One Hundred Years Ago Today - 18 February 1911 - Crime and Criminals

In February 1911 people were beginning to question whether sentencing criminals to years of hard labor was the best way to deal with them, as against using more modern techniques with the hope of being able to rehabilitate them into society.

The Sydney Morning Herald from Australia on the 18^th February 1911 included an article that was a follow-up to one printed the previous week about a man who had spent most of his life incarcerated in prison in New Zealand.

The article voices how many readers must have felt sympathy for the man, who was dealt a poor hand by society from the start, and the story holds many similarities with habitual criminals in today's world 100 years later.

Flung adrift upon the world from the beginning, with no knowledge of his mother, and destined to meet his father for the first time as a fellow convict in Pentridge Gaol, the State had charge of him from the age of two years.

At that age he was an infant life, biased, no doubt, towards failure, but set so early within range of whatever redemptive grace the State might have at bestowal as to have every chance of new and safe direction.

The article continues on how society and the system has failed this man, something which still happens all too often today, but also that in the early 1900's the system of using punishment as a means of deterring people from being criminals was being called into question.

On the one hand are reformers who push the theory of the humane treatment of prisoners beyond the verge of sentimentality.

On the other hand is the rigid school of the old past, which sees in crime a menace to civilization that must be beaten down by sheer strength of authority.

It seems to me that in many cases in our modern society, that prisoners, especially hardened criminals who repeatedly commit crimes and end up back inside prison, are treated far too liberally.

While the reforms that were being talked of 100 years ago have removed the cruelty and hardship of prison life, all too often now prisoners are treated to a lifestyle that is probably better than they would be likely to experience in the outside world, with gymnasiums, games rooms, video games and internet access.

In some ways, other than being locked up, many of these people feel more at home in prison than outside, and therefore upon their release, they see it necessary to commit further crimes in order to be placed back inside again.

It seems that although 100 years ago the question of how to prevent criminals from continuing in a life of crime was being discussed, even today we have not been able to fully resolve this problem.

How best to cultivate that germ of good that is often dormant, but is never dead. That is the problem of the State in respect of the criminal.

While some crimes and the criminals that commit them are I am sure possible to turn around and to rehabilitate into society, there are other more dangerous criminals who ought to pay more heavily for their crimes and for them a sentence of hard labor would not be an unreasonable one in the minds of many.

If you would like to read the full story, and it is well worth reading in my opinion, you can either click on the link for the Sydney Morning Herald , or you can read it using the images that are attached to this article, they are hopefully large enough to read clearly.

I hope you enjoyed this short journey back in time, and if so, you might enjoy the other articles in this series, that are listed below.

Sources:

Sydney Morning Herald

For More Stories From Yesteryear See:

One Hundred Hears Ago