PROBATIONARY SENTENCES

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 10717, 22 October 1912, Page 6

PROBATIONARY SENTENCES

[ In passing sentence in Dublin on three men, fonnorly inmates of Glencree Reformatory, who were found guilty of theft from a waggon, Mr .Justice Madden said this ease was an illustration of what he had ound in his experience as a judge, now extending over 20 years. Ho had the calendar examined, and of the innumI erable eases that 'li-ntl come .before him !in which prisoners had been found guilty and in proper eases let out un'der the First Offenders' Act, in only two eases had they come up again. 1 But over and over again prisoners who had been convicted of petty larceny and sent to a reformatory had come before him with terrible iteration. When Ije became a judge he acted on the advice of one of the greatest criminal lawyers they had ever had in the country, and he had never sent a prisoner to a reformatory. Ho had over and over again given prisoners the benefit of the First Offenders' Act in proper cases, and when it was not necessary to inflict a «.pntenp.o for the protection of the public, and he found that it was a most satultary i lire.".--ding.