The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1888-03-31
AN uNcoNs,psaEp EVIL.
Dangers CROWNS Out Of the Return Of
Criminals From the Gaols.

70 limit physical sickness we deliber.
ately continue year after year to spread
and to perpetunte another sort Of dis
ease which Is eating at the very vitals
Of society. Vice and crime not only
prey upon society, they poison 1t. And
what we do is this: Over and over
again we return again into the COM
munity all the crime that finds its way
into our jails. The fever hospitals, the
smallpox hospitals do not send their
patients out till they are cured, till
there is no risk Of spreading the conta-
gion of their several diseases. The in
mates of our jails, or vast number Of
them. are never cured. They are in
durable. They are either born crimi-
nals-of which, in the nature of things,
there must be very many thousands in
a population like that Of England-or
they have become infected with crime
and hardened in it, as may easily hap
pen. considering the condition in which
a man finds himself after imprisonment
for even one serious offense. 1t is
common belief that our prisons, our
convict establishments, are little better
than huge factories for receiving crimi-
nails at one end aud turning them out
at the other with their original deprav-
ity confirmed and intensified. Some of
those who have the most intimate
knowledge oil these things tell us that
almost every one of the poor wretches
whom we shut up in order to let loose
again leaves the prison more dangerous
to society than whom he entered it. It
is extremely likely. In one mans case
the brand of crime is where it was not
before; in another's it is deepened.
The shame which SO often passes into
desperation sezes OIL the less guilty;
the hardened criminal is yet more
hardened now. Yet we, knowing what
these men and women are, knowing
that they are not only vicious in them-
selves. but centers of contagion and
breeders and perpetrators of crime,
constantly turn them back from Jail
into the community of which they are
the dregs and the poison. This is done
methodically. We do it over and over
again with the same men and women;
and, after generation or two of what
in the precisely similar case of the hos
pitals would lie thought downright
madness, we are startled by the extra
ordinary number of ''roughs" that we
seem to possess.
How many Of us ever give thought
to this extraordinary system of con-
stantly returning criminal offenders
from the gaols. where they are too
often exasperated and hardened, into
the general community, where nine
tenths of them can do nothing but con-
tinue in their old ooursesP Very few,
weimagine. And the public Indifference
to what really is not law of nature
Is the more remarkable because the
problem of criminal discipline is of the
very essence of that condition. of-the-
people question which, for all sorts Of
curiously compounded and contrasted
reasons, has so closely and painfully
engaged attention of late. The misery
of the unemployed, the poor estate of
the half-employed, the gnawing anxie-
ticS VI LhduS WIZ ycC COuUIINc W uuu
fairly regular work and wages-these
are topics that are found in the mouths
of many who would be very sorry to
pose as philanthropists merely because
they acknowledge the common instincts
Of humanity. But while they worry the
husk they refuse to probe the kernel.
At the heart of the evil lies this peren-
nially prolific mass of hopeless vice and
crime, and with it we shall have to
deal if we mean to do anything worth
the doing If the thing is in any
way practicable we ought to change
the present system and take meas
ures for moving out of the COM
munity the worst members of the crim-
inal classes. Even as a factor in the
question of pauperism and destitution
this matter peremptorily claims atten-
tion. 1t would be very cruel and very
absurd to say that want is in every
case the result of misconduct; but it is
true that the inherited repugnance of
large numbers of our fellow-men to
honest industry alone makes distress
unmanageble. Thousands of the ''un-
employed" earn no wages because they
do not want to work. They do odd jobs,
they loaf, they tramp, they pilfer. they
steal, and so on through the whole
gamut of laziness and vice. Why is
thisp We have already said. Human
nature is far from perfect yet. Many
rogues are born; many others are easily
turned into rogues by circumstance. 1t
is likely enough that the instinct Of
evil living is transmitted; it is certain
that the contamination of vicious sur
roundings has its natural effect. Neces-
sity holds the born felon in q pitiless
grip. Birth gives theinfant the fatal bent
home-life develops it. The unwiedly
bulk of modern society is traversed by
hard lines of moral as we'll as of social
cleavage. Crime runs into pockets like
ore in tho mine. The Ishmaelites dwell
alone and propagate among themselves.
There is nothing to attenuate the vicious
strain. We have on the fringe of the
decent population class of creatures
who at best are worthless and too often
are pure pests. 1t is recruited, but it is
not regeneratod. from tho out side; on
the other hand, it feeds the ranks of the
thriftless, the reckless, the ne'er-do-
wells. What must be the result of such
q state Of thingsp With rapidly in
creasing population, with a greater
mass of poverty, "a greater number of
viciously disposed people crowding in