LATE CORRESPONDENCE.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 578, 7 October 1932, Page 12

LATE CORRESPONDENCE.

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT. To the Editor. Dear Sir,—The article by E.H.S. on the treatment of criminals is a tragic example of the popular, unscientific attitude towards citizens whose conduct is anti-social. E.H.S. is concentrating on punishing the crime when he should be thinking about how to cure the inner state of which crime is the outer expression. If punishment were a cure of crime there would be no crime to-day, seeing that the punishment system has been in operation for thousands of years. Punishment has proved its own failure. If a tree bore no fruit or bad fruit, would E.H.S. take a rod and beat the branches? If his attitude were infantile he would. If his attitude were scientific, he would obtain a soil analysis and give correct treatment. If a man exhibited anti-social attitudes, would E.H.S. take a rod and beat him, or put him in gaol? Yes, because his attitude is as infantile as the criminal’s. If his attitude were scientific, he would put psychology to work to discover the cause of criminality and then apply educative treatment. All positive action is an expression of the desire for power. The criminal has not ben given the right environment to exhibit his power in a social way. Preventive treatment for most of the trouble lies in the handling of children in the schools. Under the present system of education, the child with power over words (literary ability) is allowed unlimited expression. He demonstrates power and gains consequent satisfaction of his desire for praise and attention. What opportunity is given the child whose ability is of a non-literary, non-mental kind? He ia allowed no avenue to express power and gain favourable attention. Cases of criminality (excepting embezzlement, commercial fraud and, occasionally, crimes of passion) occur among persons who were “ failures ” in the schools. Why? Because being given no legitimate way to express power and gain attention, the boy or the man turns to illegitimate ways, i.e., crime. To be perfectly logical, when a person commits his first crime, the authorities should say not “ How shall we punish him? ” but “ Who has so mistreated him as to set up the attitune which has led to this crime? Regarding juvenile crime, E.H.S. says: “ The most powerful deterrent is a whipping.” What is the use of talking like that when .the cold fact is that all juvenile delinquency is either performed on the spur of the moment or from such intense subconscious urges that the idea of punishment never enters the child mind and consequently has no deterrent effect?—l am, etc., A LOVER OF HUMANITY. PREVENTION OF CRIME. To the Editor. Dear Sir, —Yesterday’s special article on our penal methods still proves the wrongness of our ideas, especially’ towards the prevention of juvenile crime. To check a child by fear is about the most primitive of methods, and the student who goes the slightest distance into the study of human behaviour knows that fear is the weapon of the already defeated. Dealing with the child, we are using almost no preventive methods. We have a few trained psychologists and a very few intelligent social workers who advocate prevention by study* and understanding. There is a great lack in our education system here. When a child begins to lie and steal and almost (in my experience) 100 per cent of them do at some stage in their growth, there are no remedial or advisory channels available for perplexed and worried parents. Each child who is a problem to his teacher or his parent ought to have the benefit of specialised study*. The factors are often the most superficial. Lying and stealing belong to the early stages of our race development and the child must be helped past the place where his growth has been arrested. The cause of the arrest must be found and removed. Another point: The average delinquent rarelv realises the actuality* of the law until he has broken it. If anyone is to be whipped should it not be the society or the persons directly associated with producing this delinquency*? You cannot drive his motive underground by* fear and not reap a whole anti-social harvest later. What New Zealand needs most is far more research into its little ones of " arrested growth,” for that is where the trouble lies, and more money’ spent on constructive instead of punitive methods. It is too late when they reach the Court. There ought to be a bureau of advice and interest to which parents could turn when they see the trouble developing. For students of this all-important subject may* I recommend Florence Mateer’s “The Unstable Child,” A. S. Neill’s “ The Problem Child ” and “ The Problem Parent,” and then as a further enlightener Dr Cyril Burt's “ Juvenile Delinquent ” and Healy’s “ Individual Delinquent.” They all prove the futility of tackling the problem at the wrong end.—l am, etc.. UNDERSTAND AND PREVENT.