CRIME AND DISEASE.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17813, 12 July 1923, Page 6

CRIME AND DISEASE.

These are days in which we reach down to the fundamentals of life. In the past wo have had rather the habit c-f scratching the surface of thing 3, and imagining that the top layer was continued all the way through to the end. That is not the case, of course. In all t' ings pertaining to life there are many layers, r.nd our understanding is based on our ability to probe right through them all. For instance, we have awakened to tho fact that preventive medicine and treatment are the fundamentals of good health, whereas not so long ago the doctor with his black pill was considered to be the omy milestone on'tho road to health. And just as we used to think that the torture of criminals was the only method by which wo could reform them, so nowadays we are inclining to the view that perhaps {•iter all there is something deeper in the criminal than we first imagined, and that his reform may be a matter of scientific treatment. Alcoholism is now declared to be a disease. It used to be thought- a bad habit. Now comes the suggestion that crime is not a. bail habit, out a disease of tho mind. Prison doctors have been conducting experiments, 'ihey lind that the trouble with ail criminals is mental, and tiiat one has omy to cure that trouble to make the social sinner a rcspocialjJe citizen. Crime lias ■ been placed in tlve category of disease, and instead of punishments in tlie future we may give the criminal a specified treatment. If we look back over the past years of prison horrors and turn, to those of to-day, wo will see tho possibility of truth in this theory. In the blackest days of Port Arthur and Botany iJay, when prisoners were flogged on the merest pretext, and given solitary confinement for some trival thing, prison was not reformative. It was never meant to be, although a lot of pious nonsense was talked on that subject. The criminal was viewed then as a monace to society. He did something which was against the law, and because lit, did so he was made to suffer for it. It was the old Biblical law of an eye for an eye and a. tooth for a tooth, plus interest in operation. No account was taken of the circumstances leading up to the crime, or of the individual. If the offence were deemed to be severe, a flogging was ordered. Insubordination in prison meant solitary confinement, which is still practised. A century ago all sorts of terrors were held over the heads of men as incentives to them to lead the godly life. One would think that when forgery or petty thievery were punishable by death, no sane person would thieve. That ia just tho crux of the whole position. No sane person would, but many mentally sick persons did, and had to pay the penalty by death or transportation. In the latter case their bodies and souls were tortured until the men themselves were turned into wild beasts. Who having seen the solitary confinement cell can fail to wonder why men condemned to it, even for a short space of time, did not go raving mad? Look at tho comnnmity as it is today. Despite all the pealties and socalled deterrents of yesterday we still have a criminal class, and keep on having it. Wo atempt to deal with it, to wipe it out, to reform it, and what happens? Crime still continues. The punishments meted out to-day are no more effective than they were yesterday. Despite all the penalties and sosevere. Prison reformers have been pointing to that fact for some time. Now medicine has stepped in, and medical men are saying that to reform the criminal you must discover his mental trouble and remove it. Society has completely failed to do anything with the criminal or to prevent criminality. Science only asks for a hearing, and is ready, to back up its contentions with facts. Society treated criminals as a class. The magsman, the sneak thief, the murderer, the forger and thfe garroter * were all lumped together and treated as one kind of person, despite the fact that they were all as different as it is possible for human beings to be Science acts on the basis that e&ch criminal case has to he treated individually, that no two persons are alike, and that one man's nourishment is another's man's indigestion. Science has approached the subject of criminality from an entirely new angle. It has scratched below the surface and probed to the very mind of the criminal in an effort to gain a solution to the i>roblem. It has decided that the secret of criminal tendencies is to be found in the mind of the criminal. There are other things,

of course. Environment has always been held to be a great influencing factor in the making of criminals, but the scientists point out that if this were the principal cause, all people subjected to poverty, want and temptation would become criminals. Each criminal is said to represent a combination of weaknesses and environmental influences. These produce the mental disease which makes the man a criminal. The first and chief cause, however, is the mental taint. These theories have been subjected to practice. Dr. Hamblin Smith, medical officer to the Birmingham (England) irtol, is treating the criminals under his care. His methods are new, and the success secured is said to be remarkable. Dr. Smith treats each man as a separate case. Ba wins the confidence of 'his patient, which ie no easy task in a gaol. He meets with suspicion, reticence and hostility at first because he is a gaol official, but presently his efforts are rewarded, and the first step is taken. Then he begins a sort of X-ray investigation into the soul of the patient. He probes the past and. so to speak, gets right inside the man's mind. In the end lie knows more of what that- man's mind holds than the owner. Ho reaches that vast uncontrolled field, the unconscious mind, wherefrom all our actions arise. He studies the dreams of his patients, and through them probes still further into their minds, and when he has explored, he begins his treatment, which is all suggestive. From accounts of the system it appears to be a combination of psycho-analysis and Coueism. It is a good tiling to have no criminals in a community, and, failing tliut condition, we should attempt to have as few as possible. Wo have been making that attempt for centuries, and so far have done no good. For every criminal reformed I>3- gaol there are fifty who are merely hardened. The idea of punishment for crime, it is contended, is nothing more than an adaptation of the instinct for revenge. Society does not want criminals, yet it keeps on making them by taking revenge. Science savs the treatment should be different, and then the criminal would disappear. To appreciate that point of view, one must discard the old conception of a criminal as a wrongdoer, a sinner and a candidate for the of hell. The new attitude towards crime is that the criminal is merely a sick man in need of treatment. Science holds that it is no more just to condemn a man for criminal instincts than it is to put him in gaol for having a stiff joint. One sees the force of this argument when it is considered that criminals of a certain type do not alter, no matter how they are punisned. The thief is caught. He goes to gaol and serves his term. He comes out, and in most cases begins thieving again. The man convicted of indecency is a particularly consistent offender. We recollect one case of a man convicted of a sexual offence who was given two years in gaol and fifty lashes in two doses of twenty-five. If ever a man felt the punishment for hie offence that man did; but what Imppened? A few days after his release he ' w'as in the police court, again charged with thq Same offence. A'either the lash nor the gaol had hacrany effect upon him. One might just as well have flogged a man for having a cancer. Another case which , came before the prison authorities of Melbourne not so long ago was that of a boy convicted of a sexual offence. On being put in gaol he was medically examined, and the doctor reported that in his present condition the youth could not wailc ten steps without becoming a menace to women and children. A aught operation was all that was necessary to make the boy normal again. Needless to say, that operation was pertormed. Theories are well enough, but tne first thing to be considered is the safety of the normal, non-criminal public, 'ihe individual wiio commits a crime should ue imprisoned. Society has decreed that he be segregated from the rest of the world, and nobody will say that society has decreed unwisely. Criminals must be isolated as a matter ot protection to the community, but once they are isolated there is nothing to prevent their being cured of their tendencies it possible. Wo want no crazy schemes which will involve the presence of a half-cured criminal in our midst. If science can show that it can cure the criminal, the community has something to be very grateful for; but science will have to tackle the job in a prison, environment. And it must not merely think it hag effected a cure. It must go further than that, and by a series of tests ■ be. able to show that the criminal actually iB cured. And that is really the whole method, although it embraces a vast amount of investigation into each case. It is Coueism in another form. The sick person does not .fight against the disease which grips him. He simply ignores or renounces it. tt is quite possible that in the near future th© word gaol will lose its significance. We will not speak of it as a place of punishment, hut rather as a hospital whore those suffering from a certain form of disease are sent for euro. —Melbourne "Age."