St. Paul daily globe., 1894-06-20
Is CRIME A DISEASE?

This is truly progressive age. We
are learning something every day, and
unlearning that which we previously
knew in most astonishing way. 1t is
but few years since the theory was
first mooted that many of the diseases
that flesh is heir to were hereditary, and
that. as consequence. it was useless
to endeavor to cure OF mitigate them.
Rheumatism. gout. consumption, phtl,i-
sis, and even the collie were pro-
neuneed blood diseases, to combat
which medical science was of no avail.
A few of the medical men, however,
while agreeing with the general propo-
sition that many diseases are inherited,
tnoa.ht they could be eradicated from
the system, and renewed their efforts al
cure with more or less of success. And
the world is healthier and happier as
result of these endea vors.
Within the past half-doZen years the
habitual drunkard has been enabled, by
the aid of science, to escape much of
the odium that has from time immemo-
rial attached to those vino daily with
the wine when it is red. Drunkenness
is no longer crime, nor yet is it an
offense against society. 1t is merely a
disease, sometimes inherited, some
times contracted by contagion or infec-
-tion, sometimes produced by climatic
Influences. The sot is no longer to be
condemned; he is to be pitied, and
doped and pampered back into sobriety
and decency. The man who goes home
drunk and abuses his family is not
vicious or depraved; he is simply suffer
ing from disease, and, instead of being
carted off to the police station, is carried
away to a hospital to be injected with
atropine and filed with some of th
villainous compounds known as ''goid
cures"
1t has remained for the American
this city, to evolve the most stupendous
discovery OF the times. Several of the
delegates in attendance have reached
the conclusion, after years of close OBJ
seryation, that crime is disease, and
its manifestations simply the symptoms
of physico-mental condition for which
the criminal is i'll no way responsible.
II this theory is correct, it follows that
our penal system is based upon errone-
Gus premises, and IS sadly in need of
reformation. We have no need of jails
and reformatories, for it is influman to
int1ict punishment upon man for acts
committed under stress of compulsion-
cOmpulSlOn irresistible as are the
spasIns of maniac or the vomitfngs of
a man afflicted with nausea. We need
no penal Institutions. for these are OF
necessity barbarous if it be true that
crime is a disease for which the perpe.
traitor is not blameworthy.
That crime becomes a diSease-more
properly mania-by indulgence does
not admit of a doubt. That it moves on
occasions in cycles is also undisputed.
But no man who is morally healthy is
ever tempted to overstep the bounds of
the law. Ii Que chooses criminals as
his associates and boon companions he is
extremely apt to develop some of the
criminal instincts himself But can it
be called disease, even in such case?
If 50, how comes it that officers of the
law-polieemen. judges, court officers
and prison ofiicials-so seldom develop
into criminals?
The fact is that criminals are both
born and made. There are families
known to the police of all the large
cities who are chronic law-Lreakprs. and
this disposition has characterized uan v
generations Of them. T.le hereditary
criminal Is not to be feared as ,uucl!,