Punishment.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19015, 10 March 1930, Page 8

Punishment .

To the Editor. Dear Sir, —Instead of copying America’s system of justice, which they themselves admit is a disgrace to civilisation, we should adopt her manufacturing methods and save our secondary industries from extinction. America, with ■wages twice as high as Britain and four times that of Germany, can more than hold her own in the world’s markets. In America only about half the murderers are arrested, and about four or five per cent of those found guilty are executed. The result is 12,000 murders annually’, an increase of 350 per cent since 1900. This is what leniency has done for America. In England for the last fifty years there are about four murders to every million, thanks to the activity of the gallows. And yet some think, because it doesn’t entirely stop murder, that capital punishment should be done away with. American criminals and murderers know how to behave themselves as well as anybody else when they emigrate into Canada, which shows that they can control themselves and are therefore responsible for their actions. By bringing refining influences to bear and pampering prisoners and letting them out on parole and probation, America tried to reduce her prison population; Instead of decreasing the number, their methods increased it by five per cent in the last decade. So much for America’s efforts to reclaim criminals by leniency. The question is, can we do any better? Judging by the last ten years of penal reform we can’t. The Probation Act, although it was passed before the war, was not applied to any extent until after the war. In 1919 the magistrates and judges began giving criminals the benefits of the Probation Act, and it was applied especially to young men in the hope of saving them from a criminal career. As a matter of fact it had the reverse effect, and doubled the number of Supreme Court convictions ■within a few years, and these new recruits w’ere mostly' y'oung men. The fear of goal has deterred thousands from criminal careers in the past, but w’hen the Probation Act lessened the risk, a career of this sort became more attractive, hence the increase in crime. The Probation Act manufactured thousands of criminals, and the suppression of names, wages to prisoners, the Prisons Board with power to remit sentences, and other prison reforms passed in the interests of criminals at the expense of the general public, all helped to make property unsafe. Previous to the penal reforms property was fairly safe, but it is no longer so. This is the only fair comparison that can be made of the merits of the two systems, and proves that all our penal reforms are a failure. I would wipe out every Act that gives a loophole of escape from gaol to any criminal. In the interests of justice everyone should be treated alike for law-break-ing, with no exceptions. The certainty of gaol W’ith real hard work, instead of Government stroke, is the deterrent that will make property safe. As for Miss Baughan’s statement about the success of penal reform in England: About four years ago I read about a service conducted by the late General Booth in an English prison, and he said: “ I was surprised at the number of young, intelligent looking men present, and I think the penalty' should be made sufficient to keep them from returning.” Australia must be in the same predicament as New Zealand, judging by a cable in which the Chief Justice of New South Wales says; “Leniency is misinterpreted, so in future the penalty will be made to fit the crime.” Our own ex-Chief Justice, Sir Robert Stout, made at his farewell the following statement: “ The basis of civilisation and the only way to save society from disruption and. decay*, is to see that justice is done. If justice is not done I have always felt that civilisation would fall. We imist first do justice before we have mercy. Other civilisations have passed away because justice was not done.”—l am, etc., R. W. PEARSE. 267 Gloucester Street.