HOPELESS CRIMINALS. T HE treatment of habitual criminals is becoming an
urgent as well as a difficult question. That class plays the part of a nursery from which at any moment the perfect offender can be obtained. Habitual criminals may not in all cases be prepared to commit murder whenever a sufficient inducement offers itself, but an unknown and probably an increasing percentage of them are ready to answer any sudden call of this kind. The border-line be- tween murder and lesser crimes is not so clearly marked as poets and novelists would have us think. There are men in fair abundance who are not murderers simply because they have had no occasion to become murderers. Conse- quently, as often as a man comes out of prison for the second or third time a possible murderer is let loose upon society. This is an uncomfortable reflection for all people who have property that is worth taking. With the most sincere intention of offering no obstacle to a burglar's movements they may, merely by their undesired presence on the scene of his operations, irritate him into the use of his revolver. Fowler and Milson did not leave home on the night of Mr. Smith's death with any distinct purpose of committing a murder. But they belonged to a class which regards murder simply as an incident which may at any time present itself in the course of the burglaries which form their regular occupation. In this aspect—and it is an aspect that is growing increasingly common--the habitual criminal becomes a personage who claims serious attention.
Probably Judges and Magistrates are responsible to some extent for the existence of this class. The un- certainty which prevails, first as to the severity of the sentence that will be passed by a particular Judge on a particular offender, and "next as to the degree of im- portance that a particular Judge will attach to repeated convictions, introduces a mischievous uncertainty into the criminal law. Absolute uniformity of sentences is un- desirable as well as unattainable, but the inevitable variety should have its origin in the extenuating circum- stance on the part of the prisoner, not in mere eccentricity on the part of the Judge. Anything that goes beyond this converts punishment into a lottery in which any one may hope to draw a prize. It is probable, again, that the prison life of first offenders is not as wisely regulated as it might be. We are not blind, indeed, to the difficulties which lie in the way. Solitary confinement soon becomes an intolerably severe penalty ; association with other prisoners involves almost inevitable contamination. But it ought not to be beyond the ingenuity of the experts in prison discipline to devise some method by which, in the case of first offenders, the penalty may be made irksome enough to be really deterrent, and yet not of a kind which turns out the prisoner a worse man than he came in. This end will not be attained by simply shortening the sentence. On the contrary, we are inclined to doubt whether the sentences on first offenders might not with advantage be at once longer and less severe than they are now. Whether, in short, a first offence, at all events when committed under a certain age, might not be a passport to a reformatory rather than to a gaol. Still, after the manufacture of habitual criminals has been lessened in every possible way, there will still be a remnant—probably a large remnant—to be dealt with somehow. As it is they come up for trial and condemns- tion again and again, and when their punishment is over they are dismissed from one prison only to turn up with unfailing regularity in another. Their first robbery is committed perhaps at fifteen, and from that day forward their lives are a monotonous record of fresh offences and fresh imprisonments. The deterrent effect of the penalty has disappeared. They are so accustomed to a gaol that their imagination seems no longer able to picture any better mode of life. And, indeed, if it still performed its proper function in this way it might only paint an un- attainable good. We wonder idly at the rooted indis- position to honest work which is bred of prison life, but we do not ask ourselves quite so often what chance an habitual criminal would have of getting work if by some miracle he came to desire it. The most charitable among us would hesitate before giving employment to the hero of several repeated convictions. We might be anxious that he should have another chance, and be given the opportunity to make a fresh start, but we should also be of opinion that it was a case for " an institution rather than for individual help."
There is rather a consensus of opinion just now in favour of the perpetual detention of habitual criminals in an asylum prison. This has been recommended by Dr. Anderson, of the Criminal Investigation Department, by the Daily Chronicle, and by the St. James's Gazette. After a certain number of convictions a criminal would not again be let loose to prey upon society. The remainder of his life would be spent in prison. The discipline, indeed, would be less severe than that with which he was familiar, but to compensate for this it would last as long as he did. He would go in, as he had so often gone in before, but he would never come out. The advan- tages of this project are obvious enough. We spend a great deal of money in keeping criminals in prison only to send them out again more fit for punishment than they were before. Consequently we do but delay the evil day as regards either them or ourselves. After twenty years possibly of a man's life have been passed in gaol he is set at liberty for the fifth or tenth time, and then commits murder and is hanged. The old man whom Fowler and Milson killed the other day had paid taxes all his life in order to protect himself against burglary. As it turned out he might just as well have paid nothing, and left the burglar to do his worst. Both these inconsistencies would be avoided by the perpetual detention plan. Fowler and Milson would now be in safe custody with no murder behind them, and Mr. Smith would be still enjoying his suburban seclusion.
Unfortunately, though the advantages of the proposal are obvious, the objections to it are at least equally obvious. In the first place, it would be very costly. So, it may be said, is the present system. If we had more burglars in prison we should have fewer at large, and to keep the whole class might in the end prove less ex- pensive than leaving them to keep themselves. That is a point on which it is hard to form an opinion, but even if the calculation is accurate, the whole community would have to pay for the asylums, whereas it is, after all, but a fraction of the community that runs any serious risk of being burgled, or is anxious to pay a larger insurance against it. In the next place, the maintenance of dis- cipline in the asylums would be a work of great difficulty. So long as the prisoners did not go the length of murder they could only be imprisoned, and that ex-hypothesesi they are already, and for life. Bread and water and dark cells might or might not have any effect on them, and if they had not could not be prolonged indefinitely. Moreover, while they lasted, they would throw the whole burden of the prisoner's maintenance on the community, for even an industrious man would find it hard to do profitable work without light, and with only bread and water to live upon. The Daily Chronicle's theory of the matter seems to be that the prisoners would be under no temptation to be troublesome. Work and food would be provided for them, and they "would be treated with no greater harshness than was compatible with discipline." But to make life in an asylum as pleasant as this would be tanta- mount to offering a prize to constancy in ill-doing. The man who had been imprisoned twice would find no relaxa- tion of the penalty when he entered upon his third term. The man who had been imprisoned half-a-dozen times would find that his sixth term was by comparison a bed of roses. No doubt this difficulty would be lessened by the adoption of a plan suggested some years ago, by which the prisoners would have to work for their living, and would get no more food or clothing than they had actually earned. To this, however, there are two objections. One is the immense difficulty of ascertaining how much each man was able to do. It is plain that the money paid them must be calculated on the basis of their ability to labour. A man who outside the prison could do so much in a day, would be on a level inside the prison with the man who could do twice as much in the same time. Each would have done his best, and each would have established his title to the maintenance promised to all who did their best to earn it. We greatly fear that the first case in which the gaol officials miscalculated a man's powers, or an obstinate prisoner submitted to something like starvation rather than get through his allotted task, would be fatal to the project. And that one or other or both of these things would happen before the system had been long in operation we can hardly doubt. We wish that there were more promise in it, but we cannot honestly say that we think the case for it is as yet perfectly made out.
Previous page
