The Marlborough Express PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. THURSDAY, APRIL 16, 1908. THE DISEASE OF CRIME.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLII, Issue 91, 16 April 1908, Page 4

The Marlborough Express PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. THURSDAY, APRIL 16, 1908. THE DISEASE OF CRIME.

Reference has previously been made m these columns to the theory held by so many that crime is a disease, and should be dealt with in the same way as other diseases, the patient being detamea till a cure is effected, instead or being sentenced to a short term of imprisonment, and then set loose to again become a public nuisance. There is much to say on either side. Not long ago some interesting particulars were related as to cures alleged to be effected by operations performed by an American surgeon. ' This surgeon held the theory that crime, so called generally resulted from some abnormal condition of the brain, and in numerous instances where he operated upon the diseased brain cures were effected the erstwhile criminal ceased to have any desire to continue his evil courses, and became a useful member ot society once more. ,If crime could always be cured in this way, a very great social problem would be solved. Dr. Albert Wilson, an English brain specialist, works on somewhat similar nnes. He divides criminals into four orders viz., insane, unstable, "sports" fr!L? bota. meal sense), and criminals norn environment or surroundings thl er!J ere two gl e l a-t ? 1- asses > of wluch j he^li T^ 6re subdl™»>ns, and these he called Perverts, and Inverts. He ffSefam^ QS °f Th and the cul'es Amomr«f I suitable treatment.

land has to be thanked for recruiting; the Inverts. "Poor children witn starved brains and bad heredity are forced to learn a lot of stuff at school quite useless for their environment." The sum total of Dr. Wilson's conclusions is that the indeterminate sentence is the only rational cure for the disease of crime. "Our system of dealing with crime is entirely wrong," he says. "We want to make a clean sweep of our whole legal machinery and have it put in fresh. Each criminal has some peculiarity of his own which needs special consideration. At present we seem to aim at vengeance, not reform." On the oppos- : ing side may be mentioned the opinioni of an ex-prisoner, Mr H. J. B. Mont-* gomery, who advocates short and severe sentences. But Sir Alfred: Wills, an ex-judge, like Dr. Wilson, favours the indeterminate sentence. Mr Montgomery and sir Alfred Wills, the two advocates of opposing systems, have lately been discussing the matter in the English press. Sir Alfred Wills is quite convinced that there are a considerable number of professional criminals whose reformation is absolutely hopeless. He would simply give them an' "indeterminate sentence." A man so sentenced would not be released until he had given actual proof ot advance in character. In the opinion of Mr Montgomery, the result would be that there would be develope<T m gaol an even larger proportion ot religious humbugs than are to be tound there at present. During his incarceration he discussed this and other matters with criminals of every kind and degree, and he never came

across a man, however long he had been a criminal, who did not loathe and- detest his occupation. He found. out, m nearly every instance, that the evolution of their career proceeded upon regular lines. And he had only to look round the corridors of tnat great convict prison in which he was himself a prisoner to see that the evolutionary process was still actively at work m the gradual but sure manufacture of the professional criminal. JJivery hour of their lives in that prison they had borne in upon them the fact that they were not as other men, and that they never could be again as other men and on their return to the world they were given to understand,-in unmistakable manner tnat.they assuredly were not as other men. Mr Montgomery was very stT lgfi^f .the °Pinion th*t it was not short, but long, sentences that were mischievous. ■■ Alter a comparatively short neriod in gaol the only effect of imprisonment upon the man '%?£'£ i S °^T9n, to drive home on mm. the tact of its extreme stupidity., Alter two or three years it utterly tailed to have any punitive effect whatever, and only tended to harden and degrade the prisoner, and to cause a mental and physical deterioration, lhese opinions, coming from one who has himself been through the mill, a£ e valuable; but after all they only show the effects of long terms of incarceration under the usual conditions of imprisonment. Those who advocate the indeterminate sentence aim at something entirely different. It is not prolonged punishment, but curative treatment that is their object and seeing that imprisonment either tor long or short terms has so far tailed m reforming the criminal, there *! n?j reaf° n why the new method should not now be given a trial. In JVew Zealand the system has already been inaugurated, let us hope with the best ultimate results.