensibilities and which would permit of a careful discrimination to be made by the authorities in individual cases. The subject is one which is much too serious to be discussed with prejudice or brooded over with sentimentality.