Waterbury Democrat., 1902-10-02
PROTECTION OF SOCIETY
International Criminalists Meet
 at St Petersburg.
Should Punishment of Attempts Be the same as for Completed Crimes? Was One Question Discussed United States Not Represented.

II s#
 St Petersburg, Friday, Sept 19.- 1 The psychic element in crime appears
 10 De the peg upon which all the note
 worthy utterances of the ninth con- ] gress- of the International Society of Crlmlnal1Sts, now sitting in this city, I are going to be hung This society
 was founded on the initiative of Prof
 franz Von Liszt of Berlin, whom
 many American students will recall as
 the strenuous supporter of the thesis
 that the object of the organs of jus
 t1ce is the protection of society and not
 the exp1ation of crime nor, by itself
 considered, the reformation of the
 criminal. Prof Liszt is president of
 the present congress. There are about
 300 foreign delegates, largely from I Germany, though nearly every inn States is represented.
 1.-The importance in penal law of the psychic elements of crime in compari- son with it's material consequences'
 occupied the position of honor in the program. Prof Von Mayr of Germany offered the following theses.
 1. The criminal law should contain definition of an attempt. 2. Such a definition must be eman- cipated from the traditional notion of the "beginhing of eXecution.'
 3. "An attempt is punishable only when expressly determined by law" 4. The punishment of attempts should be in principle the same as that of completed crimes, with the reservation of limited judicial power of remission.
 5. When penitence for an attempted crime is shown, punishment Is to De remitted. -.-.s..
 Another speaker put the case thus:
 "A child at play may start a con- f1agration; the desperate plans of crime-steeped criminal may fail; shall we guillotine the child and let the criminal still prey on society until he succeeds in some villaniy?
 The congress by large majority adopted the following conclusions, which were formulated by Professors Won Liszt of France and Van Hamel of Amsterdam:
 ''1. Nobody is. punishable for the consequence of his acts except in so far as he could have foreseen or pre- vented them. -- s ,. "As to@the question of complfcity the law should drop all doctrinaire distinctions between those who have participated in the crime itself and confne itself to indicating the modes. of participation that it will consider as such.
 6. ''The question of the attempt will remain on the order of the day of the society,""
 A strong plea for effective action against the ssWhite slave trade'' was made by M. G. Fenilloley, advocate general of the court of cessation at Paris. He demanded the punishment of those engaged in it's traffic even wben the object of it is, of age and where neither fraud nor constraint can be proven, on the ground that the law cannot recognize the validity of voluntary consent to the sale of human being. (The congress has not yet acted on this matter) 43
 Tn welcoming the delegates Minister of Justice Muravieff made the follow ing statement: "The publication of a new criminal law book is imminent in Russia The council of the empire has recently received project for the com pIete reorganization of criminal court Important change99 have been made in our penitentiary system. Suffice it to mention the abolition of deportation (by judgment of court) to Siberia, the transfer of prison manage ment from the ministry of the interior to that of justice, the reform of our prison system, especially of prison la Dor; the establishment of correctional institutions and the preliminary work in the matter of conditional sentences"