SEXUAL MONOMANIACS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 46, Issue 14130, 31 May 1920, Page 4

SEXUAL MONOMANIACS.

The number of crimes against women and children in this country is steadily increasing. The country appears to have a very substantial number of sex monomaniacs, judging by the recent crimes reported. The question arises how to effectively stop the criminal assaults on .women and children. Many juries in New Zealand have recommended the use of the lash as a deterrent. But the records of crime show that the lash by itself is not as effective as some people would belies e. Several prominent Judges at Home, who have had very long experience in dealing with sex monomaniacs, e expressed the opinion that a mox*e effective method of dealing with these parasites of society is to give them long periods of solitary coniinement with a diet of bread and water. One judge has emphatically stated that in his experience he has found that the lash has not stopped crime, but that solitary confinement has. For instance, if a criminal is sentenced to, sav, two dozen lashes, once that flogging is over there is no dread of similar punishment during the period he is in prison. But, on the other hand, if the criminal knows that in a sentence of, say, fifteen years, he has every year to undergo long periods of solitary confinement, then, as the judge in question points out, he has constantly before him a time of terror. The experience of able judges of the criminal courts in England, America and the Continent go ot show that the punishment most dreaded by the criminal is that of solitary confinement. Give the sexual monomaniacs the lash by all means, but let it be in conjunction with periods of solitary confinement. The two combined would probably prove such a terrible ordeal to the prisoner that he would not risk a second application once he was out of prison.