SATURDAY, JANUARY 25, 1908. THE TREATMENT OF CRIMINALS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 104, 25 January 1908, Page 4

SATURDAY, JANUARY 25, 1908. THE TREATMENT OF CRIMINALS.

The application of modern ideas to the treatment of criminals is one of those themes for discussion' that we have always with tis. Although in theory criminology and the allied fields of, study have closely occupied whole armies of philosophers and sociologists'' for a good many years, yet in practice the treatment of criminals, although everywhere largely njodified in a haphazard and local fashion, has been lit-, tie affected by anything like a univers-ally-accepted scientific principle. At the present time the problem of the criminal is receiving a good deal of. attention in England as the result of thes adoption by the Government of the principle of " probation." Public interest in the matter -has been further stimulated by the appearance of a very important book on " Criminals and Crime," by Sir Robert Anderson, the late Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department of Scotland Yard, and an article of endorsement by tlie veteran judge, Sir Alfred Wills. The considered judgment of these h'igli experts in criminology, many times repeated, and more strongly expressed with each repetition, is that " the punishment, of crime" system is "the parent of professional crime and the bane of prison administration." Instead of continuing a vain attempt " to make the punishment fit the crime," the authorities should make the punishment fit the criminal. In other words, " the punishment should be apportioned to the criminal and his moral guilt, and not to the mere thing he has done, considered by itself." Their observations will doubtless be studied by the prison authorities and all those connected with the administration of the criminal law 'in this country, especially in view of the recent gazetting of regulations for the working of our Habitual Criminals and Offenders Act. Sir Robert Anderson points out that while crimes against property have decreased in proportion to population, there has been a remarkable increase in the offences committed by "professional criminals." lie concludes, therefore, that the " professional criminals" are an increasing class —those skilful malefactors who prosecute their profession with care and assiduity, and who, after each short term of imprisonment inflicted upon them, return to pillage society with renewed zest. He accordingly suggests that means be established for the incarceration of such offenders for indeterminate periods in " asylum pn- ! I sons."-

ft is most satisfactory to haye stach weighty testimony to the value of the principle of our Habitual Offenders Act. But Sir Eobert Anderson litis other suggestions of reform. His treatment of the " professional, criminal " involves the principle that our prisons should not be looked upon as tovture-chambers, but as being at once Reformatories ancL quarantine depots for the protection of. Society".' Not onls should provision be made for the stamping opt of the professional criminals, but something should be done to mitigate the cruelty that the existing system inflicts upon offenders who , are worthy of pity and help. He does hot approve of "punishment" except in so. far as it acts as a deterrent. In the " Nineteenth Century" Sir Alfred Wilfs goes further than Sir Eobert Anderson. '.'Hardly more than a generation ago," he say?, "the nature of the crime73-the mere tiling dcuife—was looked iipon as oil© of the most important elements, if not' the' most important, in considering V'Jiat PSU&jty follow a misdeed;"and one equally, to b'o. regarded was the deterront cffect ; supr posed to bb produced by it. The reformation of the offender was hardly thought of;. , \ Things' havo chariged greatly aijd rapidly ij) this respect. .'Now, such importance is,given to the reformation of the culprit that sometimes all other considerations seem to have been lost sight of. The truth is that none of'them-can bp discarded." At present the penalties inflicted' on criminals' generally 'have; little deterrent effect. You cannot do anything io prevent what the French call the' " crime passionel," but you can '"defer the ordinary offender against property, and the code of penalties should never lose sight of i.tlie necessity for a deterrent ingredient. But what, is chiefly important is tile necessity of thinking of the .criminal rather than of his'parr ticular crime. Sir Alfred Wills divides criminals into four classes; (1) tlie young; (2) petty offenders who are not " habitual."" criminals; (3) the "'habitual"class: and (4) " the .worst of all,", the '/professional§. ? \ The treatment of the first two classes prer sents no yreat difficulty, for'there'npr tiling is really required but." correcr tion." " Habitual" offenders are not jiecessarily "professionals." Very often they, are hardly responsible _ for their actions,' either through upbringing or misfortunes or a'_ hereditary taint, but they do great mischief, and are, , indeed, something like the fly? wheel of crime. For these Sii" Robert Anderson proposes prisons in which the inmates, living under easily endurable and'very healthy conditions, can be detained for long periods, and made to earn their livelihood. For the "professional criminals," a small.but growing class, there is really nothing but detention'for life or for; the maximum period allowed by the existing criminal law. Every little while one, of these desperate characters- is captured iin New Zealand-77-such men as tlie ponvict Ferris, who the other day : planned his escape from the Lytteltoii Gaol. Our prisons' contain a good many such men, and everybody knows that, they will commit further crimes immediately upon their release. '■ There are thus two maija lines for the working out of the principle that the punishment should fit the criminal; The' irreclaimable "professional 1 must be got out. of the way,- and the habitual offender must bo' treated as reclaimable, though the treatment must still be deterrent in character. The regulations gazetted a fortnight ago. for the working of our own Act are very lenieut, but they do pot err in the direction of doing nothing to jliminate the criminal tendencies 9! ilie prisoners. They seem to be whole- ■ some without being severe,. Years must pass before we get any data from which we can judge of their working, but it is possible that the principle may be extended in the future to apply to all criminals. In some respects, indeed, they appear better applicable to "single-crime" prisoners than to " habitual " offenders. ' The ono great 1 danger attendant upon humane modir fications of the brutal and stupid tilings that have survived from the cruelty of the ignorant past is the liability of. our prisons to lose their corrective and deterrent influence, ( and to degenerate into a kind of lipuse." But this danger is so fully present to the mind of our prison authorities, that it need cause us little concern;