§ 49. Sir C. Osborneasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department in view of the increasing violence and assaults on Post Office workers and hank officials in armed robbery for wages and other monies, if he will reintroduce flogging as a punishment for such crimes; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. BrookeAny increase in this type of crime is a matter of serious concern for all those responsible for the preservation of law and order. But I do not86W believe that the reintroduction of corporal punishment as a judicial penalty would be the right remedy: the Advisory Council on the Treatment of Offenders concluded in 1960 that corporal punishment was not an especially effective deterrent, either to crime in general or to robbery with violence in particular, and the House accepted this conclusion in the debates last year on the Criminal Justice Bill. A person convicted of robbery with violence may, under the present law, be sentenced to life imprisonment.