Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1918-08-17
Crime and Taxes
WHAT A CRIMINAL. is.
BY Frederic ]. Haskin

or imbecility. But there are many forms
of insanity which render man dangerous
To himself and to society, and which only
trained psychintrist can identify
while defective intelligence in its rnilder
forms often passes for mere stupidity.
This state Of affairs, combined with the
fact that we have neither the trained men
nor the machinery for identifying and
isolating these "b0rderland eases" con-
stitutes the problem Of crime in America
the reason why We spend such enormous
sums to suppress il without the slightest
success. Such is the ignorance Of the
abnormality in this country that man
showing symptoms Of dementia praecox,
unmistakablc TO a psyehiatrist, has been
known To occupy an important public
position, exhibiting an utter lack Of ethical
sense lin itself symptom Of his disease)
without even having his sanity publicly
challenged.
The psychopathic laboratory Of the
Chicago municipal courts is n scientific
institution for the Identification Of these
detectives II is not an experiment. 1t
is applying methods which have long been.
successfully used in Europe.
NOT LIKE A HosprrA l..
This laboratory to the criminal, is
simply n comfortable room Of ordinary
appearance, where he is treated kindly,
examined, asked some questions and
required to draw few pictures. When
he gets out, he has been put through the
Binet-Sirnon tests, the split association
test. the drawing test, has been subjected
10 neurological and psychoatrical ex-
animation, and his personal history and
hercditv have been learned both by re-
search and by questioning him. These
tests and examinations cannot well be
explained within the compass Of this
article Suffice it to say that they show
infalliblv the grade OF his intelligence,
what mental and physical diseases he IS
suffering from, If any, and what his re-
action TO his environment has been
that Is. how he has faced the trials and
responsibilities of life.
These tests prove, by Overwhelmingly
cumulative evidence % that nearly all
criminals are persons Of defective Intell-
gence ~ that nearly all of them in addi-
tion suffer from some specific mental
disease, such as dementis praecox, psy-
chopathic constitution, or paranoia ~
that very large percentage OF them suffer
also from alcoholism, drug habit, or
degeneracy ~ that they have nearly all
been punished for crime again and again
without being deferred from crime (5)
that most of them are proved mentally
or physically Tor both incapable OF earn
ing a living by honest work.
Upon these facts rests the case for the
scientific treatment of crime-for ISOLATION
as opposed To punishment. ou may
question the scientists 3 diagnosis of the
criminal mind. You may say that ne
underestimates the criminal intelligence,
that pretense impairs his tests, and that ne
- nj
though reading Of the Chicago report
would convince almost any logical mind
that the scientific diagnoses are correct.
THE PRACTICAL PROOF.
But even if you reject this scientific
evidence that the criminal Is an abnormal
man. there remains the practical proof
that the punIshments Of the law, repeated
again and again. have no deterrent effect
upon him. and that he has failed again and
again to make living by any other means
than crime.
Here is Il typical report made by the
Chicago psychopathic laboratory TO a
Judge. Man. ~ wears Old, dementla
praecox hebephrenia, drug addict, has
| been arrested eighteen times, seven for
| burglary. eight for larceny. twice Tor
picking plckets. and once for dlsOrderly
conduct: has served two terms IN the
Pontiac reformatory two IN the Chester
] Criminal Insane Asylum, three years IN
the Mississippi penitentiary, three years
in the Wisconsin penitentlary; two Years
IN the Tennessee penltentlary; one year
In the house of correction; SIX months IN
| the Cook county Jail; six months IN the
Ontario reform school; and terms OF vary
| ing length IN four insane aSylums. tie
was sent 10y the Chicago court 10 pSy-
chopat hic hospital.
Here Is a man who has been u criminal
| from his early boyhood, who suffers from
a kind OF insanity we'll known TO psy Chi
artists, and which drives hun
| inevitably to crime Tie has suffered
every punishment that the law can devise
except death, without being even tenn
porarily deferred. Eighteen times various
| states and cities have put hun IN prison,
and each time they have released hlIn,
! they were in effect committing a crime;
! for this man is constitutlonally criminal
| Eighteen times Judges solemnly sentenced
hun for periods VARYING from ten days to
| three wears, and eighteen times he came
/ out the same social menace that he was
when he went IN.
THE sun or 1T ALL.
Four times he has been identified as
| insane and sent 10 aSylums, only To be
! released rs cured, when modern science
| knows that such q case Is lncurable. tie
| has destroyed and stolen property and
| probably taken hIe, and five states have
spent thousands of dollars To catch and
| lncarcerate HIM, only 10 start hlm anew
on his career of misery and destruction
Before he got out of school he showed
| himself an irresponsible wretch, unable
to live as other men, and yet in middle
age, he Is still pawn Of courts and law
vers, asylums and ialls, police and de
tectives, each of these guardians Of
society passing him helplessly on to the
other Surely anyone can read the lesson
of such a story as this. IL might be named
The Shame of the Law"
Nor is this an exceptional case. from
the boys court to those branches OF the
criminal court which get the old offenders,
the reports are monotonously the same,
except that the older the man, the longer
his record OF arrests. And everywhere
crops out the evidence that crime ls the
product OF an hereditary uncurable disease.
The boys who come to the boys courts
are often the sons of criminal fathers.
Their sisters and mothers are the prostl-
! tutes that I'LL the morals court. And
later these same boys appear III the other
criminal branches.
DIR. Hickson states that psycopathV de
termines crime, intelligence the nature OF
It, BY this he means that man Is a crltnl-
nal because his brain is diseased or abb
normal, and that the kind OF crime he