what necessity is there for sending him to prison except that of satisfying the letter of the law? On the other hand, if such an offender be sent to prison, what is the result? He mixes with other prisoners who are real criminals and by the time his sentence expires he comes out of prison as a new man, not as a reformed new man but as a new member of the criminal class. If, in such a case, the Judge had the discretional power of making the sentence conditional, i. e., that the sentence of, let us suppose, imprisonment for one year shall not be executed, on condition that the offender does not commit another offence for, let us say, five years, it would be like killing two birds with one stone. During those five years the offender would be a sort of a penitent. In his conscience he would be just as sorry for having committed the offence as if he were in prison, but not being in prison he would not run the risk of receiving a criminal education. Then there would be the inducement that if he does not commit another offence during those five years the sentence is not to be executed at all and what is more, the sentence becomes null and void, so that he becomes a man with a clean record as if he had never committed an offence in his life. On the other hand, there would be the warning that if he does commit another offence during those five years, the sentence becomes at once effective, and in being tried and sentenced for the subsequent offence he is to be treated as a second offender, subject to the disadvantage resulting out of the principle of Recidivism, of which we shall speak further.
It was with some such ideas as these that the system of conditional sentences was first tried in Belgium some twenty years ago. It was found so successful there that the example has been followed by several other countries such as France, Japan, Egypt, etc. The system, as adopted in the new Penal Code of Siam,[1] is to be applied to sentences of imprisonment for one year or less only, and the period of “penitent probation,” if we may call it so, is five years. In Japan, the authorities were not sure as to whether the system would work well or not. A special decree was passed and the system was put in force more as an experiment than anything else. The Japanese authorities wished to be cautious in the matter, and the system was applied only to sentences of imprisonment for one year or less, as is also the case with the new Penal Code of Siam. But the result
- ↑ Sections 41 and 42. 92
