LIFE IMPRISONMENT.
Life imprisonment is an unjust sentence. Life prisoners are those who have received their sentence for murdering a fellow being. In many cases, however, they can not really be classed as criminals. They are victims of circumstances. The deed was not premeditated but was brought about on the impulse of the moment. The sentence of a lifelong imprisonment forever deprives of the liberties of freedom and the association of friends and relatives, and the only hope of freedom is an escape, then to remain a fugitive from justice. Mr. Meade in his report suggests that the life prisoner should be allowed the same privilege of commutation or short time as is given other prisoners, and in this give him a hope of release. There are tables which insurance companies use (and they are supported by the courts) which fix an average limit of years of the existence of a man, computing from the first year; the interval beyond the present age naturally decreasing as old age approaches. He says: “It would seem that these tables furnish a foundation on which a system for life prisoners should be based. For instance, a man twenty years of age is convicted of murder and sentenced to prison for life. Our tables show that the average number of years for a man of that age still to live is approximately thirty-four. Figuring the legal commutation on this term of thirty-fouryears, we find the prisoner would be compelled to serve about twenty-three years of solid time. A man thirty years old would on the same basis, having about thirty years to live, serve eighteen years; a man forty years old, having about twenty-five years to live, would serve sixteen years in prison. Thus we might continue our observations indefinitely.”
My views of this matter may be severely criticised, nevertheless we do not consider that five years is unreasonably short for the first offence of murder. This releases the innocent man who may have been sentenced through circumstantial evidence or otherwise by false accusation. It is a long sentence for a man who has acted on the impulse of the moment or in a fit of anger; and even to the one who has premeditated the crime, five years of hard labor and proper training in a prison will be an impressive lesson to cause him not to repeat the act. For a second offence it should not be more than ten or fifteen years, and even for a third offence it would not be out of reason to give him the life sentence with the regular commutation. This reasoning may to many at first thought seem ridiculous, but upon proper consideration we should remember that as long as there is life there is hope, and while there is a possibility of reformation a man should have some kind of a chance; not only a chance to reform, but a chance to enjoy his liberty. Even after he has served two or three terms he is not then a worse character and not more dangerous to a community thanthousands of others who are just as guilty but have not suffered the penalty of the law. When a man has served according to the penalty here suggested, has he not suffered sufficient to satisfy the law? and should we not be willing to allow him the privileges of liberty and to enjoy life once more? It is a hard heart indeed that will place a man behind prison-bars for life. In England there is a possibility of being set at liberty after twenty years, on account of good behavior. There needs to be a radical change in our laws on this line.