HARDENED CRIMINALS

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2245, 3 September 1914, Page 7

HARDENED CRIMINALS

• . . . . ; » ' . y'v-y;^' ' MAJOR DAEWIN'S . i- ', SJSWUSGATION. Major Leonard Darwin, in- 'tis" presidential address to the Eugenics Education Society,- recently urged .that: the lessening •'of the fertility of. habitual criminals was within the scope of eugenic reform. Whatever possibilities ;t'he future, might bring, the only method now within the range of practical politics was segregation. Major Da'rwin said that while improvement in environment would no doubt cause a diminution iii crime, a remnant of habitual,criminals would remain wiiose strong natural tendencies, being subject to the laws of natural inheritancej would infallibly tend to reappear in their descendants. To lessen • their fertility, therefore, Seemod within tho scope of eugenic- reform., The aim of the social reformer was where possib'o to remove the bad environment, but tho eugenist would at the sanio time also strive to strengthen fcho inniito characters of the individuals composing the coming generations. That result might be obtained by selective breeding. . _ • Courage had been claimed as a marked characteristic of the criminal, and that was no doubt true as regarded tips* convicted of certain crimes always severely punished When detected. But the only courage the man of many petty orimes needed to show as a rule was that required to face disgrace and imprisonment. ■ Was that a racial quality worth preserving at great cost and suffering to the nation? Those who/studied the habitual criminal would find few qualities in him. to admire. Their object should be' to pick out those who were endowed to a very exceptional extent wiln natural qualities which facilitated the adoption of a life of crimo, and having selected a class of the criminal community whose pVogeny the nation of the future could well do without, the next question was how to prevent that progeny from appearing on the face of tho earth. . , The eugenist condemned the existing system whereby the habitual criminal was subjected to : numerous .short imprisonments* because not only did it not tend to lessen the number, of his i progeny,' but was indeed likely to increase his racial productivity, by from timo to time giving renewed vigour. Much would havo to be done before the machinery esiab'ished under tho Mental Deficiency Act would produce the best prssiblo results, and they could not form any trustworthy ostimato of the number of criminals who would be dealt with under its provisions.. Sooner of inter they would be driven ,to inquire whether some steps ought hot to he tnken.with ■ regard to the remainder of their habitual criminal rtopu'ation. If lie could' only fao proved to bo either very stupid, very weak,' or utterly worthless, was the man who committed crime nftev crinio to bo allowed to go on breeding freely?