Case for abolishing life imprisonment

Allow me to comment on your editorial entitled 'Murder most foul' (January 25). These comments won't be about the case in question. It is too soon and emotions are still running high. Suffice to say that a crime was committed, the culprit found, tried and sentenced according to Maltese law, although he has now lodged an appeal.

I shall limit my comments to just one sentence from the editorial, i.e. "Reforming such a character is not even a remote possibility." I do not know by which powers the writer of this editorial can see into the future. A change in character of a prisoner, or after all of any other person, be it for the better or for the worse, is not such a rare thing. It happens all the time and has happened even here.

One of the best examples is Manwel Dimech. He escaped the gallows only because he was six months shy of his 18th birthday. He was a habitual criminal, having served numerous prison sentences. Dimech got lucky when in prison he was befriended by an English Protestant pastor who encouraged him to learn to read and write.

By the time Dimech left prison 20 years later he had made himself a linguist, having written a Maltese, English and Italian grammar. Once free he set up a school and an "organisation for the enlightened". It can be said that Dimech became Malta's greatest social reformer and perhaps this island's greatest product. It was only by the collusion of the local Catholic Church and the British colonial government that he was left to rot in an Egyptian jail. But that is another story.

We firmly believe that though it is from the heart of man that change is wrought, only the structures of the penal institutions, the courts, the police force and the correctional facilities can make change tangibly possible. Another institution - one for which we have striven these last years and which we hope will be introduced in Malta soon - is parole.

We also believe that a just punishment is one proportionate to the offence and that in its execution it must not diminish or utterly destroy the citizen's future possibility of living happily while upholding the legitimate laws of the nation. A life sentence in Malta does exactly that. We believe that any punishment should and must enhance the possibility of such a future. Life in prison until death is deemed as cruel and inhuman not only by our organisation but also by many European nations.

A Green Paper published by the European Commission (COM-2004-334) on April 30, 2004, confirmed what Mid-Dlam għad-Dawl has been arguing for years. The European Commission is proposing a total reconsideration of the punishment of life imprisonment leading towards its abolition on a Union-wide basis. This, in the light of a proposal to align the forms of punishment in the Union, is what may be considered as one of the first tangible steps towards a European Criminal Code.

Abolishing life imprisonment would be justified from the point of view of the objective of re-educating and rehabilitating the offender. As is well known, a person's conduct can change during imprisonment and the absence of all hope of ever being released will not stimulate efforts at reintegration.

Parole had been used successfully by many nations for decades. Of course mistakes have been made and it is not unheard of for someone out on parole to, almost immediately, commit another crime. But these are exceptions. Research in any country using parole shows that the rate of recidivism (the committing of other crimes) was drastically reduced since parole was introduced.

We cannot accept that someone, even a judge, can foresee a person's future. With parole a person will be constantly monitored. Perhaps he won't be ready to integrate into society after 10 years, or 20 or even 30. But maybe he is ready after 40 years or more. Why destroy that possibility?