Odger's English Common Law

PUNISHMENT. 139
prisoner or by any one else. Thus the State has a twofold
purpose when it punishes a criminal :
(i.) To prevent that particular criminal from repeating the
offence.
(ii.) To deter others from following his pernicious example.
The best way of preventing the particular criminal from
continuing his career of crime is to reform him. Punishment
therefore should be reformatory as well as deterrent.
Some lawgivers have ignored all attempts to reform the
offender, and have imposed the severest penalties on all con-
victed criminals, in order to make the punishment as deterrent
as possible to others. But this is a mistake. When the law
is too severe, it excites popular sympathy in favour of the
criminal. Persons injured will not prosecute; witnesses will
not give evidence ; juries will not convict ; and technical
flaws in the proceedings are welcomed even by the judges as
—
affording the accused a chance of escape. 1
In the case of civilians, 2 there are now only four crimes in
England punishable with death :
Treason.
Murder.
Piracy with violence.
—
Setting fire to the King's ships, dockyards, arsenals or
stores.
In all other cases the punishment may consist of
Penal servitude (which cannot be for less than three years)
Imprisonment, with or without hard labour (which cannot
as a rule be for more than two years) ; or
Pine.
Penal servitude and hard labour can only be imposed where
authorised by some statute.
A prisoner who has been previously convicted may
sometimes also be placed under police supervision after
the expiration of his sentence. 3
—
If convicted of an
1 See " A Century of Law Reform," pp. 5, 6, 43—50.
2 As to soldiers and sailors guilty of mutiny or desertion, see post, p. 156
8 As to preventive detention, see the Prevention of Crime Act, 1908 (8 Bdw. VII.
c. 69), s. 10.
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