Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1916-1918, 1916-09-29

chicago, ILL.,, Sept. 9Th the ngnt
of such study of criminals and delin-
quents as is being made in the psyche
pathic-laboratory of the municipal court
here. We are going to be forced to re-
wise good many of our ideas about
crime and how TO deal with it, Most
of us do not worry much about crime.
We pay heavy taxes to be protected
from the criminal and the feeble-mind-
ed and the insane, and We think about
them az little as possible. But they
are there just the same, an ever pres.
tent menace. and dealing with them has
always been one of the greatest prob
lens Of every nation.
New ideas in the modern world-as
Emerson pointed out some time ago
do not seem to originate with any one
man. When the time is ripe, they
spring up simultaneously in dozen
places. It is this way with the latest
developments In criminology. When
Chief Justice Olson of the municipal
court here in Chicago was public pros.
ecutor in the district attorneys Office
he began to study the hundreds Of
cases that passed through his hands
and wonder whether the men who
committed them were normal men.
And at the same time Kraepelin and
Bleuler and half a dozen other Euro
pean alienists were beginning to work
on the criminal mind from the stand
point of the medical doctor. and the
alienist When Chicago called for a
psychopathic laboratory, the new sci
ence had advanced far enough for one
to be established with the assurance
that 1t would 60 ahead on the right
track.
There are dozen such laboratories
in the United States now. Boston has
been doing comprehensive work in the
last two years; laboratory has just
been established in connection with
Sing Sing; New York City has opened
one to work with the police depart
ment: Philadelphia and Pittsburgh,
Cincinnati and Cleveland all have fall
en- in line. Owing to the size of the
city and the Capitalization of cases
in the municipal court, Chicago's lab
oratory is still the largest.
The labOratory's work shows that
large percentage of criminals and de-
linQuents have brain trouble. Either
their minds stopped growing long be-
fore their bodies. and they walk sur
rounded by laws that they cannot COM
prehend. or they have more positive
and dangerous arrangements What is
society going to do about it?
This state of affairs presents a
tougher problem than the old one.
Regard a criminal as an intelligent
enemy of society and you arrest him.
try him, sentence him-he is of your
hands for six months or twenty years,
as the case may be. True. the Grim
inals have way of showing up in
court again and again after their re.
lease. until the "repeaters" outnumber
the first term men. Certain agitators
take this undoubted fact to mean that
the law takes malicious delight in
playing with criminal-letting him
go and catching him up again like
cat with a mouse. But perhaps the
same cause that made him break the
law the first time makes him break
1t second and third time, and per.
haps he is so constituted that the GER
tainty of punishment has no effect
on his actions. Then he presents a
problem somewhat more thorny to
handle conscientiously.
1t is possible to say that II the
criminal is indeed a creature OF this
sort. then his prison sentences are all
right anyway. They put him where
he can do no harm to respectable peo-
pie who are paying taxes to be guard
ed against him Such view will find
few defenders in this enlightened age
The question will have to be ap-
IN, ho,
the laboratories who are diagnosing
the disease to say about cure?
Scientists who are working in new