The Principles of Punishment: As Applied in the Administration of the Criminal Law, by Judges and Magistrates

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Law Times Office, 1877 - 238 pages
 

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Page 143 - Bentham thought the worst possible use that could be made of a man was to hang him ; a worse still is to make a common sailor of him.
Page 164 - ... in my view of it, infinitely to be preferred to the short imprisonment so decidedly condemned by the prison authorities. It gives to the criminal who has made only a first step in crime, a chance of redemption under the most favorable circumstances. He goes from the court without the stamp of penal discipline upon him — with a public recognition that he is not utterly lost — that the Judge had hope of a good future for him — that he was not yet registered as a convict — that he had been...
Page 230 - After a moment's reflection I said, " You have behaved well — and so well that I shall not inflict upon /ou the sentence I had intended. In the hope that you will repent the [past and be honest for the future, I will give you a chance to retrieve the character you have lost. You shall go on your own recognizances to come up for judgment when called on.
Page 141 - ... much as that tenderness for scoundrelism of all kinds that has become one of the pervading follies of our time. Modern philanthropy has so busied itself in ameliorating the condition of criminals that the condition of the thief has come to be almost more tolerable than that of the honest working-man. We have abolished the severer punishments, done away with transportation, and provided comfortable houses of detention, where convicted criminals are better housed, clothed, and fed than the average...
Page 101 - In the vast majority of these cases the suffering angel of the sensation "leader" is found to be rather an angel of the fallen class, who has made her husband's home an earthly hell, who spends his earnings in drink, pawns his furniture, starves her children, provides for him no meals, lashes him with her tongue when sober and with her fists when drunk...
Page 142 - upon which licenses are regulated at present is this : he who can do most work, and who conforms most entirely to the prison rules, is he who receives most mitigation of sentence. And who is he ? The old criminal, who has served an apprenticeship to the work and discipline of prison. .... My own conviction is, that as a rule (and the exceptions are very rare) mercy is never more undeservedly shown than to a prisoner who has been previously convicted.
Page 45 - Are there any persons in the Court who know him — who can give any account of him ? Can he give any account of himself ? Who is he ? What is he ? Has he been at work lately, and with whom ? Has he parents, friends, employers ? Where are they to be found ? Not content with his own answers, inquiry should be made out of doors.
Page 139 - And when a skilled thief gets out of gaol, without means, the receiver will readily advance him 50/. at a time, until he sees his way to an extensive shoplifting, from which he not only gets his advance returned but a great deal more in the value of the stolen goods. The number of detected receivers of stolen goods committed for trial in the metropolitan district for the five years ending December, 1868, was 642 ; being an increase of 38 on the preceding period. The vigilance of the police has probably...
Page 226 - The problem of the criterion" seems to me to be one of the most important and one of the most difficult of all the problems of philosophy. I...
Page 141 - Sessions officers for their duties, by these tricks escape perhaps not recognition, but legal identification.' who who keep society in constant alarm, and nervous women and children in a state of nightly terror. These accomplished scoundrels, who have taken every degree in thieving, and advanced from area-sneaking to shoplifting, until they have graduated as first-class cracksmen, are at perpetual war with the honest part of society. They have been repeatedly apprehended by the police, and as repeatedly...

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