Crime and Punishment
THERE is at least one pOint on which all. critics of Lord Trenchard's Police Report will agree—that it was admirably up to date. The same cannot be said of other official publications supplying just that informa- tion which ought to be studied in conjunction with the question of the police. The Report of the Commissioners of Prisons recently issued only brings us down to the end of 1931. It is therefore 17 months behind the times. The latest complete " Criminal Statistics " available are for the year 1930, and are therefore 29 months behind the times. It will hardly be denied that an understanding of the facts relating to crime is an important preliminary to any decision about the Police Force, which is charged with the duty of preventing and detecting crime. From every point of view it is desirable that an effort should be made to, envisage the problem in the broadest way. The public has been alarmed by repeated sensational reports of burglaries, " smash-and-grab " raids and high- way robberies ; it remembers Sir Herbert Du Parcq's report last year about a " new type of prisoner " in Dartmoor who is " usually young, determined, and adventurous " ; and it is inclined to ask whether there is something wrong with our police system which fails to prevent crime, with our prison system which is failing to deter or to reform criminals, or with our civilization in general which, it is too readily supposed, is becoming a breeding-ground of crime. Are there, or are there not, grounds for these increasing fears and complaints ?
The slightest examination of facts and figures shows that there has been enormous exaggeration of the so- called " crime wave." The particulars of the number of prisoners received in 1981 reveal the same general trend as the statistics of indictable and non-indictable offences known to the police in 1930 and preceding years. In certain important classes of crime, so far from an increase, there has been a steady decrease during the last twenty years. There are fewer murders committed. From an annual average of 4.2 per million of population in the years preceding the War the figure has fallen in a continu- ous curve to 3.1 in 1930. There has been a similar reduc- tion in cases of attempted murder, assaults, malicious damage, breach of police regulations, cruelty to children and animals and other offences ; and the prison statistics for 1931 indicate that the figures were still falling in that year. Certain other classes, such as sex offences, show an increase, probably more apparent than real, owing to the greater willingness on the part of the public in recent years to bring charges. Taken as a whole, the statistics show that crimes " against the person " have diminished ; and that the increase is mainly in respect of crimes " against property." Here, indeed, it has to be admitted that there is cause for uneasiness. Cases of burglary and house-breaking have nearly doubled since the War. Simple and minor larcenies have gone up from a pre-War average of 1.655 per million of population to 2,128 in 1930. There is more receiving of stolen goods, more forgery, more Coining. In a word, whilst there has been less exhibition of savagery and brute cruelty, there has been more criminal disrespect for property.
Since the first step towards remedying a disease is to diagnose it, it is at least some satisfaction that there is little difficulty in accounting for the increased crimes against property. The motor-ear and • the telephone have given added facilities, unemployment has increased the motive, overcrowding has lowered the will to resist, and certain extreme types of political-propaganda have weakened the sense of the sacredness of property. It is possible that detective stories, crime films, and sensational newspaper reports have played their part in suggestionizing potential criminals. But there is abun- dant evidence to show that the most serious cause of the growth of offences against property is unemployment.
and especially unemployment among the young. The number of youths sentenced to Borstal Detention continues. to increase," says the Prison report ; owing to the " increase in the number of youths found guilty of serious offences." The more closely we examine the facts the more we shall become convinced of the necessity of distinguishing between crime detection and crime prevention. To deal with cleverer criminals and with mechanical modern facilities for crime is a police problem. But to track the virus to its breeding place in unemployment, poverty and overcrowding is a social problem calling for quite different methods of approach.
There are some who have expressed a belief that the increase of crime is due to the inadequacy of the penalties. inflicted and the leniency of treatment in prison. Some, on the other hand, complain that it is prison life which has created the habitual criminal class, and that men who have once conic under its demoralizing influence are apt to return again and again. There is more justice in the second criticism than in the first. There exist ex-Governors of prisons, it is true, praisers of times past, who have pleaded for a return to some of the severities of the old-time system ; but the majority of experts take the opposite view, and are convinced that the aim of administrators should be, as far as possible, to restore the morale of the prisoner and promote in him a healthier habit of life. This view, happily, is in the ascendant under the existing administration. The movement in this direction received a great impetus when Mr. Winston Churchill was Home Secretary more than twenty years ago ; and perhaps the most valuable public work that the late Lord Brentford ever accom- plished was to carry this movement further. The latter used his influence to the utmost towards limiting short sentences, of which there are still far too many.
The first object should be to keep out of• prison altogether persons who can be dealt with satisfactorily by any other means. Those who, in the interest of society or in their own interest, must be sent to prison; should be treated, as far as possible, in accordance with their individual weaknesses, and always with the object of reformation. It is with this end in view that men sentenced to Penal Servitude have recently been re- classified, so that first offenders are separated from hardened criminals, and young men of higher physique and. mentality from those who are older or of poor physique and mentality. Moreover the importance of finding suitable work for prisoners is increasingly realized, and the Wakefield experiment of paying them for work performed has been extended. Today there is more thought and scientific study devoted to the treat- ment of criminals than ever before ; but there is a long road to travel before crime will be handled with that sort of discrimination which is applied to sickness. The community cannot be satisfied until the whole problem is dealt with from three separate but converging lines of :approach : the checking of crime at the source by social reform ; the bringing of criminals to justice by the police ; and the subsequent improved application of justice which will tend to remove the criminal propensity and, at the worst, segregate incurables.
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