Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1880-11-20
1ancastcr ft,telhgenrer.
SATURDAY EVENING, NOV. 20, 1880.
Prevention and Punishment.

Crime-Its Prevention and Punishment.
The observer of the administration of
criminal justice here must be convinced
that, owing either to defective system
or i'll operation OF. it, or both, such ad-
ministration does not meet the purposes
of punishment, and does not serve the
highest good of the community. One
grand jury after another utters its pro-
test; the people who attend court by
compulsiOn, or for criticism, go on COM
planning, but we do not see any marked
improvement in the causes for their COM
plants. 1t is true that for large and
populous district we are singularly free
from crimes Of the highest order, and
as has been observed, one stout
man and horsewhip could ef-
fectually punish most of the crimes
tried in our quarter sessions. 1t is form
ication and bastardy assault and battery,
and petty larceny cases that make up
the bulk of our quarter sessions business.
The exceptional immunity we enjoy from
more serious breaches of the peace is all
the more reason why our administration
OF criminal law should be simple, effect
i've and economical. 1t is not any of
these.
The fault of the rapid increase in busi-
ness lies largely with 4 few magistrates
and constables who abuse their offices in
the belief that they occupy them to gain
alivelihood. Their working up" of cases
means the discovery of rs large num-
Ter rs possible Of preteXtS for making
complaints. These are encouraged in
whatever degree they make business and
are put into the hands of constableS by
magistrates or into the hands of magiS-
trates by conStables, to he famed 10y
each for their mutual benefit. If there
turns out to he nothing in the case the
county pays all the costs, and if it goes
through court there. is a reasonable
chance in any event of the officials get
ting their pay. Witness the Or. Greene
case in which the district attorney and
4 constable were induced by the real
prosecutors in the case to push it through
and the county pays the costs. for the
fiascO. 1t is only Il specimen of what is
going on all the time. The one party
who never suffer are the officers. They
manage TO get their dancing free no
matter who pays the piper.
But ii is to he feared that our system
of punishment has little terror for the
petty criminals who come under it again
and again. We see pretty much the
same people at one court after another
and they are not out of Jail long until
they seem to want TO get back. They do
not come back to tine whipping post SO
readily. Corporal punishment for legal
offenders is unpopular. 1t is hooted at
as harbarism. We see no good reason
for the prejudice against it, and what a
travesty on our civilization that the rod
is kept in the household under Solomon s
advice and the lash is laid on in the
school room, while such 4 howl is
raised when the whipping post is
set up in the Jail yard! The
people who whip their children can with
i'll grace cry down logging for crimi.
nails. Ii punishment is to prevent crime
the whipping post prevents it. If it is
to secure an adequate compensation fol
the Offensc surely flOgging can only fit.
ly answer OffenSeS of some character.
Ii it is to deter a repetition of the offcnse
our present modes of punishment do moi
at least answer. We have yet to bc sat.
islied that whipping, judicially and judi
ciOusly administered, would bc any retro.
grade movement.
The subject needs attention-more
than the court gives it, more than grand
juries can give it: and while the state is
concerned over other things it loses sight
of the greatest question which concerns
the effective prevention and most prac~
ticable punishment Of crime.