Large industries find that their by-products are an important asset and to disregard them would be ruinous. Mr Frazer in his book "America at Work" states that the expenses of the meat-packers of Chicago for 1901 amounted to £150,244,848. The sales of meat realised £124,263,998, and yet a net profit of £6,767,638 resulted. What appears to be a paradox is explained by the fact that a sum of no less than £32,748,488 resulted from the sale of by-products. All the waste must be turned to dollars.
Commercial advance has certainly out-stripped social advance, and apparently for the reason that whereas in commerce a pig's tail is regarded as an important asset, in our social system the criminal and the weakling are regarded as a heavy liability. When the point of view is changed society will advance more rapidly. So, too, society finds that it must utilise its by-products and to devise means which it can bring to bear upon the criminal, so as to bring him to a state of usefulness. The enormity of the crime and the degree of criminality are alike impossible to estimate, therefore it is also impossible to define a punishment which makes an attempt to recognise any of these qualities.
It is, however, quite possible to determine within very fair limits the continuance of the criminal habits, also the value from a reformatory point of view, of various social influences, and further there exists the power to apply these influences. To sum up—society possesses within itself the power to reform its criminals (to utilise its by-products) and to determine when they have been reformed.
Separation from society is rendered absolutely necessary by the criminal's own behaviour, if by his behaviour he shows that he is not capable of using freedom profitably. But if his separation is to serve any real purpose whatever it must be accompanied by an educational process which will work him back to that point where he left the social track and then so propel him forward that he may recover his lost ground, and when restored to society be enabled to identify himself with its progressive system.
So far our penal system is a mistake. Whatever it may be theoretically, practically it is only vindictive. Its failure has caused some to despair and others to reflect.