The Lee County journal. (Leesburg, Ga.) 1904-19??, 1912-12-05
OUR CRIMINAL LAWS
| ARE OUT OF DATE
some PHASES or THE CRIMINAL
LAWS or GEORGIA HAVE NOT
CHANGED IN 100 YEARS.
Even Criminals Should Have Fair
Chance to Regain Their Honor
and self-Respeet.

Who has not at one time or an.
other smiled at the sight of boy
whose legs grew way out below the
bottom Of his trousers? A boy will
outgrow his clothes. 1t Is the nature
OF the beast. Did you ever think Of
society as a living organism? Did you
ever consider the possibility Of soci-
ETY. outgrowing its clothes, its eonven.
lions. its customs. its laws? You
look back on a great many ideas of
our ancestors and smile pretty much
the same way you did when you saw
that awkward boy with legs longer
than he knew what to do with. And
you often wonder whether folk,
thousand years from now, will not
smile at us for the way we had Of
looking at things. What is more, you
know they will Sometimes when so.
ciety sticks to knickerbockers and re
fuses to don long trousers, metaphor
ically speaking, revolution takes
place. Men like Geoge Washington
and Thomas Jefferson had to teach
soxare-headed Engllshmen that their
system Of government was misfit in
America. And reformers everywhere,
when they are not stuck up, stuld-
lied cranks, are born in the world
to take stitch out here, to put
stitch in there, to induce us to dis
card this garment or to assume that
The ideas Of people are written
into their laws and as such take def
mite form. But the ideas of a PEG
pie continually advance while their
laws not infrequently remain station
cry. Therefore, their laws are often
hundreds OF years out of date, This
lis especially true OF criminal law, or
rather some phases of It, Everybody
as interested in government, because
bad government hampers everybodys
activities. Everybody is not interest
ed in remodeling an out of date Grim
inology. because the only people af-
fected by ii are outcast criminals.
This ought not to be, and men ev-
everywhere ought to realize that even
the criminal should have fair
chance to regain his lost honor and
selfrespeet
To defaee personality, to defile char
acter to lower self.respect and dead
en- hope, entails an ultimate money
waste which staggers computation. 1t
does not pay to make men bad. And
not to give the law-breaker a chance
to reform is like the boy who beat
his pig around the lot to get 1t out.
but forgot to lower the bars. The
bob of furnishing is an endless one,
unless with the punishment is pre-
scented the open door to re-established
manhood. II the state assumes con-
troll of the individual as his jailer,
let 1t not forget that it thereby be-
comes his trustee, responsible for the
awakening within him OF a finer spir-
III. If the present way of dealing with
defenders falls short of this if it
crushes the spirit, if ii defles char
acter, if it deadens hope, we may
safely assume that in this respect
Georgia has outgrow it's penal system.
The penal system of the future will
do one thing, which is revolutionary
enough, consider not so much the
crime as 1t will the man, It will
make an end of legal Journalism and
reach the Individual needs of the Of
fender. Some time ago the newspa
pers carried at length the story of
young mans theft. He took several
hundred dollars from an express COM
pany for which he worked. The cir
cumstances We're very peculiar, and
for a while the police were baffled,
He claimed that while he was at work
two men entered the office and rob-
bed him of the money, after holding
him up and tying his hands behind
his back. 1t was in this condition
the police found him. But it was not
long before he confessed, admitting
that his tied hands were merely ruse.
lie plead guilty and was sentenced to
several years of penal servitude. Be
fore he had begun his term every
cent OF the money he took was paid
back to the express company. This
crime was absolutely the first the
young man had ever committed,
scores Of people were ready to testi-
~ TO his good Character If the judge
could have admitted the evidence, the
Jury would have learned that he mad
been on the point Of a nervous break
down for some time and was more
or less irresponsible, and that he had
taken the money to satisfy a mort
gage and save his old father and
mother the disgrace and shame Of
being turned out OF their home Do
you find here an abandoned or ma,
lignant heart? He had truly repent
ed long before he was even tried. Yet
there was nothing for the judge to do,
but to impose a sentence which he
did reluctantly enough.
II the law allowed it, the Judge
would have suspended the operation
of this sentence and placed the boy
on probation under the watchful care
OF a probation officer. Then, IL he
did not do the square thing, he eosld
have been brought back and sent to
serve his time. This is the way is
states make men. and save those not
hardened in crime from further dis
grace and corruption.