A student's reflection posted on the Course Padlet:

 

"Queensland does not impose the death penalty. In fact, in 1922 Queensland became the first jurisdiction in the British Empire, and among the first in the world, to abolish capital punishment. Almost every morning when I take my dog for a walk through the South Brisbane Cemetery (just across the river from UQ) I pass by a fascinating plaque (see picture) attached to a stone from the Boggo Road Gaol that was hand-carved by convicts. It commemorates 42 people who were hanged at the nearby gaol, and contains an 1899 quote from a leading Queensland abolitionist, Joseph Lesina, that reads as follows:

"The criminal is not a wild beast... he is an erring brother whose feet have wandered from the narrow path which we all weakly strive to follow. To take his life is not the way to cure him; you only brutalise him... I feel perfectly sure that it will not be many years longer before the humanitarian feeling which is now spreading through this colony, and all civilised countries, will demand once and for all the abolition of the death penalty."

I don't think I've ever been prouder to be a Queenslander than when I read that plaque for the first time."