Evening star., 1928-10-07
Habitual Offenders.

L
The case of man, now held in the
! District Jail awaiting trial on a charge
of burglary, who has declared that he
| was the murderer of two small boys.
may be one for psychopathic inveStiga-
ton, but 1t is aSsuredly one to arrest
! the attention of those who are seeking
means to strengthen the law for the
protection Of society from habitual
criminals. The superintendent of the
Jail has expressed his doubt as to the
accuracy of the confession of murders
committed in Philadelphia and in
Charlestown, Mass He advances the
theory that the prisoner is actually
seeking execution as a way out of q
world which has held nothing for him
but jails, penitentiaries and reforma-
tories. This extraordinary hypothesis
may have some basis in fact when the
prisoners record is reviewed. That
record began in 1898 in Montana with
sentence of one year for larceny.
There seems then to have been period
Of comparatively proper living, for
it was not until 1907 that he began
term of three years in Leavenworth
Penitentiary for burglary. In 1918 he
was sentenced to twenty-three months
in Montana and in 1914 he was given a
three-year sentence in Oregon He was
later sentenced to serve a term of from
one to five years in Oregon. escaping in
1918. Shortly afterward he began a
five-year term in Sing Sing Prison in
New York, but in 1928, transferred to
Clinton Prison, he made an attempt to
escape. He was paroled in July and was
discharged on that parole in August of
this year He was subsequently arrest
ed in Baltimore on two charges Of
burglary committed in this city.
This man evidently belongs to the
category of habitual criminals. Ir
New York, under the Baumes laws, he
would be given life Imprisonment on
such record If his successive offenses
were committed in that Jurisdiction
There is, however, no statutory provision
in any of the States that permits the
taking into account of offenses COM
mitted in other jurisdictions. Even with
the most stringent laws such as those
now prevalent in New York man
could commit offenses in all of the
forty-eight States and receive only first
offense penalties in each.
Imprisonment has apparently not ac-
complished any reform in this particu-
lar case. 1t has failed to do so in many
other cases. But parole has not worked
out to perfect satisfaction. Indeed there
have been many cases of violated pa
roles, broken pledges of good conduct.
repeated offending after the most
solemn warning. The plea of the Of
fender is usually that "jail bird" has
no chance for upright living after his
release from prison. This is not true
In every community there is DISPOSE
ton to give the unfortunate an oppor-
tunity. But, Of course, he is under sus-
picion and he must make good by
scrupulous performance 1t is not the
indisposition of society to help that
hurts the ex-convict SO much as it Is
the persistence of certain type of law
breaker in the pursuit of illegal enter
prises after punishment which shakes
the faith of people and makes the road
of all well intending former prisoners
a hard one.
The District has no Baumes law. It
has sliding scale of punishments for
repeaters, but not approaching the
severity of the New York statutes. The
average of imprisonment terms i'm
posed here is comparatively short, and
there is now q disposition on the part
Of the Districts lawmakers to extend
the scale, perhaps to the point of the
New York system, which has unmistak-
ably served to lessen crime in that
Jurisdiction.