Institutes Move on Capital Punishment

Chronicle (Levin), 10 February 1949, Page 3

Institutes Move on Capital Punishment

The conneillors of the New ^ealand Women 's' Institutes approved nnanimously oi' the remit put forward by the Poverty Bay Federation which suggpst ed that institutes ask all other women 's organisations to support their poiicy for the re-introduetio"n of capital punishment. Lengthy diseussion on the matter took plaee yesterday at Massey Uollege when the executive, councillors and volnntary organisers met for the seeond day of the conncil meeting. . The remit was brought forward to arouse othef women' s organisations to the'danger to the commnnity of so many murderers at large. A resoiution that capital punishment be _ reintroduced was passed at a previous Dominion conference of institutes. That "the courts of law be asked not to send undesirable young men into the country unless under adequate supervision," formed another subject which councillors discussed at . the meetipg yetserday. Many were of the opihion that though life in the country very often was beneficial to youths who wero ordered to leave the towns, th'eir advent in the country was harmful to the young people living there and an anxiety to those employing them, unless the authorities put them under adequate supervisiou. The remit was put forward by Tapapa Institute, Bay of Plenty. An important diseussion on the question of ' ' life imprisonment' ' was heid. A remit from Tapapa (Bav of Plenty) provolced the diseussion anu was passed as follows: "That life imprisonment be for- the whole of a person 's natural life and no sentence of life imprisonment be reduced except in exceptional circumstances. "