Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-10-21

| the habitual criminal is a prisoner named
Oppenheimer. h is confined in Sar
Quentin prison. He is without doubt, one
of the worst criminals with whom the
state has ever had to deal. He is abso-
lutely vicious. He is utterly without
moral sense. Three times he has at
tempted to murder his keepers and they
must be constantly on their guard to pro-
tect their lives. Neither kindness nor
prison discipline have any effect upon
him.. To turn him loose upon the COM
munity would simply be to give him an
other opportunity to commit crime. Con-
fined in the same prison there are several
men whose records for total depravity
are almost as black, and the fact that the
: time is approaching when these human
fiends must be released is the cause of
dread to every ~law-abiding citizen of the
state.
According to the plan that has been
suggested, therefore. the legislature at
its next session will have an opportunity
to pass a law providing for the extermina-
ton of all incorrigibles. In case such a
law should pass a commission would be
, appointed to which cases of this nature
would be referred. This commission
would consist of alienists, criminologists
ana others whose experience had fitted
them for such delicate duty and their de-
cisions would be final. In reaching this
declslon. however, they would have to be
guided by something more thai the or
binary methods of justice. OF course the
condition of the prisoners brain would
play an important part in their judgment,
for their are persons criminally insane,
whose remova in this manner would
scarcely be justified by any civilized gov
eminent.
To the alienists, however. this would
not be a particularly difficult matter, for
if there should be any doubt as to the
prisoners sanity he could be sent to an
asylum where his freedom could be fully
restrained. After this question had been
settled and a careful examination of the
criminals career and antecedents had
been made there are other tests that
might be applied that would be of the
greatest service to the science of Grimm
ology. For instance the theories of Ber-
tillon and Lombroso could be put to the
test n there is no doubt that many
traits of the prisoners character could
thus be brought to light.
One advantage of the Bertillon meas
urement, a system that has already been
adopted in San Francisco, would be the
possibility of identifying habitual GRIM
1nals whose record in other parts of the
country would entitle them to receive the
extreme penalty as i~ncorrigibles in Cali
fornia. The reliability of this system has
SO long been recognized that it has be-
come the standard method of measure
ment and Identification in all parts of the
world.
1t is based upon the fact that after a
person has attained full growth certain
measurements Of the body do not change.
The length and width of the head, the
length of the middle finger, the foot, thu
forearm. the outstretched arm, the
height of the figure standing or seated
remain the same. When a man has been
l~ndiVidualized by measurements of this
kind he can easily be mathematically
identified. In fact NJ. Bertillon has proved
that what we call science is simply COM
NOR sense carried to it's utmost technical
limits and reduced to it's most practical
application.