APPENDIX C.
The International Association of Penal Law.
This association was founded in 1889 on the initiative of Professor von Liszt. Its success was immediate, especially among lawyers, professors of law, and magistrates; and this success is a remarkable proof of the great movement for penal reform which is now everywhere making itself felt. Nearly twenty countries in Europe and America are represented by the association. It is truly international; no attempt is made to discuss national modifications, or to advocate the doctrine of any school. The conditions of membership involve adhesion to the following propositions:—
I.—The mission of penal law is to combat criminality regarded as a social phenomenon.
II.—Penal science and penal legislation must therefore take into consideration the results of anthropological and sociological studies.
III.—Punishment is one of the most efficacious means which the state can use against criminality. It is not the only means. It must not, then, be isolated from other social remedies, and, especially, it must not lead to the neglect of preventive measures.
IV.—The distinction between accidental criminals and habitual criminals is essential in practice as well as in theory; it must be the foundation of penal law.
V.—As repressive tribunals and the penitentiary administration have the same ends in view, and as the sentence only acquires value by its mode of execution, the separation, consecrated by our modern laws, between the court and the prison is irrational and harmful.
VI.—Punishment by deprivation of liberty justly occupying the first place in our system of punishments, the association gives special attention to all that concerns the amelioration of prisons and allied institutions.
VII.—So far as short imprisonments are concerned, the association considers that the substitution of measures of equivalent efficacity is possible and desirable.