The criminologists have strengthened the hands of administrators, have emphasized the paramount importance of child-rescue and judicious direction of adults, have held the balance between penal methods, advocating the moralizing effect of open-air labour as opposed to prolonged isolation, and have insisted upon the desirability of indefinite detention for all who have obstinately determined to wage perpetual war against society by the persistent perpetration of crime.
The article Crime (Vol. 7, p. 447) is full of interesting statistics and facts. It tells us that “the growth of criminals is greatly stimulated where people are badly fed, morally and physically unhealthy, infected with any forms of disease and vice,” and after proving by the records of various countries that men everywhere are more addicted to crime than are women, ends with this statement: “It has been well said that women are less criminal according to the figures, because when a woman wants a crime committed she can generally find a man to do it for her.”
Other important articles on the subject are Deportation (Vol. 8, p. 56) and Prison (Vol. 22, p. 361). For English prison reforms, see also the article on John Howard and that on Elizabeth Fry, with an outline of the growth in Pennsylvania and New York (Auburn and Sing Sing), of the method of solitary confinement and of its adoption in England, and of the development in New York (see also the article on Elmira for the work of Zebulon R. Brockway), and in Massachusetts (Concord), of distinct and different treatment for first offenders.
Children’s Courts
Juvenile Offenders (Vol. 15, p. 613) describes the work of Charles Dickens and others in England, the reform in Europe and in the United States; the philanthropic criminal code proposed by Edward Livingston (see the biographical article, Vol. 16, p. 811); the Randall’s Island House of Refuge, the Elmira (N. Y.) Reformatory, the reformatory for women at Sherborn, Massachusetts, and the George Junior Republic at Freeville, New York, and its offshoots—see also the separate article George Junior Republic (Vol. 11, p. 749); and the Borstal scheme, a modification of the American state reformatory system adopted in England in 1902.
Children’s Courts (Vol. 6, p. 140) calls attention to the origin of these tribunals in the United States, in Massachusetts and Illinois, and their success in Chicago, Indianapolis, Denver and Washington, leading to their adoption in England; see also the article Probation (Vol. 22, p. 404) in general and, for particular and local methods, the articles on Birmingham (Vol. 3, p. 985), Boston (Vol. 4, p. 294), Chicago (Vol. 6, p. 124), Colorado (Vol. 6, p. 722), Egypt (Vol. 9, p. 29), Illinois (Vol. 14, p. 308), and Utah (Vol. 27, p. 818). The articles on individual states also contain detailed information about local penal institutions of all kinds.
The reader should also study the articles Police (Vol. 21, p. 978), Finger Prints (Vol. 10, p. 376), Identification (Vol. 14, p. 287), Punishment (Vol. 22, p. 653), Capital Punishment (Vol. 5, p. 279), Guillotine (Vol. 12, p. 694), Hanging (Vol. 12, p. 917), and Electrocution (Vol. 9, p. 210), the last by Professor Edward Anthony Spitzka, the American authority on the subject. In the article on Utah, already mentioned, the reader will find that “a person sentenced to death may choose one of two methods of execution—hanging or shooting.”
Alcohol
If a respectable citizen of a century ago could return to earth he could not fail to be greatly surprised at dinner, whether in a private home or in a hotel, to see how much less alcoholic beverages are used, how much lighter they are, and how much more common are other drinks. If he “returned” to certain parts of the United States he would find that he could get no alcohol except on a doctor’s prescription stating the reason why the patient needed it, and he would learn that such a prescription could be filled only once, and then only by a registered pharmacist of good character. No matter to what place he came back, he would find a constant interference with or supervision of the manufacture, sale and consumption of alcoholic liquors on the part of the government. He would probably wonder why the state should interfere with private and personal liberty in such matters. We have already pointed out that the state now does interfere, and that this is one of the distinguishing marks of the government of the day. For information on this particular form of interference, its prevalence, its necessity, and its advisability, the student may confidently turn to the Britannica. The hygienic side of the question is outlined in the chapter of this Guide on Health and Disease. The social or sociological side claims our attention here. Read the article Drunkenness (Vol. 8, p. 601), and for the relation between alcohol and mental disease, the section Toxic Insanity (Vol. 14, p. 609) in the article on Insanity already mentioned, and also Neuropathology (Vol. 19, p. 429); then the article Inebriety, Law of (Vol. 14, p. 409); that on Liquor Laws (Vol. 16, p. 759), with a special section referring to the United States, which deals with local prohibition, state prohibition, public dispensaries, and taxation; and for a general and elaborate summary of the whole question the article Temperance (Vol. 26, p. 578) equivalent to about 50 pages of this Guide, by Dr. Arthur Shadwell, author of Drink, Temperance and Legislation. In the section on the Use and Abuse of Alcohol Dr. Shadwell summarizes the results of modern scientific investigation of the abuse in its bearings upon crime, poverty, insanity, mortality, longevity, and heredity.
In such articles as those on Theobald Mathew (“Father Mathew”) (Vol. 17, p. 886), Neal Dow (Vol. 8, p. 456), John B. Gough (Vol. 12, p. 282), and Frances E. Willard (Vol. 28, p. 658) the reader will find biographies relating to the temperance movement; and in the separate articles on states there is information about state prohibition, local option, and the state dispensary system.