9….It is thus plain that crime is a pathological aberration, that the criminal can ordinarily be redeemed, that the State has to rehabilitate rather than avenge. The sub-culture that leads to antisocial behaviour has to be countered not by undue cruelty but by re-culturisation. Therefore, the focus of interest in penology is the individual, and the goal is salvaging him for society. The infliction of harsh and savage punishment is thus a relic of past and regressive times. The human today views sentencing as a process of reshaping a person who has deteriorated into criminality and the modern community has a primary stake in the rehabilitation of the offender as a means of social defense. We, therefore, consider a therapeutic, rather than an "in terrorem" outlook, should prevail in our Criminal Courts, since brutal incarceration of the person merely produces laceration of his mind. In the words of George Bernard Shaw: "If you are to punish a man retributively, you must injure him. If you are to reform him, you must improve him and, men are not improved by injuries." We may permit ourselves the liberty to quote from Judge Sir Jeoffrey Streatfield: "If you are going to have anything to do with the Criminal courts, you should see for yourself the conditions under which prisoners serve their sentences". In the same strain a British Buddhist-Christian Judge, speaking to a BBC reporter underscored the role of compassion:
