With regard to habitual criminals, the question of criminality must be discussed from the standpoint, not of those who theorise, but of those who know from actual [{277}] observation most about the criminal classes. In an article in The Nineteenth Century and After for December, 1901, Sir Robert Anderson discusses how to put an end to professional crime. Sir Robert has been Chairman of the Criminal Investigation Committee of the English Parliament for many years. His opinion, then, is worth weighing well and is very strikingly different from those of the criminologists who would find a very large proportion of criminals among mankind. He says:
"I am not turning phrases about this matter, or dealing in rhetorical fireworks. I am speaking seriously and deliberately, and I appeal to all who have any confidence in my judgment and knowledge of the subject, to accept my assurance that if not 70,000 but 70 known criminals were put out of the way, the whole organisation of crime against property in England would be dislocated, and we should, not ten years hence but immediately, enjoy an amount of immunity from crimes of this kind that it might to-day seem Utopian to expect. The criminal statistics cult blinds its votaries. It is the crime committed by professional criminals that keeps the community in a state of siege. The professional criminals are few and I may add they are well known to the police. The theory that these men commit crimes under the overpowering pressure of habit, or of impulse, is altogether mistaken. They pursue a career of crime because, as Sir Alfred Wills expresses it, they calculate and accept its risks. And just in proportion as you increase the risks you will diminish the number of those who will face them. True it is that the army of crime includes a certain number of wretched creatures who have not sufficient moral stamina to resist the criminal impulse. I believe there are fewer of this class in England than abroad, but I know that these are not the sort of criminals whose crimes perplex the police. The high-class criminal is a different type of person altogether."
Sir Robert gives an extract from one of the morning papers of the day on which he wrote these lines, in order to show how different is the status of every ordinary habitual criminal from that which the enthusiastic criminologist supposes it to be:
"Hewson Patchett, 48, was sentenced yesterday for obtaining seven pounds and a gold watch by false pretenses. He urged it was his first offence, but a London detective informed the court that there were about two hundred cases against him for housebreaking."
Sir Robert adds: "If Patchett is a cool-headed, deliberate criminal, the whole proceeding is a farce. And if he be one of those miserable, weak creatures who can not abstain from crime, the sentence is barbarous."
Such experiences as Sir Robert hints at as occurring frequently in England, are certainly by no means uncommon in this country. Within the past year in at least four cases in New York City, in which a burglar, besides committing robbery, wounded or killed some one, either in the commission of the crime itself or in endeavouring to avoid arrest afterwards, there were more than two convictions registered against the criminal in his previous life. There can be no doubt that criminality becomes for some men a sort of mania, and that society must protect itself against their actions quite as it does against those of the insane by confining them under surveillance. It seems very clear that while a man may, under stress of circumstances or because of some specially tempting opportunity, be induced to commit burglary or some other crime by violence in order to obtain money, this will not happen a second time, except in the case of certain individuals whose moral tone is so perverted that reformation is practically hopeless. If a second conviction for burglary, therefore, is secured, a longer sentence than is now the custom should be inflicted, and the individual should not be allowed to go from under the surveillance of the authorities until he has demonstrated, for at least five years, his willingness and capacity to earn an honest living.
This may seem a drastic method. It may also appear to some that there would be consequent upon this system of regulating criminals a very undesirable increase of our present rather extensive system for the care of criminals. Here is where Sir Robert Anderson's experience is of value. The confirmed criminals are not near so many in number as is usually supposed, or as is even claimed by certain heedless [{279}] statistical experts in criminology. There is no doubt, however, that these men succeed in drawing others around them and in organising most of the crimes of violence that are committed. There is a certain glamour about the successful burglar that allures the young man and starts him in the downward path of criminal tendencies from which he may not be able later easily to withdraw.
If those who are most deeply interested in the reform of the criminal classes would unite in an effort to secure legislation to the effect that the habitual criminal should receive, not a definite sentence but an indeterminate sentence; that is to say, that on his second conviction for burglary, he should be sent to jail until such a time as, in the opinion of officers of the institution where he has been confined, he shows signs of a disposition to become a worthy member of society, and that then he should be allowed to be at liberty only under such circumstances as would permit of reports with regard to his conduct for a time equal at least to the years spent in prison, then there would be much less need of the theoretical considerations with regard to the heredity of criminal traits, and the supposed all powerful influence of environment in fostering criminal tendencies. There is in this matter a very worthy field for the development of philanthropic qualities, and the student of the abnormal man will find many opportunities for the exercise of a large-hearted charity, rather than the facile condemnation which places all violations of law under the head of criminality.
Those who have made special studies with regard to criminals have, as a rule, come to the conclusion that our modern method of treating those convicted of crime is eminently irrational. It is a rare thing to pick up a newspaper without finding that a crime by violence has been committed by some one who has previously been in state's prison for a similar crime. Most of the burglars have a police record. Pickpockets and others continue to pursue their avocations, notwithstanding a series of convictions. It is clear that a sentence of a year or two, or even more each time that a crime is committed, does not act as a deterrent. Such people are differently constituted from those who are influenced by [{280}] public conviction of crime and restraint of liberty. There is something radically wrong with their moral sense. It would seem that the proper way to treat them is after the same fashion as the method used with those who are mentally impaired.