Morning journal and courier., 1888-02-20
TREATMENT OF CRIMINALS,

Address-How to Lessen Crime
 MaudlIn Sympathy For Murderer
 The Law of Here6itY-The Elmir
 RefOrmatOry.
 At the Church of the Messiah last evenin
 the time was occupied with interesting ad
 dresses delivered by ex-Judge Sheldon an
 the pastor, Rev. L. H. Squires.
 Judge Sheldon in his address said Obvi ously the first thing society or the State need
 to care for in the treatment of criminals i 1 that their numbers should be as few as pos l sible; not that crimes should be unpunishet or unrecognized, but that all the condition | that make for crime should be restricted, al the conditions that tend to upright live I should be extended and invigorated. Statistics show that about one per cent O. the children born in this country grow up tt l a life of crime or dependence on public char l ity, making an army of about 500, 900 and ar ! annual expense of about $90, ,0oO,0oO Now reduction of this army is desirable; the greater the better. Statistics show also that the criminal classes are largely illiterate. SC that compulsory education is a powerful fac. tor in diminishing crime. Drunkenness is 6 prolific cause of crime and the less drunken ness the less crime. So of gambling and prostitution and idleness. The devil finds work for idle hands; so promote industry and lessen crime. So also savings banks protected by law, and wise laws that make if difficult for creditors to plunder debtors or debtors to plunder creditors, help to lessen crime, for they encourage industry and fru- gality and restrain pauperism. An instl uct- ed public opinion in regard to crimi- nals and crime would help reduce the num- Der of criminals. The boys fed on Jesse
 
 dime novel trash come st last to think vice superior to virtue and desire to emulate will lains and cutthroats.
 The excess of punishment, particularly the punishment by death, sometimes attracts young and sympathetic women whose eff fusiveness and gifts eff flowers and pictures and general hero worship tend all in the wrong direction, and either the punishment by death should be abolished or such exhibi- tions of sympathy should be strongly re. pressed.
 Again, practical recognition in the treat ment of criminals ought to be given to the law of heredity. Incorrigible criminals placed under the control of the State boards of charity can be and ought to be controlled so that any infraction of this law should be re- garded as distinct and punishable offence.
 But after all that can be done by society ,or the State to reduce their number, many criminals will remain to be dealt with by courts and prison keepers.
 How shall these be treated?
 l. By the courts. Three classes may be recognized: 1, first offense prisoners; 3, sec- ond offense; and 3, incorrigible offenders.
 Prisoners coming before the court for the first time may be thoughtless, bewildered or actually criminal. It requires discrimina- tion, quick, sure knowledge of human na- ture, to wisely deal with this class A judge may do an irreparable injury to young pris- oner as well as to the State itself by want of patience, good sense and determination to find out what the prisoner may not have ability or wit enough to tell so that it will be rightly understood.
 The judge ought to make it abundantly manifest that here the limit of liberty is near at hand and only one course of safety lies before the young neophyte in crime-to turn away from old associations and to make haste to place of safety while yet it can be found.
 Fines are not very good kind of punish ment. Imprisonment under skilled and hu- mane keepers, acting under an intelligent humane system of prison discipline, is far better. For first offenders there ought to be 0 sort of reform school, where, upon being discharged, there will be no ta1nt of having been s'jail bird" remaining upon young offender.
 The second offsnces-Here the work of repression and discipline and reform must begin in serious earnestness.
 The plan of the Elmira reformatory is really the only one beftting civilized age. Its details I can give briefly:
 All the prisoners are divided into three grades. One, the highest, in which the prisoners all have neat uniform, are per mitted to talk ct their meals, to have books and papers and educational facilities, and altogether are permitted to have many of the indulgences of a life out of prison. The next lower grade has decidedly plainel surroundings, harder tasks and have it made abundantly plain before them that every mar can, by good conduct sufficiently long con- tinued, rise with the higher class, or by ill conduct fall into the grade below. All are put at first into this middle grade, and all go where their conduct and behavior take them, up or down.
 The lowest grade are not coddled; they have all the advantages of pretty stern prisoI discipline III plain sight of better things which it is made plain they can have when and only when they have truly earned them
 With such prison discipline established the position of judge would be less trouble some than when he is asked to send prisoners as mere slaves to contractors who only seek to make money out of them.
 3. Incerrigible offenders. A new statute has been placed on our book by which any prisoner who hes been twice sentenced to State prison for an offense for two years at each time is convicted third time for an effense punishable with st least two years ir State prison is considered incorrigible criminal and may be kept after the expira- tion of his sentence for an indefinite time under the surveillance of the State Board ot Charities. The maxim of law that person is to be considered innoca ant till he is proved to be guilty is reversed as to him. He may be allowed to be at large, but may be ordered into custody at a@y time without further trial.
 The plain facts of the case without the smallest grain of sentimentality form the ground work of all the relation of the law to. wards him. This is distinct improvement in the criminal law.
 Finally, how shall we treat prisoners re leased from prison?
 It is a difficult question to answer because we have now no system of prison discipline that makes a prisoner a better man thar when he went in; it is not intended to do so it is merely intended to protect society | through fear of the punishment; it is pol | icy of utter despair and the culprit comel out as dangerous as when he went in. Still the Prisoners Friend society has don' much good; it has occasionally saved { wrecked life and set again on 8 firm footing prisoner whom the system now in vogue | has not utterly destroyed. It ought to have | the countenance and support of all Christian | and humane people.