The Gravity of the Offence
| Date | 01 April 1947 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002201834701100207 |
| Published date | 01 April 1947 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
The
Gravity of the Offence.
T
HE
limelight of Press publicity falls from time
to
time
on some
particular
aspect of
the
work of
the
criminal
courts, pauses for a
moment
and
then
passes on. To those
who
are
on
the
stage
it
seems
at
times
that
the
beam
is
swung
at
random,
and
that
minor situations
and
characters
are
illumined while stronger
drama
is enacted unnoticed.
Be
that
as
it
may,
there
is no
doubt
that
the
opportunity
so given for occasional detailed
scrutiny
of things which
may
have
been
taken
too
much for
granted
is on
the
whole
to
be welcomed.
The
interest
recently shown
by
the
London
and
national Press in
the
sentences imposed
by
a
particular
magistrate
has
started,
both
outside
and
within
the
courts,
keener discussions on
the
theory
of
punishment
than
the
most
painstaking book or
the
best
informed article could
have
produced. Principles
that
were half forgotten or
half
grasped
have
been underlined, questioned
and
re-
affirmed or discarded,
and
both
the
courts themselves
and
the
public whom
they
serve are all
the
better
for it.
At
the
root of
the
matter
is
the
well-worn controversy
about
the
objects of
punishment-whether
retribution,
deterrence, reform or
prevention
should be
attempted
or
some combination of two or more of them.
In
practice,
this
is
the
same as
the
question whether
the
punishment
should
fit
the
crime or
the
criminal.
Beneath
it
lies
the
still older conflict between
the
determinist
and
the
believer
in
free will,
and
perhaps, in
the
last
analysis,
the
conflict
between
the
atheist
and
the
believer in God. Clearly a
question so deeply rooted
cannot
be answered finally
by
a
vote
taken
at
the
end
of a debate.
But
while
the
courts
are
bound
specifically only
by
the
letter
of
the
legislation
which
they
administer
it
is presumably
their
duty
also
to
have
regard
to
its
spirit, in so
far
as
it
reflects
the
opinion
of
the
people on
the
way
in
which justice should be admin-
istered :
and
it
may
therefore be of assistance
to
consider
whether
our
penal
statutes
have
from time
to
time indicated
any
clear preference for one side or
another
in
the
con-
o20g
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