The Prevention of Crime: If as much money and organized effort could be put on the prevention of crime as is given to its punishment, the need of jails and prisons would be greatly lessened. The chief causes of crime are drunkenness, feeble-mindedness, overcrowded living conditions, low wages, and insufficient education and recreation. Drunkenness is now known to be a disease; feeble-minded persons should not be allowed freedom of action; the State may prevent congested living, it may establish a living wage, and it has the power to provide proper vocational training and sufficient facilities for healthful recreation. It tries to separate the young offenders from the older ones, and the first offenders from the hardened ones. It has not succeeded very well in preventing inequalities before the law. The rich man has the advantage of being able to employ the most skilful lawyers and to appeal his case to court after court and drag it out over a number of years. When a fine is imposed he can pay it and so sometimes escape punishment. The poor man may have to go to jail because he cannot pay his fine and he is often unable to fight a suit.
To lessen the hardships and secure equality of treatment for all alike should be the endeavor of the State.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] The last report of the New York State Probation Commission shows that on September 30, 1916, there were 13,433 persons on probation, and that the number of inmates of the penal and reformatory institutions in the State was decreasing. Probation officers had themselves collected $139,000 for cases of non-support, and had caused to be paid another sum of $206,000 for these cases. They had assisted men to pay, in instalments, fines amounting to $30,000, which meant that these men were kept out of jail and at work, and had helped men who had stolen something or had done material damage to some one to repay those they had injured the sum of $39,000. It is evident that there is a saving of hard cash to the State in this work as well as much of social value.
XV
WOMEN OFFENDERS AND THE LAW
The Constitution of the United States guarantees to a person accused of crime a trial by an impartial jury, or by a jury of one’s peers. The handling of cases against women offenders has little regard for that guarantee. Discriminations against women who have come in contact with the law are the custom.
If any one is inclined to doubt this, let him imagine the case reversed and applied to himself. Suppose a man accused of an offense against the law should be accused by a woman, arrested by a woman, held in jail by a woman, tried in a court-room filled with women, before a jury composed only of women, and sentenced by a woman judge. Would such a man feel that he was getting impartial justice given him by his peers?
Also in the treatment of cases involving sex, the penalty of the law rests heavily on the woman and the man usually goes free. Sex immorality is a crime for a woman, but the man, the partner in the crime, is rarely touched by the law. Until recently in New York State, even pandering, or living off the earnings of a prostitute, was classed, as it still is in some other States, as disorderly conduct, in the same class of offenses as selling a street-car transfer. In some States adultery is still a misdemeanor. It did not become a criminal offense in New York until 1907, and it is still almost impossible to obtain a conviction unless there are some unusually revolting circumstances. Many cases have come into the courts of the State where women have been arrested in a raid on a disorderly house, and where the men found with them have been released, and the women held.
The large majority of the arrests of women are for the two offenses of intoxication, and prostitution or street-walking. The usual sentence for both of these offenses is commitment to the workhouse for from eleven to sixty days. Nearly half the cases of intoxication are of old offenders who are sentenced over and over again. Some years ago the Legislature passed a measure making provision for a State farm where these women could be sent for care and treatment, and where they could have useful occupation; but it has not yet been established.
Prostitution: The same sentence to the workhouse for varying periods of from five to ninety days, or even six months, is the common one for prostitution. It is doubtful if a sentence of this kind has ever been of the slightest benefit to any woman so sentenced. The usual court procedure is a mill through which this class of unhappy beings goes, without either their reformation being accomplished, or their danger being lessened to the community. When it is realized also, that a considerable percentage of these women are feeble-minded or at least sub-normal, the necessity of facilities for examination and classification and proper segregation are apparent.