Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1924-10-28
THE CRIMINAL CLASS
By DR.. Frank Crane

TN HE criminal class is just as much OF
humbug as artificially produced, un-
i necessary, and maintained IN lgno-
france, as the high-born class of Europe, the
hierarchy of ancient Egypt, or the castles Of
India.
Any class, any exclusive group, is an enc
my to democracy, whether the elect oe
saints or sinners.
The criminal class exists simply because
society creates and maintains It,
When man commits crime, such
stealing, forgery, or assault, he is not neces-
sariy a professional crook. If he can be
helped, made to see the wrongness of his
act, and saved the shame Of exposure, he
may never be guilty of a similar deed again.
But if he is hailed to prison. measured, his
photograph put in the Rog~es' Gallery, and
his disgrace trumpeted to the four w1htfs
then society is doing its best to force him
to remain a criminal.
Our fundamental mistake is that We
sumo that people are divided into two fixed
classes, good and bad sheep and goats, and
that between the two classes there can be
nothing but war and hate. This is lie, as
all class ideas are lies, and as full Of
poison as any lie.
/ The truth is that we all have criminal
qualities; We all make slips. Most of our
goodness is due to the restrictions with
which we surround ourselves. If our Utmost
hearts were known, and if we were judged
| :
crafty and some of which we are afraid to
| indulge, not a single full-blooded man or
! woman would be found at the age Of forty
whom strict "justice" would not have sem
fenced to the penitentiary.
We all need forbearance, forgiveness aid:
and those we call criminals need these re-
deeming forces most of all. If the young
man of good family, who breaks the law
while on a spree, ought to be treated with
leniency in order to save him, how much
more does the ex-convict require the same
! treatment! Yet the latter we hound as If
| he were wild beast.
Our whole police system is built on the
vicious theory that once criminal a man
must remain criminal. We drive the weak
wlled out like lepers, and handle them as
! snakes and not as human creatures. At
| first they may have sought crime of their
own free will at last we will not allow them
to follow any other business.
That a woman is an abandoned creature
/ and that she is wholly bad when she has
| committed one sin of weakness is a most
monstrous lie.
That man who has robbed or embez-
| zled once is, as a matter Of course, Of a
wholly different moral makeup from the
rest of us is a lie.
Call men criminals and you make them
Our criminal law, with Its prisons and
gallows trees, is the greatest source Of
crime. 1t manufactures lawbreakers. 1t
drives men to crime as livelihood .
Let have done with the stupid notion
that some men are all bad and some are all
/ good. Let us take stand upon the fact
that we are all human.
The brotherhood of the rightel Us for one
another is Of virtue; the only brother
hood that is redemption is the brotherhood
that refuses to acknowledge any wall Of
class, even penitentiary wall, and is a
''friend of sinners"
There is but one sure way to treat wrong
doors, and that is to treat them as human
beings, to help, cure, and strengthen them
N(Copyright, 1924)