Note 163:1 — Chapter VIII · THE INDICTMENT

There is one fortunate thing as regards these savage laws aimed at the suppression of certain crimes, and that is, as it would seem, they are never effective in achieving their purpose. As Mr Tighe Hopkins remarks, apropos of the torture of the “cat” (“Wards of the State,” p. 203):—“The attempt to correct crime with crime has everywhere repaid us in the old properly disastrous way.” It would indeed be regrettable if it could be shown that penal laws of this kind were successful. Far better is it that the crimes of isolated individuals should continue than that crimes such as the cold-blooded infliction of torture and death committed at the behest of the State, as supposed to represent the whole of society, should attain their object, even though the object be the suppression of crimes of another kind perpetrated by the aforesaid individuals within society. The successful repression of crimes committed by individuals, by a crime committed by State authority, can only act as an encouragement to the State to continue its course of inflicting punishment which is itself a crime.