The Labor enquirer., 1883-04-07
A New ThCOrT.

awakened such deep interest that Truth
reproduces it in substance:
The day is dawning when We shall
demand improved methods Of dealing
with crime. The state has a deep in
terest in this question, and so has each
individual. Neither can afford to have
it increase in amount OF become worse
in kind. Both desire that it shall .di-
minish and if possible disappear alto
gether. Meanwhile crime, like disease,
exists and must be treated. Our methods
of dealing with it will be reflex Of our
motives. If we deal with it wisely it
will show that we are wise if cruelty,
that we are cruel if fooIishIy, that we
are foolish. Our present methods show
streaks of both wisdom, fooIi8hness and
cruelty, with a preponderance of the
latter. We want the wisdom to increase,
and the fOolishneSs and cruelty to dis
appear. 1t is to this end that | wish to
contribute a few thoughts on this subject.
And, in the first place, "What is crime
and who are the criminaIs?' Crime is
sometimes made to include branches OF
moral principle, and many minor Of
rfenses which the law does not punish or
even consider. Disregarding these Of
fenses, we may define it to be conduct OF
which the state disapproveS, and which,
if committed. demands a penalty, as, for
instance, murder, theft, arson, perjury,
cruelty, assault and trespa8s. No one
needs to be told that what was once
considered no crime maybe considered
crime to-day, and vice versa. In prima-
tive tribes, murder, robbery and rape are
not crimes. Even in ciziIized societies
much that is evil and leads directly to
misery and poverty are not yet cOn8id-
cred as crimes, but vices though they
may be in the near future, as, for in
stance the sale Of Intoxicating drinks.
And a criminal is one of whose conduct
the state disapprOyes, one who must be
punished or found guilty of doing what
it condemns. A. least this is the gener-
ally received opinion. But let us 60
little deeper into this subject. Although
criminals may be classified in many
ways, yet for the purpose Of this paper
they will be divided into two classes.
The first and by far the larger class are
weak and inefficient persons, whose .
nature is not strongly developed, and .
who, finding it hard, with their poor
facilities of body and mind, to compete
with the strong and selfish, undertake to
gain livelihood by what seems tc them
a more easy method than hard work,
namely, theft I have had many oppor-
tunities to observe this class of criminals
They are almost always physically and .
morally INFERIOR Their personal appear
ance is usually against them. They are
poorly fitted to fill positions Of trust. |
They are commonly unframed to Syste-
matte labor, and 90 not love it, AT first
these persons are not criminals, and only |.
become 50 from inability to obtain work. |
They steal because they DO not want to
starve.. Had their parents been obsery-
ant of the laws Of sanitary and physio-
logical .parentage, these persons would
not have been born into the world. or
having been born. would have received
a better heritage and been reared under
more favorable conditions | am con-
vinced that much rascaIity is propagated
by unSanitary parentage, and might be
prevented by a more extended knowI-
edge among both rich and poor of the
laws of breeding human beings. The
other class of criminals is bad by nature.
They have abundant physical strength,
energy, ambition, q perfect appreciation
of the processes of law, but little or no
ability to restrain themselves from crime,
and an almost total lack of the sentiment
of right or appreciation of wrong. They
are either born with mental or moral
defects, or those elements Of character
existing in a rudimentary creature have
never been developed in them; or more
probably both these things are true. /
know full well this idea will not be fa-
vorably received by MANY, and in con-
frmation of it I wish to refer. to the
recent studies of lIoritz Benedict pro-
. fessor at Vienna, as published in his
srgreat work on Anatomical Studies upon
the Brain8.o Criminals" According to
his Investigations on the brains of a
large number of noted offenders there is