CORRECTING A CRIME WAVE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 46, Issue 14100, 19 April 1920, Page 6

CORRECTING A CRIME WAVE.

GRIM AMERICAN EXPERIMENT. A gruesome experiment in what Sheriff Peters described as “corrective psychology” is recounted by the New York correspondent of the “Weekly Despatch.” It was carried out at Chicago County Gaol, when 200 prisoners, convicted at the height of an extraordinary crime gave which swept the city, were compelled to witness the execution of one of their number 1 for muVder. The stage setting of the execution was purposely made as terrible as possible. Placed in tiers of cells facing the quadrangle where the gallows had been erected, the 200 saw the murderer led to the stage, the noose placed round his neck, and the trap sprung. The-assembly of criminals resented the spectacle violently, and as the body disappeared from” sight they with one accord chanted a defiant chorus. After the execution Sheriff Peters issued a public reply to the Governor of the State and other critics of his method of “corrective psychology.” “One of the gravest causes of the present Qrinic wave,” he said, “is the modern coddling of criminals by wellmeaning, theoretical, self-constituted reformers. “Their interference with the vigorous enforcement of the law has destroyed the fear of the punishment of criminals to such an extent that incarceration in our penal institutions no longer acts as deterrent to the further commission of crime. “Large numbers of criminals openly confess they prefer lite in the county gaol, where they are better fed and their surroundings arc more sanitary than in their ordinary environments.” The sheriff expressed the conviction that the grim spectacle would have a potent effect in deterring the caged spectators from continuing their careers of violence after their release. ■