HARDENED CRIMINALS.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3868, 28 July 1873, Page 3

HARDENED CRIMINALS.

♦ i TO THE EDITOR OF THE INDEPENDENT. Sir, — Judge Richmond's recent charge to the Picton Grand Jury has led to a very useful discussion on certain social questions, which are too much ignored 1 in this country. Referring to one of these — that of criminal management — you indicate in the Independent of the 15th that probably Judge Richmond's idea of the perpetual retention of offenders who appear to inherit a congenital and incorrigible defiance of law and order, was suggested by Mr Greg's interesting book on the "Enigmas of Life." It may be bo, but the opinion is just as likely to have occurred to the judge himself, thinking deeply on the subject, as it may well be believed he has often done. At all events, the idea is no new one. Writing on the general question how to deal with criminals as it chanced in the Edinburgh "Inde- : pendent" for June, 1854 (the thing seems scarcely worth adverting to, and yet there is an honest pleasure in finding one's long-neglected opinions espoused by gentlemen of culture and professional eminence). I used the folio wing sentences : " Having made arrangements for infusing a due proportion of the primitive element into our prisons, we would therefore have it, that judges and magistrates, instead -of passing penal sentences on offenders, meted o\tt, in duration of time, so far as they can discern, to the guilt of the crime, should be empowered to give judgment after a first conviction upon a | different principle, involving (first) I punishment in the shape of hard labor, scanty rations, and mayhap stripes, during a fixed and limited period ; and (secondly) that after this legal punishment had been undergone, the criminal should still be detained in custody, aye, and until his conduct had given evidence of such a change of mmd — a moral improvement — as might give some reasonable hope that he would, Upon his liberation, become a useful and well-behaved member of society : thus making the guilty party, to a great extent, the arbiter of his own fate. Starting from such a point as this, awarding punishment at the outset according to the guilt of the offence, so far as human discernment can do it, not so much by duration of time as by various degrees of physical punishment, and this followed by indefinite surveillance, you have assuredly put matters in a position very different from that which they presently assume. The criminal would then feel that the law had not done with him when the punishment was ended — it was not a few weeks or a few months, and then an end of it — he had forfeited his liberty indefinitely, and upon his good conduct alone depended its ulti mate restoration." The paper goes on to expand this idea, and to answer such objections as are likely to be raised against it. Enough has been given for my present purpose. It seems an absolute necessity that we should get out of the old groove — that, in dealing with a large question of this character the red-tapeism which shackles and paralyses our modern effort should be , cast away. As it is, the same system is again and again in continuous development, without the least appreciable progress being made. And this plain fact leads me to make a further remark. I observed that you have been rather inclined to censure our judges for travelling out of or beyond the record, when they refer on the bench to great public questions. I venture to differ from you on this point, and to think that any opinions with which they may choose to favor us should receive . careful consideration. Our judges are the only learned class that possess a modicum of leisure amongst us, and who really have the time to think out any abstruse or many-sided question thoroughly. Our leading politicians cannot do so ; statesmen nowhere can. They are oppressed by routine business. Every day has its hard work to do, and it 1b well if it can be done. In a neglected but very suggestive book on statesmanship, written by Sir Henry Taylor, who was long senior clerk in the Colonial Office, Downing street, I find that he adverts to this abaorption in every-day and daily-recurring ' business, as the base of all British legislation. He states, from his own knowledge — and I should think that anyone who has ever held a ministerial portfolio, even in New Zealand, will be prepared to corroborate his views — that men in high office are overworked. The minister gets through the current compulsory business aa he may ; some is undone, and some is ill done ; but at best to get it done is an object which he proposes to himself. As to the inventive and suggestive portions of a statesman's functions, he would think himself a Utopian dreamer if he undertook or tried to undertake them. I cannot doubt that this is a faithful representation of the exact state of matters. Hence the necessity for a learned and meditative class of thinkers, whose views and opinions should be gathered up by the Press and the people — discussed, digested, purged of what is merely doctrinaire, and \iltimately fitted into practical shape — so as to keep exalted purposes and wise ends prominently before the public. — I am, &c, W.H. Wanganui, July 22.