The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1900-11-01
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! less than ............,...... $4,000, 900
Total, ..................... $500, 900
This outlay of 5000, 900, 900 represents
an expenditure only in prevention and
correction of crime. 1t does not take in
to account at all the immediate and nee
essary results of criminal wrongdoing.
Mr.. Smith admits that mo possible sta
tistics can itemize all losses sutained
Through acts of forgery or arson or theft
and any attempt to compute those
losses directly must be fragmentary
and conjectural' but he adds, Stats
tics based on a broad induction" shows
that the average habitual criminal real
ICES from his spoliations at least 1000
a year This is the figure named by
committee of criminal experts before
the Prison Association of New York,
and it is confirmed by the Independent
Investigations of Recorder Hill, of Bir-
mington, England Mr.. Smith consider
this estimate "incontestably coserva-
tive"
The next question involved is the
number of habitual criminals in the
United States. Mr.. Smith says:
Their census has never been taken.
1t is probable that a free invitation
issued by the Government to all habi-
tual criminals to enroll themselves as
such would not meet with a hearty re-
sponse and such compulsory registra-
ton as has been effected by 'rogues'
galleries and otherwise affords meager
data. The number of prisoners in con-
finement in the United State at the
present time is not far from 100000; of
this total, instructive and habitual cri-
minals are estimated by the best au-
thorities to compose from forty to
fifty per cent.
The numerical ratio of criminals out
of prison to those in prison has been
VariOusly estimated; some authorities
have asserted that there are ten times
others that there are five times, as
many criminals at large as there are
| in prison. If we adopt the latter and
more conservative estimate, it will give
the total number of criminals at large
! in the United States, 100000; and of
these at least one half, of 25O,, 900 must
be taken to be habitual criminals, cri-
minals who make a living by crime.
Two hundred and fifty thousand cri-
minals at 81 900 each represent an ag-
gregate annual income of $400,000,0 600.
Add to this the yearly taxation caused
by crime of $780, 900, 900, and it gives the
enormous total of $60O000,0OO."
The concluding remarks of this think
er are worth quotation in full. They
are to a certain extent pessimistic, but
! they contain a germ of hope. The world
/ is truly very evil, or rather the people
who inhabit are evil. The forces of
/ evil and of good seem to be and
are for ever at war. But we always
have the hope that the good will pre-
vail. Mr.. Smiths works in conclusion
of his argument say:
THE social and moral aspects of
crime infinitely transcend its financial
/ phases. Crime is waging a ceaseless
war not only against all property but
against all law, all government, against
civilization itself. All that we hold
dear and all that makes life worth liv-
. ing is at stake; all is dependent upon
the forces that keep crime under. Ma
tons and civilizations that can be COM
pared with those of the modern world
have flourished in the past and have be-
come extinct. Crime is now
working with the same fierce activity
that it has ever shown from the begin
ming, disentegrating nations and sub
verting civilizations If the time shall
| ever come in this country when crime
shall break down the barriers that OPP
pose it, and gain supremacy over the
forces that hold it in check, then the
| United States will be doomed to de-
struction as certain and as utter as
| that which overwhelmed the ancient
civilizations of Rome and Greece, of
Assyria and Egypt and Chaldea, and
which now threatens Turkey and
/ China. There is one differentiating
fact in our favor, and in it lies for us
the only hope for the future; it is the
yitalizing and regenerative energy of
Christianity
There is the whole question. Is the
civilization of Christiaity able to over
come forces for evil which the civilza-
ton and tenets of Buddha, of Zoroaster,
of Confucius, and many other world
teachers have failed to meet? 1t has
not up to the present, as Mr.. Smiths
figures show. But that does not mean
that it will not eventually overcome.
AT any rate, we, of this generation
have every faith in this eventual vic
tory.