POVERTY AND CRIME.

Evening Star, Issue 15140, 24 March 1913, Page 1

POVERTY AND CRIME.

REMARKABLE STATEMENTS BY PRISON DOCTOR. POLICE COURTS " ABOMINABLE." " I do iiot think that poor people are any vorse than rich people. I do not think most of them arc any better, but poor people, m om- cities at any rat*, havo a groat deal more to put up with than those who are better off." So said Dr James Devon, medical officer, H.M. Prisons. Glasgow, at the commencement of hi.s address on 'Poverty and Crime' at Edinburgh recently. "I am bound to say some things that seem a Lit lop-sidec l ." Dr Devon proceeded, " and I would be obliged if you would question me on the subject at disclose " —lncitement to Crime.— Here are some of the points made in- the course of ji. most interesting address: To suggest that all the evils in tiis world aie due to poverty is simply to talk non■sense. Crime in my view is not wholly due to poverty. 1* cities where the people are crowded together you have a direct incitement to Clinic.,.. because the mov? 7 'i ivvi peopio. crowded together the more rules will you have to make for good conduct. I knew that everybody agrees that poverty, when combined with destitution, may be the caus-e of offence against property. Anybody can understand that if a main is starving he is likely to steal, and even the most stupid of Magistrates is not so obsessed by the law that he refuses to let. that man off. —Prison System a Failure.— It is the common man that counts in the leng run, and the common man ie a com pound of virtue and vice, of'kindliness and passion, just as wo all are. The great majority of people in prison a?. 3 poor people, and about half of them arc there because thev cannot pay their lines.

J Women are- far more censorious of one j mother than men are of one another or of v. onion. The poor man does not find prison a bad place as ;. rule, hut is .he going to Ik? any better when bo <-otnce out'' Prison is a fa:hive because it is prison, ' and it does rot matter how you gild the bar, increase the diet, or '_'ive. better recreation, he is compelled to live in an institution, to give up hi? initiative, to become a f i.ivc ; he will he a helpless, slave when he comes out. All habitual offendeis are made by vis; there is no exception. If we treated the peison who first goes, wrong in a ration;;! way h.e never could become a habitual offender, never. The, matter is entirely in : oiii 1 own hands if we choose to recognise. ! it, but at present we have, not pot over that. We have only got- to the stage of accepting excuses. —"Latest Patent Humbug." The Borstal Institution is the latestpatent humbug. It lakes as lone: tn know about the lives of the poor as it does to know about horses. Institutions are a fraud, and an oxpensive one at that. Your "dice Courts arc such an abomination that no 'language is strong enough to characterise them. T have heard them bnnet in Glasgow of thirty cases in an hour —two in a minv.te. Justice: 1 would like to give them a. taste of it. Children want something move than your infernal education. Feed them and clothe them by all me-.nt-. but allow them to develop; don't twist them into the shapes you want, fi-ive them more chances of recreation and more op]wUinilies for amusement. Prisoners have become much quieter in their demeanor, and we have no outbreaks such as we used to have fifteen or eighteen years ago. You will never teach a man self-reliance in an institution ; you teach him to toe. the line and do what lie is told. lii dealing with the subject of theft, Br Devon characterised '' Once, a thief, ayo a thief," ao one of the meet, silly and untruthful proverbs, but, he rather startled his audience, the next moment by exclaiming : "Why. there is not one of you who has not stolen something at one time or another—whether it was turnips or chocolates or (Laughter.) We have all done it. Embezzlement! I did not knowany among my Jot who did not in their ! day embezzle trust funds. Many a halfpenny that was intended to provide suits for the innocent heathen" (Loud lru.ghler rendered inaudible the remainder of the sentence 1 ,; People are not born with the sense of honesty, the «r.mc as they are horn with the desire for food."