DEALING WITH THE CRIMINAL.

Hokitika Guardian, 25 March 1926, Page 4

DEALING WITH THE CRIMINAL.

NEW METHODS NECESSARY.

In spite of all that has been recently said and written about crime and the criminal certain problems remain unsolved, writes Capt. Frederick Graves, L.It.C.S., a former Prison Surgeon and Senior Medical Officei in Army Punishment Barracks, in the London “Daily Mail.” To begin with, what constitutes a criminal ? Is a man horn one? Is crime preventable and the crime curable. Are we still pushing into prison unfortunate delinquents who should never go there—to be transformed into habitual criminals? Is there any difference between defect and deliberate Wickedness?

Until we treat the roots of crime we shall always grow the fungus. Putting a man in gaol does not relieve us of crime or euro him. of evil.- Ihe psychologist and the alienist must have a hand in the job of prevention and reformation.

The prison system is by no means perfect anil some of the well-meant efforts at reform arc probably worse than useless. The young and the flist offender should be spared at all costs from prison taint; but if a man deserves prison that treatment should be punitive and sharp. The short sentence is futile. Prisonexperieme should be dreaded as a deterrent. All authorities are agreed that coddling the prisoner, .so largely practised of late in America, is bad. It is no use doing and half-undoing a thing, and to lighten •penal servitude with concerts, films anil lectures is probably a great mistake.

Shall we ever eliminate the criminal? Perhaps not. since crime is not so much an offence against society—the old view—as against sanity and normality. AVo. know that many factors enter in—heredity, mental defect, environment. The child of the slums, with bad food, bad air, bad example, and the rest ol it, lias too olton little chance of escaping the prison gates with its poor deformed body and brain. Is it a wonder it so often goes under and that once it falls it falls again? DEFECTS OF MIND. And prison blunts the inmates’ feelings. Prison creates a criminal,” as an authority has said. “ Before he goes lo gaol a man dreads it, both for the life lie may live there and for tho social stigma, it confers; but this deterrent effect disappears with familiarity, and nothing becomes easier than to return to prison. Out of 3 1 .000 persons in prison last year 24,900 had been there before, and of 8,000 women 7.000 had been previously convicted. But much has been done. The criminal has not increased in proportion to tho population. There are 91 fewer prisons in England than 50 years ago, when the population was half what it is now. Another interesting point: crime to-day is not generally due to the great unemployment. In proportion to population there was practic-

ally four times as much crime half a couture ago with scarcely any uuoiik ployment as there is now with ovci 1,000.000 men and women out of work! Much crime is rather the result of defect than of deliberate evil. AVliero there is crime there is abnormality; tho mind i- warped. No criminal can ho truly sane, and whether maniac, a victim of dementia procox. or mere crank, the hide-bound law that takes no account of cause is blithely adding to the problem. Some interesting ihings have recently come to light. One striking fact -is Hint it is. as a rule, Ihe young man who falls. Of -17.000 men convicted in 1923 nearly 11,0000 were between 20 and 30. Ten years later seems to he the danger period for women. TAINTED BLOOD. Dr Woods Hutchison, the great American alienist, tells us some strange things. Take one ol his examples: There wore two well-known branches of a family. A young man ran wild and lived for a time with a feehle-minded girl. He then went to the war of 177 G. returned, and married a decent girl of good family. On delving into the pedigrees it was found that all the mem hors of the family could be li need back to one or other of the two far-hack female ancestors. From the first girl sprang a progeny of 150 lunatics, drunkards, thieves, paupers anil prostitutes, from Ihe other side 130 decent citizens.

Again, consider the famous Jukes ease, with its 700 delinquents and prostitutes, three had murderers and innumerable minor offenders. “Feeblemindedness,” we are told, “probably accounts for 30 per cent, of crimes and 9 per cent, of pauperism and prostitution.”

Perhaps too many cases have been classed as dementia. Jacoby, of Detroit. regards criminals as 10 to 15 per cent, insane, 30 to 40 per.cent, feeble-minded, and 30 per cent, “cranks" or “ misfits ” —which means that about 60 to 70 per cent, are mentally defective and unbalanced. .Judge Olsen's famous " laboratory ” at Chicago detects 1.500 criminal ‘‘apprentices ” a year and puts them to educative or reparative institutions. As has been well said, the secret of the crime problem lies in flic mind of the criminal. When grave mental defect producing anti-social conduct is

discovered the rational remedy is segregation. with the sexes separated, or sterilisation. Little can lie done with the confirmed sinner. One may. to sonic extent, improve or reform him; hut the great thing is to prevent his evolution.