XII.

The Treatment of Criminals.

THE TREATMENT OF THE CRIMINAL.

BY J. W. WILLIS, CHAIRMAN.

"Die Weisheit ist nur in der Wahrheit."- Goethe.

The subject assigned to this committee requires us to consider the relation of society and the duty of society toward human beings who have committed public wrongs inhibited by express legal enactment. The prevention of crime and criminal law reform are subjects which under present limitations do not come within our province. We are called upon to discuss the relative propriety of measures suggested in various quarters for the relief of the social state from its assailants and from those persons who are delinquent in the discharge of social duties as defined by the supreme authority of kingdom or of commonwealth. Since every criminal marks himself by his conduct as an enemy of social order, of peace, thrift, security of proprietary tenure, and all else that society holds dear, we must ever hold in view the delicacy of our task, since, while representing society in our treatment of the present theme, we occupy the post of one who judges his own enemy. It is not easy to be just when conscious of a sense of injury. Difficulties bestrew the path of him who would safely philosophize when called upon to fix the human destiny of his own assailant, spoliator, or traducer. Here the doctrine of human fraternity and the holy decrees of Christian charity come to our aid; and, recognizing the former and bowing in complete submission to the latter, we undertake our appointed task.

As has been well stated by our learned and able associate, Mr. Stonaker, of Denver, Col., society cannot properly deal with the criminal until it has learned completely the real nature and characteristics of the criminal. The disciple of Hippocrates or of Hahne

mann must be able to diagnose the physical infirmities of a human being before he can give them efficacious treatment. Correct diagnosis depends upon a knowledge of anatomy and physiology, and the effects of certain materials and certain acts operating thereon. By a parity of reasoning, unless we fully comprehend what the criminal really is, we cannot supply an adequate remedy for the evils which afflict him, and through his agency work disaster to the human

race.

We should therefore welcome the scientific investigations in the realm of criminal anthropology which have been so diligently prosecuted by Lombroso and others. We should insist that all persons intrusted with the care or supervision of criminals shall make a study of the nature and characteristics of criminals, and of what has been written about them, and shall keep a record and make public reports of their own personal observations. The kindred sciences of criminology and penology have not yet reached perfection. Indeed, it may well be said that they have only arrived at the primal stage of mere adolescence. This fact imposes upon penologists the obligation of being modest rather than dogmatic, and suggests the imperative necessity for untiring research. Having in view the comparatively limited stock of knowledge concerning the criminal which the world has hitherto acquired, we must apply that knowledge to the conception and execution of our plans for his treatment. The object to be attained is regarded by the common mind as simply the infliction upon an offender of punishment which shall constitute retribution, as far as he is concerned, and shall serve as a potential warning to others who may be tempted to follow his wayward course. This view of the case leaves out of sight the interests of the offender. He is treated as a negligible quantity. So great are the resentment and disgust which his career has awakened in the popular mind that society seems to feel a common impulse to regard him as wholly without desert, as one to whom society owes nothing and as a futile claimant for recognition in any decent sphere of social action.

Here the enlightened reformer must place himself in an attitude of steadfast opposition to the popular opinion, and is in duty bound to be controversial until he successfully controverts. The best interests, the true welfare of the criminal, are inseparably bound up with those of society. Perchance, in this connection, we may well invoke

the Socratic method. Let us suppose current penological fallacy to be exploited by a man named Sciolist, who says,—

"This talk about the reformation of criminals seems to me, Soc-. rates, utter nonsense."

Socrates replies: "Do you expect, then, that your fellow-man who has committed a public offence, and has been duly incarcerated, will cease to exist at the date when his confinement shall have terminated?"

Sciolist: "No, Socrates, verily, I do not.

Socrates: "You admit, therefore, that, when the convict has served his allotted term of imprisonment, he is to become a free man, to be permitted to roam at large and enter into social relations. Now can you reconcile with a just ideal of civic duty the liberation of an evil person from the custodial supervision of the government and his return to the status of a free social being.'

Sciolist: "Well, that view of the case raises a serious question. " Socrates: "Having the power to do otherwise, would it not be quite as culpable to restore to freedom of social intercourse a man of depravity, proven to be such, as it would be to create such a being, and to allow him unreserved intercourse with humanity in general?”

Sciolist: "Most assuredly. I perceive, Socrates, that society, for its own sake, for the defence of the state, and to subserve the public good, must take adequate measures to reform the criminal, and to retain control of him until he is fit to act the part of a virtuous and law-abiding man."

No candid discussion upon the subject can end in any other conclusion. As action and reaction are always equal in the material universe, so every act of every social being has its influence upon every other member of society. The morale or want of morale of each individual may be likened to a leaven which tends to disseminate itself throughout the whole social mass. All immoral leaven should be purged out of every community. Ignoring or concealing The community can

filth never created good sanitary conditions. not afford to quarantine offenders in public prisons for a definite term and then liberate them, unpurified, to spread moral contagion broadcast.

The purely utilitarian view of the necessity for the reformation of the criminal is supplemented by the designs of the philanthropist and the Christian. Not ignoring, but rejoicing because of the great

good to the community at large achieved by infusing new moral life into the penal captive, he is exalted by the generous enthusiasm of a righteous soul contemplating the rise of the ignoble to a better estate, the rescue of a human being from the slavery of immoral traits, the regeneration and elevation of his fellow-man!

Many of our friends who have not considered the subject with care think that, because we, who have given the subjects of prison reform and the treatment of criminals a somewhat careful study, lay great stress upon the reformation of the erring, therefore, we are proposing to destroy the deterrent influence which the harshness of old-time prison methods was considered to exert. This view is erroneous. The convict whose crime is largely the result of ignorance or of an outburst of passion does not represent that class of persons who are deterred from crime by statutory mechanism created and operated in terrorem. For them the reformatory method is the only just form of punishment conceivable. They require an opportunity for reflection, penance, and instruction. Theirs is a mental and moral deficiency, and not a morbid development of all that is base and immoral. Per contra, the villain, crime-stained and crime-hardened, dissolute and depraved, reckless and defiant, represents a class afflicted with a sad deterioration of moral principle and an abnormal viciousness. To him vice is dear, virtue abhorrent. To reform means to him a surrender of all that seems to make life precious. While typical criminals look with aversion upon the oldfashioned penal institution, they regard with emotions akin to horror an institution designed for human reformation. They are wont to endure with comparative equanimity the penitentiary of former days, with its massive gates and locks, cell-houses and barred windows, its treadmill tasks and coarse provender. When a term of imprisonment in such a place of detention had ended, they, as a general rule, emerged from its gates with a self-satisfied opinion that they had paid the penalty for their respective crimes as they would pay the score at a tavern; that accounts had been settled between them and the state, and that the somewhat unpleasant episode of prison seclusion should not constitute any bar to further activity in the service of the arch-demon. The chairman of this committee, while engaged in judicial labors, had occasion to note frequently the openly expressed preference of desperate criminals for a sentence to the state prison rather than to the state reformatory, and their pref

erence for a "straight-out-and-out sentence" to the former institution rather than a sentence thereto "upon the reformatory plan."

If it should be held that the chief object of a prison is to operate as a "terror to evil-doers," then the reformatory would take the grand prize in any competition.

A broad and practical view of penological problems must therefore require us to reach the conclusion that the interest of the state and that of the criminal may be best subserved by the reformation of all whose liberty has been forfeited by reason of having committed crime. In past times, imprisonment has often degraded the convict; and thus the guardianship of public authority over him has made him a worse social element than before. The state, the supreme representative of organized society, the trustee of humanity's welfare, the dispenser of justice and of mercy, cannot afford to impair its dignity, nor sully the prestige which it might otherwise proudly maintain, by knowingly committing any mean or ungenerous act. To suggest the contrary is an insult to the majesty of the people who ordain and control government. No more can it be supposed that an enlightened state will undertake remedial processes for the extirpation of crime which experience has shown to be futile, nor linger long at the doorway of Truth when Science bids welcome and urges entrance. To pursue false penological methods is to beat the air,a proceeding more in keeping with the character of Falstaff than with that of the princely hero of Agincourt.

Granted that we must reform the criminal, how shall we best reach that desirable result? The material upon which we are to work is debased humanity. Its characteristics are, in general, the possession of false ideas, abnormal emotions, morbid ambitions, restlessness, selfishness in extravagant measure, egotism, suspiciousness and distrust, want of patriotism or civic zeal, extreme sensuality, predatory instincts, cruelty, mendacity, instability of purpose, laziness, intemperance, and shiftlessness. Oft-times the criminal is, also, ignorant; but the statistics of recent times tend toward proof of the proposition that mental training, according to ordinary educational methods, does not diminish crime. A well-informed head is not infrequently associated with a bad heart. In many of the prisons of the older communities a majority of the prisoners can manipulate the traditional "three R's" with a good degree of facility..

Your committee is fully convinced that the infirmities of human