Crime And Punishment

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 282, 27 August 1942, Page 6

Crime And Punishment

Sir, —May I support the views of your correspondent “Justice” appearing under the heading of “Crime and Punishment” in this morning’s inssue of “The Dominion.” The abolishment of capital punishment has brought to many thousands of women a feeling of increased insecurity in these already insecure times. The type of outrage and murder just perpetrated at Wairoa is that most dreaded and abhorred by womenkind as a whole, and, incidentally, is one from which our humanitarian politicians are immune. These same politicians may not be aware that in a certain form of sexual mania, murder is the inevitable accompaniment of outrage, the psychological explanation being that uncontrolled passion of this kind demands violence of the most extreme nature for its satisfaction. For the great majority of people the law of capital punishment has no application. They would never, in any circumstances, need to be brought under its jurisdiction. There are, however; even in so-ealled civilized communities, exceptions to this rule, and it is for these that the law should be available. The decision at: to whether.it should be put into operation could still be left to the ordinary legal process of trial by judge and jury.

Another point: How can our humanitarian legislators, who have wiped this law off the Statute Book, consent to send our young men overseas to kill as many as possible of their fellow-creatures, and equip them with the deadliest weapons of war for the purpose; and further to urge every man and woman in the community, in the cause of life, liberty, freedom and justice, to do everything in their power to contribute to this slaughter? Our young men do not want to take life, nor have those, whose lives they take, done them any personal harm. Yet for the sake of the ultimate safety and security of the world this slaughter must go on. Then turn to the case of the individual murderer. There the crime is deliberate and planned: the victim is guiltless and also defenceless, without the slightest warning of impending calamity ; the result—outrage and death. Yet the perpetrator w" the crime is protected by the law front’the only penalty which would satisfy the claims of justice- and render further atrocities impossible. Will one of the sponsors of' the Bill for the abolition of capital punishment reconcile these apparently conflicting applications of principle?—l am, etc., PERPLEXED. •Wellington. August 25.