CODDLING CRIMINALS.
THE old controversy as to whether we should punish or coddle our criminals, was revived this week at the British Association by Dr. Strahan. Dr. Strahan is alto- .gether for the coddling process ; but though we cannot give in our adhesion to many of his conclusions, we readily admit that there is much that is sound and reasonable in 'his view. He pushes his theories much too far, and he falls into the fallacy of imagining that the moral nature is 'necessarily dependent upon the physical ; but at the same time he makes several very good points against the present system of treating criminals. If he is inclined to be at once too sentimental and too scientific—he evidently thinks that there is a hard-and-fast line between sanity and insanity, and between the normal and the abnormal human being—he is careful not to fall into the attitude adopted Iby Mr. Creakle towards ITriah Heap. Dr. Strahan's view is, that the greater part of crime is due to what he terms instinctive criminality ;" and for those who suffer from this morbid moral and physical condition he desires to establish a new treatment. According to him, criminals are to be divided into two classes,—those who become criminal from " passion, poverty, or temptation, or even from example and education alone ;" and those "who take to anti-social ways by instinct or nature, and who murder, and steal, and lie, and cheat, not because they are driven to do so by force of adverse circumstances, but because they are drawn to such a course by an in- stinct which is born in them, and which is too strong to be resisted by their weak volitional power had they the desire to resist, which they have not." To this class, Dr. ,Strahan declares, belong fully two-thirds of our whole 'criminal population, " including offenders of all grades, from the murderer down to the petty thief." A still larger proportion of prostitutes and habitual drunkards, who, although not criminals in the eye of the law, are anti-social in their instincts, must also be added to this category. It is for this class of instinctive criminals, the men and women who are asserted to represent " a special abnormal variety of humanity," that Dr. Strahan claims a form of treatment different from that employed in the case of those who, though not instinctively criminal, murder and steal through other causes. An examination of the instinctive criminal, says Dr. Strahan, shows that he is "in every case a more or less degenerate specimen of humanity." He is, we are told, " the representative of a decaying race." " Primarily it is his moral nature that is at fault and leads him to offend against society ; but if we examine more closely, we shall find that his whole economy, moral, physical, and intellectual, is more or less degenerate. It is seldom indeed that we find any of his class even re- motely approaching perfection either physically or intel- lectually." According to Maudsley, whom Dr. Strahan quotes, the low mental and physical characteristics of the criminal class are most marked. " They are scrofulous, not seldom deformed, with badly formed angular heads, are stupid, sullen, sluggish, deficient in vital energy, and sometimes afflicted with epilepsy." Intellectually they are almost always deficient. In fact, many of them very nearly approach the idiot. Their cunning must not be mistaken for intellect, for it is merely the animal cunning of the idiot. Often the instinctive criminal becomes actually insane. The statistics on this point are indeed very remarkable. " Of all the persons convicted of murder during the ten years 1879-88, no less than 32 per cent. were found insane ; while a further 32 per cent. had their sentences commuted, a large number on the ground of mental weakness and morbid family history ; leaving only one-third of all those actually found guilty of murder to undergo the last penalty of the law." The figures as to their physical degeneracy are not less remarkable. It has been estimated that 40 per cent. of all convicts are more or less invalids, and, as a rule, they fall "far below any minimum standard of healthy human development." They are found to be peculiarly liable to diseases due to a degenerate organisation, and suffer largely from tubercu- losis. Another proof of their low vitality is to be found in the fact that the prison death-rate is 50 per cent. higher than that of the ordinary population at corresponding ages. Another point of connection between the criminal and the madman, it is asserted, can be found in the fact that in the prison, as in the asylum, no such thing as beauty is ever to be found,—a fact which lends an un- expected support to the popular distrust of the ill-favoured and the misshapen. Again, it is asserted that, if the family history of criminals is closely observed, it will be found that insanity and crime are interchangeable. The children of criminal parents are mad, and vice-verses ; and it often happens that, while the sister displays the criminal instinct, the brother is insane. The criminal, in a word, is declared to be " on all-fours with the idiot, the epileptic, the suicide, and the insane."
Having, in his own opinion, established this connection, Dr. Strahan proceeds to draw the inevitable conclusion that the criminal is as much to be pitied as the madman, and deserves to be as humanely treated. " He is, in fact, as much sinned against as sinning. He can no more govern or check the inharmonious action of his vicious organisation than can the epileptic or the insane. Society must protect itself against him, but it should do that without being cruel." Having arrived at this conclu- sion, Dr. Strahan is, of course, at once brought face to face with the question of deterrent agencies. But is not the kind and pitying treatment suggested by Dr. Strahan's view of the facts likely to lead to an increase of crime ? Dr. Strahan answers this in effect by declaring that the present system of punishments intended to deter, has in reality no deterrent effect. The criminal, he asserts, obeys his vicious instinct without any thought or fear of gaol. The figures to prove this are taken from a speech by Lord Herschel. According to him, there are annually in the United Kingdom a quarter of a million commitments, which are believed to represent only 145,000 individuals, viz. :-112,000 men and 33,000 women. Of these 33,000 women, 11,000, or 33 per cent., had ten im- prisonments and upwards recorded against them; and of the 112,000 men, 16,250, or 14'5 per cent., had suffered a like number of punishments. These figures do certainly seem to show that in many cases the deterrent effect of imprisonment is small. Still, we cannot agree with Lord Herschell that they prove the existing system to have com- pletely broken down. It may be that though our system is imperfect, it will be found impossible to devise any more satisfactory mode of treatment. Dr. Strahan, however, knows no such doubts :—" Upon the criminal from passion or poverty, and upon the designing person who, after thinking the matter out, elects to run the risks of his action, punitive imprisonment has a deterrent and conse- quently a curative effect; but upon the criminal from instinct and upon the habitual drunkard, it has no more effect than had the whip and the chain upon the ravings of the maniac of a hundred years ago, and these cruel and impotent agents it must soon follow to the oblivion of the things that were."
To a certain extent, all persons who have turned their attention to the subject of punishment and crime will agree with Dr. Strahan. We believe, however, that there is a fallacy in his premisses which vitiates a great part of his conclusions. In order to arrive at his conclusion that the criminal commits crime purely instinctively, and therefore not only does not deserve strict punishment, but will not be deterred from fresh crimes by it, he has to assume that his instinctive criminal—this victim of insanity and physi- cal and mental degeneration—is devoid of free-will. Before, says Dr. Strahan, the law-abiding citizen can appreciate the criminal's true position, he must demolish " two fundamental errors,—viz., the doctrine of free-will, and the belief still held by the uneducated, and even by some persons of education, that all men and women come into the world with a certain unvarying quantuni of moral feelings." The context seems to show that Dr. Strahan has no intention of saying that the normal human being is not possessed of free-will, but merely to declare that it does not exist in his instinctive criminal. This, it appears to us, is the fallacy which upsets a great part of Dr. Strahan's conclusions,—that while, as a matter of fact, it is absolutely impossible to draw a line between those who can and those who cannot exercise a free will, Dr. Strahan assumes that the line can be drawn with tolerable certainty. No doubt you may take a particular lunatic or idiot of a very pronounced type, and show that in him there are no indications of a free will. In many cases of insanity, however, there is a certain sur- vival of freedom of volition which can be most beneficially appealed to ; and in those of instinctive criminality, we believe that it would be most unfortunate to assume that free-will had been demolished. In almost every instance, it will, we believe, be found that the best chance for re- formation is to appeal to, and if possible awaken, the free- will which, when dead in appearance, may often be only dormant. Punishment is one of the most powerful methods of arousing the volition, and it would in our opinion be most unwise to throw it aside in obedience to a general assumption that free-will does not exist in the case of the instinctive criminal.
But though we hold that to abandon the notion of responsibility in the case of criminals would be most un- wise, we find ourselves less inclined to differ with Dr. Strahan as to his actual proposals for treating criminals. In effect, he desires that when three previous convic- tions have been proved against an offender, he or she should be sent to a penitentiary for an indefinite term,—that is, should be detained during pleasure. This proposal is so far excellent. At present there are several thousand well-known and easily recognisable criminals who in effect pass their lives in gaol, but who at certain stated intervals—called expirations of the last sen- tence—are let out to prey on society. The Governor of the gaol knows quite well that when Bill Sykes has done his three years and been discharged, he will be back again in a year or so for another term ; and the reappearances of certain convicts at the gaols can be relied on with abso- lute certainty. Dr. Strahan's plan would put a stop to this, and, still more important, would do something to pre- vent the propagation of that criminal breed which can be shown to exist in all our great centres of population. When Dr. Strahan had got his recidivists into the penitentiary, he would classify them into three grades, and raise them from one to the other according to behaviour. Meantime, every effort would be made for the moral and physical im- provement of the convicts. In successful cases—that is, where it was clear that he had improved—the criminal would be let out on parole. The hopeless cases, however, would be detained permanently, just as the lunatics are detained at Broadmoor. No doubt this scheme would be liable to abuse. If, however, worked strictly and care- fully, it might rid the country of a great deal of human wreckage of a very dangerous sort. The notion of in- definite detention and discipline would not be attractive to the criminal, and if only the very few cases of real cure were given their freedom, the penitentiary would. probably be rather a terror than the reverse. All would depend upon the strength of mind of the Governor. If he yielded to the " poor, dear criminal " cry, and grew sentimental, Dr. Strahan's scheme would turn out a curse to the country. If, on the other hand, he was strict, firm, and unimpulsive, a great deal might be accomplished that would be an improvement on the present system.
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