They want the state to begin,
believing that the magnanimous example will effect a change of heart in
those about to murder. This, I take it, is the meaning of their
assertion that death penalties have not the deterring influence that
imprisonment for life carries. In this they obviously err: death deters
at least the person who suffers it--he commits no more murder; whereas
the assassin who is imprisoned for life and immune from further
punishment may with impunity kill his keeper or whomsoever he may be
able to get at. Even as matters now are, incessant vigilance is required
to prevent convicts in prison from murdering their attendants and one
another. How would it be if the "life-termer" were assured against any
additional inconvenience for braining a guard occasionally, or
strangling a chaplain now and then? A penitentiary may be described as a
place of punishment and reward; and under the system proposed, the
difference in desirableness between a sentence and an appointment would
be virtually effaced. To overcome this objection a life sentence would
have to mean solitary confinement, and that means insanity.
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