Evening star., 1926-09-16

selves. which somehow guided them to
the point where TO commit crime was
not difficult. Others, reared in sim
liar adverse conditions, were hand1-
capped with mental defects which
brought them under the domination of
ideas of lawlessness.
Others weighed carefully the pos
sibility of detection and punishment
against the rewards they expected to
win by their crimes. They finally
committed the criminal act coldly,
deliberately and with full apprecia-
ton of it's moral aspects. But what
ever the genesis of their criminal ca
reers, they had all arrived at conclu-
sions in respect to the relative values
of lawfulness and lawlessness which
had influenced them to elect evil
Segregation Needed.
Segregation of the non-reformable
criminal is necessary for social pro-
lection. To incarcerate the habitual
offender for a certain period and then
again is a social crime. A continuous
cycle Of offenses and imprisonments
is indefensible.
Present Jail methods are useless
so far as improvement in the Grim
lnaIS character goes. ReformatOrieS
fail to reform and penitentiarieS make
nobody penitent. Recidivism, the re-
turn to criminal life, may be reduced
by the application of individualized
treatment in jails. Segregation is
necessary, but should be scientific.
Only such men as exhaustive study
shows to be hopelessly beyond refor-
nation, should be segregated; and they
should be kept from society as long
as they remain dangerous.
''For the benefit of the reforma BILE
criminal, however, much can be done.
BY proper use Of probation bureaus
connected with mental clinics the re-
formable criminal can be diagnosed
and then treated. Confinement should
be curative, not punitive, and should
end not by the calendar, but when the
cure is complete"
Possibilities in Schools.
Mr.. Perlman said: ANY attempt to
solVe the crime situation through
strong handed administration of ius-
tlce IN the courts, or even through a
wise and we'll organized parole sys-
tenn, is by the very nature of things
bound to be superficial, because those
we have to deal with are men and
women stepped in habits formed and
nXed over long period Of life. The
place to begin is with the children.
While it may be true that the
home is q good deal at fault. no way
has been discovered, or is likely to be
discovered, to make home atmosphere
what it ought to be if it is not that
already. The school, however, If it
could relinquish it's formal attitude
and the sacredness of it's curriculum,
and if it would undertake to study it's
icrO nci1xr E1
great preventive bulWark against
crime. Social agencies here and there
are trying to do this, but they cannot
reach all the children, and even those
they reach can be dealt with only sub
ject to the limitations of funds pri-
vately gathered
The present system of prison ad-
ministration makes the after care of
the criminal a very precarious task.
Wrong Basis for Laws.
$50 long as the courts consider the
offense and not the offender, the whole
philosophy of our prison sy stem must
remain false. If n man steals $45, he
is given one kind of sentence, whereas
if he steals $55 he is given quite a
different kind of sentence.
yet it stands to reason that the
man who steals $55 may easily have
done it under the stress of a sudden
situation, whereas the man who stole
the S45 might easily be a confirmed
criminal. If the offender instead of
the offense We're treated, the prison
would have to devote itself to the in
dividual problem cf each individual
prisoner.
There would be no such idiotic eff
fort as we now make to cure crimi-
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