THE INADEQUATE SENTENCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 December 1921, Page 2

THE INADEQUATE SENTENCE.

(To the Editor.) Sir,—Your remtfhks in to-day's sub-leader on the sentence imposed by the learned judge last week on the creature who committed his beastial crime on two little girls are most opportune, and should be welcomed by all parents and the community generally. There has been such a growing crop of dreadful sexual cases in our Dominion during the past few years that the time has arrived for action by every parent and decent citizen in the land. Surely it is time that our Judges conferred and advocated the laying down of specific sentences for specific, crimes. It seems to me that if something of the kind is not’soon done the law of the land will cease to be a protection to children and females generally, and will become a menace. It is well that our Judges in sentencing criminals of this type should act as humanely as possible, but the recent judgment is, in the opinion of many, a very Inadequate sentence for the crime, and is little or no deterrent to future crimes of a like character. ' Fathers and mothers have a right to the law giving their children protection, and if the law is to be carried out as in the case under review, then parents are helpless, and th dr children will remain at the mercy of these animals who are infesting our land in increasing numbers. I think that the lightness of sentences in many of the sexual cases before the New Zealand courts have not had the effect of lessening the evil. Surely, then, we can and must ask our Supreme Court judges to make the sentence much more harsh and so attempt to arrest a scourge in our land that is becoming intollerable. The time has come when we as a people must request our hi embers of Parliament to have the law amended, and so give the protection to our little girls, wives, and sisters, instead of allowing the existing terrible conditions to drift on indefinitely. We must have sentences in these cases which will act as a deterrent to future crimes. I trust that, as a community, we will insist on the matter being further ventilated without delay, otherwise we will hare dismally failed in our duties of citizenship. Our slogan, uttered with all the vigor and resou-ce we are capable of, must be ‘"Protect by law our girls and women from this ghastly menace.”—l am, etc., • PARENT. Nfcw Plymouth, December 14.