Litchfield enquirer., 1881-03-17
Are Men Reformed Through Fear 1?


 Would there be more. or less, crime if ther
 were DO laws with penalties attached, for th
 protection of the good, and punishment of tn
 bad; jails, penitentiaries or gibbets? Ar
 men never restrained by fear, and are corDora
 pupishments of no benefit in thls life as re
 straining and reforming agency ?-"S." "in Gs
 Enquirer.
 There are in reality two questions in volved in the above
 1 1. Does the fear of punishment restrai1 men from crime?
 ?. Does the fear of punishment, espec ially of ofcorporal punishment, reform those who are already criminals?
 To the first of these questions an afr native must be conceded Undoubted1, men are restrained from crime by fear O. punishment, though it is our firm belle that the restraining effect of the fear ot punishment is vastly oyerrated. The pro- portion of persons who are chiefly deterred from crime by fear of punishment grows fewer and fewer as civilization progresses. Not many reputable people of decent ] nurture and fair education would commit murders even if they were certain to es- cape punishment. Most murders by such men are done in heat of passion, or under a false sense of duty such as promotes dueling and street-shootings at the South. To most the necessity of anything like ''blood-revenge" would be as abhorrent as it was to Hamlet, the key to whose ''in- decision" so much censured by critics, lies in the repugnance of humane, thoughtful man to the bloody work, which a savage age required of him. Othelo, on the other hand, trained in the harsh school of war with barbarians, felt none of the scruples which ruined Hamlet.
 To the lesser crimes the civilized man naturally has less repugnance. So, too, there is less incentive. It is easier to con- ceive how one might commit murder than how how one could be led to commit a theft. There is an appearance of nobility about the crimes of violence that cannot be gwen to meaner offences.
 Whether the severity of the punishment much increases it's restraining power, and especially whether corporal punishments are more effective than mere imprison- ment, are questions to which the more en- frightened and humane public opinion of our day has given decisive answer in the negative. There is no increase of crime, in proportion to population, but rather a decrease from the time when men were hung by scoies in England, and when nearly every serious crime was punished with death. The sole survivor of an evil species of punishment-han not now justified for the pain it gives the criminal, but for the security it is sup posed to give the community. We can only thoroughly understand the advance society has made when we read such facts as Macaulay records regarding the practi- ces which prevailed in England only two centuries ago:
 There is scarce page of the history or lighter literature of the 17th Century which does not contain some proof that our ancestors were less humane than their posterity. The discipline of workshops, of schools, of private families, though not more effecient than at present, was infinitely harsher Masters we'll born and well bred, were in the habit of beat ing their servants. Pedagogues knew no way of imparting knowledge but by beating their pupils. Husbands, of decent station, were not ashamed to beat their wives. The im- placabilitY of hostile factions was such as we can scarcely conceive. Wings were disposed murmur because Stafford was suffered to die without seeing his bowels burned before his face.. Tories reviled and insulted Russell az hiscoach passed from the Tower to the scaffo,d in Llncoln's Inn Fields. As little mercy was shown by the populace to sufferers of hum- ble rank. If an offender was put into the plllory, it was well if he escaped with life from the shower of brick-bats and paving. stones. Gentlemen arranged parties of pleas ure to Brldewell on court days, for the pur- pose of seeing the wretched women who beat hemp there whipped. A man pressed to death for refusing to plead, a woman burned for coining, excited less sympathy than is now felt for galled horse or an over driven OK. The prisons were hells on earth, seminaries of every crime and of every disease. At the assizes the lean and yellow culprts
 
 dock an atmosphere of stench and pestilence which sometimes avenged them signally on bench bar, and jury. But on all this misery society looked with profound indifference. Mo- where could be found the sensitive and rest less compassion which has in our time extend ed powerful protection to the factory child, to the Hindoo widow, to the negro slave, which pries into the stores and water casks of every emigrant ship, which winces at every lash laid on the back of drunken soldier which will not suffer the thief in the hulks to be un- der-fed or over-worked, and. which has re- peatedly endeavored to save even the life of the murderer k The more we studv the annals of the part, the more shall we re- joice that we live in merciful age, in an age in which cruelty is abhorred, and in which pain. even when deserved, is inflicted reluct- antly and from sense of duty. Every class | doubtless has gained by this great moral change; but the class which has gained most the poorest, the most dependent and the l most defenceless.
 This same progress towards humanity can be traced also in theological ideas. The man could not be found in New Eng land to-day, intelligent enough to be al- lowed to preach in any pulpit, who could suppose that the contemplation of the punishments of the damned would in- crease the happiness of the blessed and the belief in the physical torture of sin ners, so horribly pictured in that once popular work, Pollock's Course of Time, has, we judge, generally given place to a | belief in various degrees of mental pun l ishment
 To our second query we answer with a flat negative. Reformation by fear" is | a contradiction of terms. We should l hardly call that reform which makes the I public officer steal somewhat less from the fear of being caught. We should only l consider him coward as we'll as thief Reformation implies a moral change which fear is not only powerless to effect,