The evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1907-1908, 1907-09-19
HINGCR
Acknowledgement BONA
PARTIES DRASTIC IDEAS.
Would Make an Attempt to Commit a
Capital Crime Subject to the
Death Penalty.

CHICAGO, Sept. 19.-At the session of
the National Prison Congress yesterday
afternoon Attorney-G General Charles j.
Bonaparte delivered an address on Pun
ishment and Pardon" On the subject Of
punishment he said:
"The primary purpose of punishment Is
to assure obedience to the law; when IN
ficting punishment, the State looks, not
to the past, but to the future, not to the
individual who has disobeyed and now sur
fers, but to all the individuals In ike
case with him who may hereafter fear
to disobey by reason of his suffering. 1t
is of great, even of vital, consequence to
bear these facts in mind while dealing
with this subject, for many persons and
especially many penologists are disposed TO
overlook them.
'The welfare of society depends, not on
what happens to those convicted of crime,
but on what happens, as the result of
their conviction and chastisement. to its
innocent members; the efficacy of any
form of punishment, the merits of any
accepted principle or method of our crimi-
nal law. must be judged by its results TO
the community at large; If 1t diminishes
crime and makes obedience to the law
more prompt and general, then 1t IS a
good thing; it's effects on the law-break-
ers, while worthy of note, are of vastly
less moment.
Nevertheless, it is true that punish
ment fails IL the criminal remains as
dangerous to society after he has suf-
| fered it as he was before. While the
chastisement OF each particular offender
looks to the betterment, or at least the
diminished harmfulness of all possible
~wrongdoers, still as he is himself one of
them, and that one most directly affected
by the penalty, its effect upo him must
| have due weight in considering Its merits.
If any form of punishment renders those
who lave suffered 1t less willing OF less
able to again break the law, it is a good
form Of punishment; II 1t makes less
neither their readiness nor their capacity
to do again the like wrong, when occasion
offers. then. in so far as 1t affects them, 1t
Is a failure.
I'VE have developed a class of men, few,
doubtless, in proportion to the aggregate
population, but nevertheless far too many
for our credit or our safety, who pass q
very large part of their adult years in one
or another prison, using their intervals OF
liberty only to devise and perpetrate new
crimes, and their periods of confinement
only to debauch their fellow prisoners and
to perfect their own education in deviltry
The 'habitual criminal 1t must be re-
membered, is a product OF modern civil
cation; our ancestors would have hanged
him for his first felony, or, If by any
chance he escaped this fate, he would have
almost surely died of some of the maladies
then epidemic in prisons, while awaiting
trial for the second. 1 would not have
men hanged today for a tr1hing theft, no
our prisons made dens of filth and hot,
beds of disease; but 1 would have moderr
society cease to nourish and shelter iii
proved and inveterate enemies.
sfGa.aA ne re esnaa ln n rnnao1t,aa ar4tn1.
on certain defects In our criminal law,
suggested that an attempt to commi
capital crime ought to be made itself capi
tal,' when this should seem proper to TIL,
trial judge, and also that, when a mar
has been already thrice convicted Of majo
crimes, upon his conviction for his fourtl
offense Of the like grade, he should b.
liable, again in the discretion of the court
TO the death penalty. At the time thes'
suggestions appeared to crate upon thu
nerves of some of my critics, but l hav
seen no reason to repent of them"