Journal of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland, Part Xoix. the Prevention and Punishment of Crime

I have chosen as the subject of my address " The Prevention and Punishment of Crime," because it is one of interest,, not only to lawyers and statisticians, but to every person who loves his country and would like to see it better and happier than it is. The object of punishment is to prevent the commission of crimes, and punishment should not be resorted to if other means equally efficacious can be found. Archdeacon Paley expressed the true view in 1785, when he declared that " the proper end of human punishment is not the satisfaction of justice but the prevention of crimes." (Moral and Political Philosophy, Book VI., Chap. IX.) And Sir Thomas Chambers, the Recorder of London, in an address on " Punishment and Reformation," delivered in 1862 ; advocated the same principle : "The final object in our systems of penal discipline, as in all our other social arrangements, is the good of the community-—its delivery from some evil or inconvenience, or its attainment of some substantive good. In the case of our criminals, the end b sought in our mode of dealing with them, whatever it be, is the repression of crime—the diminishing the number both of offences and offenders. This is a matter in which the State has a direct interest and which the State may strive at securing. What is the best means to be adopted for that purpose then becomes the subject of inquiry. What apparatus or agency or" machinery is most likely to thin the ranks and lessen the activity