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Page 23
While increased temperature undoubtedly decreases personal
responsibility, it is a most difficult matter to decide whether this
factor ought to be taken into consideration when passing sentence on
criminal offenders. It is much more truly an extenuating circumstance
than the majority of pleas which receive the name. In a variety of
cases, such, for instance, as threats, assaults, manslaughter, murder,
a high temperature unquestionably sometimes enters as a determining
factor into the complex set of influences which produce these crimes.
But the first difficulty confronting a judge, who endeavours to take
such a factor into account, will he the difficulty of discovering
whether it was present or not in the individual case he has before
him. In reply to this objection it may be urged, and urged too with
considerable truth, that this hindrance is not insuperable. It is
possible to overcome it by noting whether the case in question stands
alone, or whether it is only one among a group of others taking place
about the same period. Should it turn out to be a case that stands
alone, it would be fair to assume that temperature is not a cause
requiring to be taken into consideration in dealing with the offender.
Should it, on the contrary, turn out to be one in a group of cases, it
would be equally fair to assume that temperature was not without its
effect in determining the action of the offender.
Having got thus far, having isolated temperature from among the other
causes, and having fixed upon it as the most potent of them all, what
would immediately and imperatively follow? As a matter of course it
would ensue that a person whose deeds are powerfully influenced by
the action of temperature is to that extent irresponsible for them.
To arrive at such a conclusion is equivalent to saying that such a
person, if his offences are at all serious, constitutes a grave
peril to society. In a sense, he may be less criminal, but he is
certainty more dangerous; and as the supreme duty of society is
self-preservation, such a person must be dealt with solely from that
point of view. It would be ridiculous to let him off because he is
largely irresponsible; his irresponsibility is just what constitutes
his danger, and is the very reason he should be subjected to prolonged
restraint.
In all offences of a trivial character presumably springing to a large
extent from the action of temperature, it might be wise if the
offender were only punished in such a way as would keep alive in his
memory a vivid recollection of the offence. This method of punishment
is better effected by a short and sharp term of imprisonment than by
inflicting a longer sentence and making the prison treatment
comparatively mild. A short, sharp sentence of this character has also
another advantage which is well worth attention. In many cases the
offender is the bread-winner of the home. The misery which follows his
prolonged imprisonment is often heartrending; the home has to be sold
up bit by bit; the mother has to strip off most of her scanty garments
and becomes, a piteous spectacle of starvation and rags, the
childrens' things have to go to the pawnshop; and it is fortunate if
one or two of the family does not die before the husband is released.
The misery which crime brings upon the innocent is the saddest of its
features, and whatever society can do consistently with its own
welfare to shorten or mitigate that misery, ought, in the interests of
our common humanity, to be done.
One word with reference to offences which do not come within the
cognisance of the criminal law. I do not know if there are any
statistics to show that, in schools, in workshops, in the army, or,
indeed, in any industry or institution where bodies of people are
massed together under one common head--there are more cases of
insubordination and more offences against discipline when the
temperature is high than in ordinary circumstances. But, whether such
a statistical record exists or not, there can be little doubt that
cases of refractory conduct prevail most largely in the warm season.
It would therefore be well if this fact were borne in mind by all
persons whose duty it is to enforce discipline and require obedience.
Considering that there are certain cosmical influences at work, which
make it note difficult for the ordinary human being to submit to
discipline, it might not be inexpedient, in certain cases, to take
these unusual conditions into account and not to enforce in their full
rigour all the penalties involved in a breach of rules. It is a
universal experience that many things which can ordinarily be done
without fatigue or trouble, become, at times, a burden and a source of
irritation. Some physical disturbance is at the root of this change,
and a similar disturbance is also at the root of the defective
standard of conduct which a high temperature almost invariably
succeeds in producing among some sections of the community.
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