much from the Siamese as from some Europeans, especially Englishmen from India. It is well to remember that the Indian Penal Code is probably the only civilized Penal Code that retains whipping.[1]
First and Second Offenders.
How to control second offenders is a problem that has to be met with by the administrator, the legislator, and the judge alike. The Finger-print system first introduced by the Commissioner of Police into the Police Department of Bangkok some years ago has been found so useful that it has been adopted by the Ministry of Justice of Siam, as a means of controlling second offenders throughout the Kingdom. But the subject of the Finger-print system scarcely belongs to the Penal Code. Within the sphere of a Penal Code there are two systems for controlling second offenders, either or both of which may be adopted. The new Penal Code of Siam has adopted both of them. The first of these is:
The System of Conditional Sentences.
This is quite an innovation. Strictly speaking, it is not so much a system of controlling second offenders as that of controlling first offenders. It is a system of controlling first offenders in such a way as to prevent them from committing offences a second time. Many a Judge can recall with the deepest grief the instance when circumstances compelled him, against his better judgment, to send a man or woman to prison who had merely been the victim of some temptation or circumstances for which, morally speaking, such person could hardly be said to be blamable and yet legally must be held responsible. If, in such a case, there is no previous conviction proved against the offender, and in view of the comparative respectability or youthfulness of the offender, or of the comparatively good character he has been known to bear in the past, or of the comparatively good antecedents he possesses, or of any other sufficiently extenuating circumstances, it appears to the Judge that, under a proper warning from him, the offender is likely to exercise more control over himself in future and is not likely to commit a second offence,
- ↑ This statement is not absolutely accurate. See the article on Whipping and Castration as Punishments for Crime in the Yale Law Journal, Vol. VIII, 371. — Ed.
