JUDGE ON CRIME

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20083, 1 November 1939, Page 11

JUDGE ON CRIME

ILLUSION ATTACKED REMOVAL OF PROBLEM CHANGE IN SYSTEM EXAMPLE OF RUSSIA (Pur Prrss Associatioi. i INVERCARGILL, this day. “It !s desirable that all people in this country should take an intelligent interest in and form sound opinions on the administration of criminal law,” said His Honour Mr. Justice Ostler. "Many sincere people hold the belief that crime is a purely medical question and that if the treatment of criminals is handed over to psychiatrists they could be cured of the tendency to crime.

"Judging by recent public utterances. others considered that though crime is partly a medical question It is mostly economic and. when the present economic system had been changed, crime will disappear and the police can be disbanded. “It is not so simple as that. No doubt a. certain proportion of crime is due to mental defect in some cases but. not in many.

MeriicaL science might be able to do something to help such to become normal citizens.

“The great majority appear to be of normal intelligence. Many are above normal, but their moral sense is blunted. How could a change in the economic and political system cure them? For over 20 years Russia has enjoyed an extreme .form of socialistic Government, but. despite the fact that it has a most severecriminal code, it is unable to abolish crime. Indeed, recent history makes it plain that some of her most coldblooded, ruthless criminals have obtained supreme power in the State. What could be more criminal than their conduct in Poland. “There is an element of truth in the assertion that economic hardship tends to increase crime especially against property, yet it persists when there is no hardship. It is surely illusory to suggest that crime would disappear if the present economic system were swept away and the State becomes the sole owner of all property and the sole controller of the means of production and distribution. Until human nature is changed, society wilt always have the criminal as a social problem. He would crop up in all classes and would not come only from the children of the poor.”