HOW CRIMINALS ARE MADE

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 101, 23 January 1920, Page 11

HOW CRIMINALS ARE MADE

In speaking of the attitude to the lawbreaker at his lecture the other evening Mr. Jinaraiadasa said that we, his fel-low-beim;s, had our share of responsibility to bear for his wrongdoing. Through our intolerance of poverty, our love of luxury, our lack of realisation of other subtler elements that were at work, we helned him on his downward path. \\e had to understand fliat our ugly hoardings, our eyesores in the way of old tincans and rubbish- lying about were helpimr to make criminals. These things were not. in God's scheme of things, but thev were .neriuited .by us. ' America, with hor juvenile courts was showing gleams of sanity in connection with flic law-breaker. it was considered that the State was responsible for his education. for his right upbringing. The Stato save the child temporarily into the hands of the parents to bring up, but it was the State's business to look after the parents. If the parents were slack then the State must "step in and look after the parents, sco to it that their Part with the child was played. There was no condemnation on the part of the Judge with these young lawbreakers. Ho simply (ri«d to put right the wrong society had done them

Through a neglect of brotherliness, through lack of sympathy and human kindness, wo permitted conditions that made for criminality. Few people, continued the lecturer, reealiscd the power of thought. Put a criminal in a gaol where tho whole atmosphere was charged with the resentment, the depression of men who have been there in one long succession until tho very walls are charged with everything that weighs down the human soul, and what are you going to get? Most certainly no improvement. Reforms must be brought about in connection with our- prisons. Instead of segregating a law-breaker he must bo Lent in touch with human influence.?, with home influences. We. must treat him with brotherliness, and we must under'!,\nd we cannot make him good by detesting him by ostracising him for his offences We had yet to realise that criminals v-t-re often made by the thought-- around them, for. which we were sometimes respei.sible. Thoughts of h-.if.eii. of gite.d, of envy were very real things, and ;■ weal' nature absorbed th'cm. and in an unguarded moment they ■sometimes look possession of him, with the result ihaf crime, was done. All of us were linked together by the power of thought, and so we were in very truth our her's . keeper. Through the science of the mind, through psychoanalysis. the v.o'-'.d was beginning to realist! these truths.