Decrease of Crime in England.

Evening Star, Issue 7343, 15 October 1887, Page 1 (Supplement)

Decrease of Crime in England.

Sir E. F. Du Cane, in fche September number of ' Murray's Magazine,' makes an interesting addition to the Jubilee literature of the year, in the form of a paper on criminal statistics and on our mode of dealing with crime and criminals in 1837 and in ISS7. He shows that, if the increase of crime during the past fifty years had kept pace with the increase of the population of the country, we should expect to find the inmates of our convict prisons nearly twice as numerous in 1887 as they were in 1837. In point of fact, the numbers have fallen to about one-fifth of what they were fifty years | ago. In 1837, when the system of transportation was in full force, there were 43,000 convicts under sentence in the Australian colonies. Some 3,000 or 4,000, who had been sentenced to be transported, were in the hulks, working in chains. There were several hundreds more in the Millbank Prison ; there were about 900 at Gibraltar, and about the same number at Bermuda. There were thus probably about 50,000 in all, and besides these a considerable number of others who had been set at liberty before their sentences had expired and were under no supervision or control. In July, 1887, instead of this enormous total, we find no more than 7,414 convicts under sentence of penal servitude—the modern equh alent of the transportation of an earlier date. There were about 2,000 who had been released conditionally and were under police supervision, and there was some small number of re-convicted prisoners in Australia, the last relics of the transportation system. We must add to these a number of children in reformatories, who in 1837 would have gone to swell the ranks of convicts in Australia. Putting all these together, we have about 10,000 in place of the 50,000 or so of 1837. The decline in the infliction of capital punishment has been less marked. According to Sir E. Da Cane's figures, there were 17 executions in 1836, and 8 in 1837. Lord Justice Bowen, however, in his paper on the " Administration of the Law"—contributed to Mr T. H. Ward's volumes on «The Reign of Queen Victoria'—gives 34 as the number of executions in 1836. OF those in 1837 he says nothing. We are thus left in some uncertainty how fair the 14 which Sir E. Du Cane givs as the average of executions during the five years ended in 1886 is less than the average of half a century earlier. As regards the number of criminals condemned to death, there is no such doubt. These amounted in 1836 to 493, and in 1837 to 438. They stand now at an average of 29. The difference at the earlier date between the number of the sentences and of the executions is due to the fact that in 1837 the punishment of death had already ceased to be inflicted except for the crime of murder, but that the Statute Book had not been reformed, so that the sentence of death was passed formally in a large number of cases in which there was no intention that it should be carried out. Again, in 1537 there were 636 criminals condemned to transportation for life. The average of life sentences is now 9; the only room for doubt here being whether the change Bhown is matter for unmixed congratulation, and whether modern leniency towards incorrigible criminals is altogether in the interest of the noncriminal clauses. Prison life in the old days was vory unlike what it now is. In 1837 the hulks were sinks of iniquity, nurseries of crime and corruption. Deterrent they were not, in spite of irons on the legs of the inmates and of compulsory hard work done in the dockyards and arsenals. As a set-off to these the prisoners enjoyed what one of their number has described as a "pretty jolly life." They were allowed the use of musical instruments; they sang flash songs; they danced and fought; and, in a word, made life in the hulks as near_ a resemblance as possible of their life outside. The condition of the gaols had been even worse than this. Young and old, vile and innocent, were crowded together in common rooms. There was constant intercourse permitted with

friends outside, no prohibition of liquor, a tap In the prison, w»d the whole a scene of riot. This state of things did not last long into He* Majesty a reign. About the time of her accession provision was made to remedy it, and in due course county and borough prisons were erected of proper construction and design, in which arrangements were made for the complete separation of the prisoners and lor the maintenance of a strict discipline. I_nese local prisons have now been transferred from the county and borough authorities to undivided State control, with the result that they are more uniformly and more economically administered, and that their number } has been brought down from 256 to 59. This final change was made in 1877. Of convict life in the Australian colonies Sir E. Du Cane does not tell us much. It was not necessarily passed in prison. Many of the convicts were granted out to the settlers as servants, or, more properly, as slaves. Their condition was what their master made it. They were absolutely under his control. If he made a complaint about them, with or without cause, they were liable to be flogged or to be sent back to prison. With a humane master, it was a tolerable fate enough ; but it might be, and often was, a lot of downright hard slavery and of brutal illtreatment. Moreover, as Sir E. Du Cane reminds us, we must add to the executions at home the larger number of executions among the transported prisoners. These in New South Wales alone averaged 26 a-year. Taking all these into account, we have more clear proof of the less frequency with which capital punishment is inflicted than the figures would show if we look only to the statistics of our own country An execution at the present day is no longer what it was in 1837. It has ceased to be a public spectacle —an attraction to crowds of gazers, including, along with the scum _of the population, the occupants of highpriced windows, from which a good view , could be obtained of the drop-scene and I of the death struggles of the poor wretch. The chango of the law by which executions were carried out in private was made in 1868, and the demoralising exhibitions of an earlier day were once and for ever ended. As for the reason of the general decrease in the grave crime of the country, we find several causes assigned, of varied influence, but powerful in their collective force. The spread of education has done mi'ch to check brutal crime. The educated man is more careful to keep within the law; or if he still makes an attack on his neighbor's property, it is to some other method than highway robbery or violence of any kind that he has resort. The establishment of a more efficient police force has also been an important factor for the prevention of open crime. It was not until 1856 that the creation of this force was made compulsory everywhere. It is difficult now to realise the state of things before it, when the public peace and the protection of property were in the charge of the constable or watchman, and when no prudent man would venture out after nightfall more than five or six miles from London. Highway robbery has now practically disappeared, thanks partly to the police, partly to the growth of railways and to improved methods of communication, and partly, too, to the increase of banking facilities, which have made travellers less tempting objects of plunder than they once were. Smuggling is another crime, and cause of crime, of which we hear less now. Jts almost entire extinction has been due very largely to the removal of duties on most imported goods. Reformatory and industrial schools, the growth of the present reign, must also be credited with no small share in the diminution of crime. It is difficult, however (Sir E. Du Cane remarks), to prove by mere statistics that crime has diminished. New minor offences have been created by new laws, so that convictions may increase, while crime in its serious forms is very markedly less. His final appeal in proof is to literature and to common experience. It would be impossible, he says, that the old complaints of the rapid and progressive increase of crime could be made now. In 1832 the matter was declared to be hopeless. It baffled the best endeavors of the statesman and of the phisanthropist. No such language could be used in the present day. The old difficulty has been overcome ; the torrent of crime has not only been checked, but turned back, and the improvement effected is sound and permanent. —' The Times.'