The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1900-11-04
PETTY CRIME.

The recommendation Of the grand Jury
recently presented. that steps should re
t4kcr TO introdue. ~. ! enforce the cum
ulative sentences against misdemeanants
who AZ pear regularly in the police court,
has rot attracted special attention The
reason is chiefly that the municips
judges find it a practical impossibnity TO
enforce the requirement But even if the
principle could be embodied in police
courE procedure. it is doubtful whether
it would be productive of any substan-
tial results
1t is forcing itself on intelligent citi-
zens, with much added force each year,
that our entire police court system is
wrong in principle and unfruitful of re-
suits in practical operation. Week by
week the same class of offenders appear
in TIE police court. Fines and sentences
are imposed, and still the same offenses
are teirg committed by the same perao IS.
There is hardly any remedy Whatever
that public authority can apply 20 this
state of things with reference to he
great bulk of offenders. But where there
is a chronic case of drunkenness or gen
eral abandonment the entire system
shows it's brutal unworthiness. A SER
time again is the only remedy 1t is in
no sense. reformative in its effect. On TIE
contrary, it is recognized generally 1hat
when a person IS committed to the work.
house and serves period of time there,
there is a long step taken toward his or
her ultimate complete degradation.
y national prison congress held recent
ly at Cleveland took into account in an
especially able paper read before it the
problem of the cost Of crime. We are all
conscious that a. large proportion of the
cost of maintaining local government
comes from the machinery necessary to
the conviction and punishment of crime
But we do not stop to think what tre-
mendous proportion Of the proceeds of the
taxes of each community goes in this de
rection, or what little enduring results are
achieved Taking New York city alone,
it was shown that the OUTLAWS for the
year 1899, which might be charged wholly
to crime, amounted to about 1900, Co.,
These included the expenses of the de-
partment of correction, the district at
torney's Office, police, courts of special
sessions and of general sessions, city
ma oyicf
of jurors To these were added a largo
fraction of the expenses of the sheriff's
office, estimated at about 81, $50, 900, max
ing total of over s2O,0Oo.OOO, chargeable
to crime, out of total tax list of $780,
100000. ~'+ .'+
Now If We take the cost of the dis
trict attorneys Office, of the court of
general sessions and the commissioner of
jurors, together with about half of the
fraction of sheriff. expenses chargeable
to crime and the cost of a detective
service out Of this total, the balance will
fairly represent the expense to the COM
munity of the maintenance of the
agencies for, the conviction and punish.
ment of crimes of comparatively pet
ty character. 1t would be an extravaganza
to credit the conviction and punishment
of felonies with half of this amount
But even if We do, it is seen that In
one city alon the cost of the mafnte-
nance of government is only nine times
the cost of criminal administration in
connection with petty crime.
The prison congress gives annually
much thought and consideration to the
problem of crime in its more serious
aspects. But it does not bestow, and no
body Of psychological students. is known
to bestow, on this subject 1.-THE of the
thought which its Importance merits.
We treat the petty offender as he has
always been treated. We have mia-
gated the forms of. punishment which
have fallen to his lot. But society has
done and is trying to do nothing to pro-
tect Itself against these forms of crime.
The workhouse sentence operates
neither in punitive nor in an anchor
ating sense. It's repetition renders its OBJ
ject callous to the moral effect of It.
Thousands of our social outcasts in every
state in the Union seek lodgment in
these places as a provision for the more
severe winter months Excessive drink
does not grow less general as the out
come Of their imposition And the work
house prisoner confined for drunkenness
VIGOROUSLY regards the. occasion as one
of enforced abstinence from drink, to be
compensated for by increased activity in
the vice on his release.
1t is quite easy of proof that petty
crime is source of greater public ex-
pense than is crime of the most serious
character. 1t represents. moreover, a
more serious social problem than the
other, because it involves so much
larger proportion of the people. It has
it's roots not in congenitaI evil, but rath-
er in the false social conditions which