THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, AUGUST 11, 1910 DEALING WITH CRIMINALS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10064, 11 August 1910, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, AUGUST 11, 1910 DEALING WITH CRIMINALS.

Possibly no means introduced by a Minister of the Crown in the selfgoverning possessions of the British Empire during recent years has boon so pregnant of possibilities as that brought down by the Hon. Dr Findlay in the Legislative Council of New Zealand, having for its objective the reform of criminals. The trend of modern thought is undoubtedly in the direction of treating the criminal as one physically as well as morally diseased, rather than one who must be subjected to brutal treatment for the expiation of an oil'ence for which he is only in a measure responsible. Criminologists are agreed that, while it is necessary thiit society should be rid of those whose presence in its midst is a menace, the incarceration of me>n and women in lonely dungeons, with ill-fare, and brutal surroundings to be liberated upon society after a term of such treatment, is j calculated to perpetuate rather than , to diminish crime. As the day of the stocks, and the whip, and the I gallows is almost a thing of the j past in British communities, so is ] the time fast approaching when the j depraving influences of gaol life will I be replaced with something more I rational, more humane. It has . come to be recognised, from | social as well as economic reasons,

that it is far better i- r < prevent crime than to punish it, and that it is morally as well as socially wrong to make the environments of prison life such that the man who has been guilty of a misdemeanour will develop into a hardened criminal rather than be restored to society reformed and anxious to rehabilitate himself. The First Offenders Act though not always administered with scrupulous care, lias done a great deal towards re-

storing young men who, under prior circumstances, v.-ould have been socially ostracised and morally ruined. The establishment of tree-planting camps, where the better-conducted prisoners are afforded healthy recreation and arc withdrawn from association with the more hardened criminal, was also a step in the right direction, whilst the more recent innovation of indeterminate sentences has had the wholesome effect of protecting society against a menace and the criminal against himself. The classification scheme now proposed by the Hon. Dr Finulay, who has given the subject close consideration, should go a long way towards making the criminal laws of this country a model to the whole civilised world. With the details of the scheme we are not so much concerned as with the principle un- : deriving it, which is worthy of nothing but commendation.. It is reasonable to oxpect that the responsibility of classifying prisoners, and in determining their treatment as such will be vested in a board which will be composed of men who are students of human nature as well as experienced in dealing with those who are criminals in the sight of the law. Would that it were possible to so arrange our social conditions and improve the physical and moral status of mankind that | the disease which we term crime would be extirpated! This, however, were impossible under laws which place so few restrictions upon marital relations. The only hope, therefore, of purifying society and of minimising crime, is to treat the prisoner, during the term of his incarceration, in a scientific as well as humane manner. There is something, also, which* society itself can do to assist in the work of re- | form which the Attorney-general has so bravely and humanely un- | dertaken. It can, at least, regard the discharged prisoner with feelings of sympathy, rather than with open disdain. Men and women are too prone to point the finger of scorn at the individual who has been proved guilty of a moral delinquency, forgetting always that, "to err is human, to forgive, Divine." | Who, more than the unhappy | wretch who has served a sentence I of imprisonment to expiate a crime j committed, possibly, under the influence of a narcotic ,is deserving of the help, the sympathy, and the kindly advice of his fellows? What better remedy than charity could be applied to the morally afflicted, the class of being we are wont to describe as the social outcast?' By all means let us try the scientific remedies laid down by the Hon-. Dr Findlay.