On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
for it would fail to deter from crime . On whom would the penalty of temporary banishment frottt the society of the honest , operate as a sufficient motive to restrain from tfre violation of the laws ? Upon the honest ; upon those who are alveary ' ' sufficiently restrained btheir 6
y wn disposition , or by the opinion of ' one another ? All who required restraint , would find thii restraint inefficacious ; and if all who , in any manner violated the laws , were removed into such a place of reformation , the inhabitants of the reformatory would speedily outnumber the remainder of the community , and would become themselves the rulers of the
country . Even this consequence were it admitted by the author , would not ; perhaps , decide the question in his mind ; for he considers the infliction of punishment for the purpose of prevention , as in itself an immorality and an injustice .
'To punish one man , ' says he , ' in order that some other unknown person may be deterred from the commission of crime , is an iniquitous practice , and cannot be justified even if its consequences , so far ; as the public is affected by the exhibition , were beneficial in ever so great a degree , and could be calculated upon with certainty . * He calls the infliction of punishment * for example ' s sake / a debasing practice : and expresses his * earnest wishes that so
wicked a principle may never again be adopted as the motive and guide by which the high and mighty may rule their low and erring brethren /—p . 22 , 23 . Here is much good indignation thrown away on an occasion , when there is nothing to call for it but a form of words . You do not punish one person in order that another may be deterred .
The other is deterred , not by the punishment of the first , but by the expectation of being punished himself : and as the punishment you threaten him with , would have no effect upon his conduct , unless he believed that it would really be inflicted , you are obliged to prove the reality of your intention ,, by keeping your word whenever either he , or any other person , disregards your prohibition . This is no injustice to the sufferer , because he , too , has been warned beforehand ; unless indeed , not the punishment
merely , but the law itself , be unjust , and an improper restriction upon his freedom . If the acts which the law prohibits , ifrefe iufch as he had no right to do , and if he had full warning ; of all the consequences to which he would subject himself by violating it , he has no ground of complaint that its full penalties are inflicted , not to deter others , but in order that what really deters others , the threat of punishment to themselves , may not be an idle mockery .
Our author ' s objection is only valid against either ex post facto laws , or laws which are in themselves unjust , independently of the means by which they are enforced . In all other cases the
Untitled Article
'On Punishment . : 795
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1834, page 735, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2638/page/61/
-