In the carly part of last month a young father was sentenced to imprisonment for studly to his child of only a few months old. The baby had annoyed him by erying continuously, and he had severely beaten it about the face. His wife stated that this was not the first time that he had mistreated the child, and that she had determined the father should never see it again. Incidentally she mentioned that, when. he married her, she did not know that he had been whipped with the eat-o'-nine-tails, and it was only when she saw the scars on his back that she obtained the facts from him. He had been thrashed for robbery with violence. The case does nothing to stile the old controversy as to whether whipping criminals borutalizes them, for those who hold the contrary view will point out that the man must have been a brute to commit the crime for which he received the: punishment, though there may be something to be said for the argument that, perhaps in his case, the treat~ ment accorded him increased his depravity to such an extent as to make it possible to imi-treat his small child. The incident is quoted in connection with the second reading of the Criminal Justice Bill which has. been pr posed by Sir Samuel Hoare, Home Secretar in the House of Commons, for in this pro posed enactment new methods have. been devised to deal with criminals, especially the younger ones. 'The text of the Bill is not yet hand, but Sir Samuel's speech as reported by Reuter gives sufficient indication of the new, and very liberal' lines upon which sought to deal with the young offender. It is proposed to establish compulsory attendance centres to which the young can be sent for a limited number of hours—the maximum being sixty over a period of six months—and at which they would be ordered to attend for a given number of hours a day, the number never to exceed three. The' idea being that those so sentenced would be ordered {o attend the centres on Saturday afternoons or evenings, that they be deprived of leisure, and of such fun as attending football matches or the cinema, and to make them look rather ridiculous' among their friends.
Obviously it is a measure designed to bring! into play the curative values of punishment, and to avoid making young offenders into hardened criminals, and it would indeed be rash to suggest that there is not good reason for the introduction of such a measure.
Whether in operation it will prove as successful as its sponsors hope remains to be seen. but the experiment is worth trying, and it will be watched with interest. On the face of it the scheme follows the minor school punishment of being "kept in' after hours and so long as the guilty one is reasonably fe lose to school age it may have something of a deterrent effect, though that is entirely dependent upon the recaleitrancy of the subject. An offender sentenced to the maximum would in fact be "Kept in" two-and-a-half hours a week for six months and if taken on a Saturday afternoon might certainly deprive him of his football matches. He would not necessarily miss his cinemas for they would be available on every night of the week in cluding Saturday, though that might be cured by an order banning him from such amuse ment. Whether this would earn for him the ridicule of his fellows is doubtful, for those who are able' to throw their memory back will remember that the perversity of the immature mind clothes the young malefactor with a kind of glory, which, however spurious may appear to elders, is for the time being reality to youth. There is a wrong-headed loyalty amongst the young to their fellows, and the danger is that even if a friend is made to look ridiculous he will receive more in the nature of misplaced sympathy than anything. else. He may feel somewhat ludicrous for a while but the admiration of his fellows may' very well act in his mind as an offset. That where the danger of the experiment lies. Older people are so apt to forget what it was to be young, and all the clever devices of maturity may fail against those qualities lack of them which are occasionally over~
That the rigid application of the tex talions may have the effect of brutalizing criminals who ought to be given a chance reform is generally recognized today, but is stil dimeult to sce what can possibly fake its place as a punishment for certain jenines. It can only be a matter of specula~ tion as to whether the young father would Ihave been a better man had he not been [whipped for his original offence, and consequently only a guess as to whether the child would have escaped the brutality to which it was subjected had its father's carlier history been different. In all probability if {it had been possible to apply milder punish~ ments to earlier delinquencies the corrective might have had a beneficial effect, but much more information will be needed on the subject before a decision can be properly. reached concerning the effectiveness corporal punishment in certain cases. which in English law are by now very well defined. The proposed experiment will be watched by criminologists with the closest attention. It is apparent that despite the huge strides which have been made in the {treatment of the criminal there is still much room for improvement, and if criminals can be transformed into law-abiding members of the community by such means as those suggested in this Bill, then the sooner the application of the basic principle is extended the better it may prove to be all round. Unfortunately in the matter of reform in the treatment of delinquents progress has to be made slowly. A great deal depends upon the people who are to be in charge of the administration of such punishments, They will be required to have a great amount of insight into human nature, and more particularly that sort of humanity Which is: most prone to crime, It may very well prove that such a system as that proposed may have in it the seeds of a re~ markably fine development, but the danger in continually mitigating the punishment be meted out to the young criminal is that a point may be reached where the sanctions of the law are unable to command for it the respect which it should have, That is no reason why the Government's scheme should not be tried out, for the more the admini ration of justice is made reformative instead of punitive the better it will be for all con= cerned.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.