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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria University College, Wellington N.Z. Vol. 20, No. 14. September 26, 1957

The People we Hang

The People we Hang

The Jarge majority of murders are committed without premeditation, many of them by good citizens who have committed no previous offence, in circumstances which preclude any consideration of the consequences.

The report of the British Royal Commission stated that murder "is not generally the crime of the so-called criminal classes, but in most cases, an incident in miserable lives."

The relatively small number of planned murders are committed by men who believe that they will never be found out.

Secondly, it is not always realised to what extent murder is a crime of the disordered mind. Of the 4842 murders reported to the British police between 1900 and 1949, 1742 murderers committed suicide, and 1400 were found to be insane at some stage of the proceedings, even under our strict McNaughton Rules.

When it is appreciated that this does not include men like Christie, or aggressive psychopaths like Haigh and Heath, who if not insane in law, are plainly of abnormal mentality, it will be realised to wait extent murder is a crime of the disordered mind. It is therefore not surprising that the actual experience of abolitionist countries is that murder is, in substance, confined to the unpremeditated, in which cases the deterrent theory cannot operate, or to men whose mental condition makes them oblivious to the penalty.