The Waikato Times. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26, 1933. RETRIBUTION OR REFORMATION.

Waikato Times, Volume 113, Issue 18929, 26 April 1933, Page 6

The Waikato Times. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26, 1933. RETRIBUTION OR REFORMATION.

— The public attitude towards crime is a strong index of the moral standards of a people. Opinions differ widely as to the treatment of criminals, but if there is not a well-defined sense o right or wrong inherent in the social structure, then" the class of , law-breakers and law-defiers will steadily multiply. The value and the virtue of a law, is not in the frequency with which infringements have to be enforced, hut the respect in which it is held.

The American prohibition law provides an illustrative example —not that one fishes to pick holes in the legal system of another country, but because this law is one which, directly or indirectly, touches every member of the community, and its observance or nonobservance is similarly confined to no particular class. One s thoughts are turned to that nation also by a vehement attack made on American indifference to the growth of crime, by a New Hampshire barrister. Mr Gwvnne Dalrymple. “ Coddling guilt, excusing criminality and fostering unwarranted leniency for gangsters and racketeers,” is the indictment he makes against the American people.

Although sternness of outlook may be expected from a descendant of the Pilgrim Fathers, as Mr Dalrymple’s domicile would inter, it is also very probable that his indictment has been carefully considered and is a pretty fair one. Through the medium of the cable news, we in New-Zealand have witnessed at least one incomprehensible incident —that in which A 1 Capone, America’s “greatest gangster, the self-confessed murderer of many victims, after being sensationally arrested, is now “ doing time ” in a comfortable penitentiary for income tax evasion!

Mr Dalrymple deplores muddled thinking and “mushy” sentiment, which to him are evidences of a weakened moral fibre. . He sees no permanent solution of the crime problem until there is a keener desire to distinguish right from wrong and to act on disclosed facts. He gives four reasons for the prevalence of crime: An outmoded criminal code in which the rules originally devised to further justice are now employed to defeat it; lack of an upright personnel for law administration; the belief that the State has no right to punish the law-breaker except in order to reform him; and, finally, the loss by the public of a sense of right and wrong.

In the working of the American prohibition machinery the world has seen the growth of many excrescences,. of which the worst is tersely defined as “graft.” The new President has declared Avar upon the insidious public cancfer and has already made his hand felt. Naturally there is the keenest interest in his progress, and nations which-, have a guilty conscience with regard to their oivn legal systems will be anxious to find an object lesson in the history of Avhatever reforms he may succeed in accomplishing.

Many will differ with Mr Dalrymple, however, in his assertion that “the State has a duty to punish and a privilege to reform,” if by that he means punishment is paramount Avhile reform is optional. It is undeniable.that society must receive protection, but it should he borne in mind that vengeance has no rightful place in the law of human thought.