It is the general opinion of the leaders of bench and bar that crime is carefully and systematically planned and taught in our prisons. The fact is that more than fifty per cent. of all our first offenders return to jail a second time, showing clearly that rather than being weaned from such a life by the imprisonment, many of them are encouraged to continue it.
When I have asked boys and young men why they returned to crime a second time, they informed me that while inmates of different prisons and reform schools, they learned scientifically how to become pickpockets, thieves, second-story men, and burglars. That is, they were taught it.
In some of the prisons which I have visited at different times, such as Sing Sing, Auburn, and Elmira, the inmates have not the same opportunity of speaking to each other, as the law is strictly enforced to prevent such communications.
But in the City and District Prisons of Greater New York, Blackwell’s Island Penitenetiary, the House of Refuge, the reformatories and county jails without number, where old and young crooks are huddled together, they are permitted to communicate their ideas as they please. My opinion is that all such places are simply schools of crime.
My cure for such a condition of affairs is entire isolation, segregation and classification, and the inculcation of moral and religious teaching.
The old adage, that prevention is better than cure, is as true to-day as ever. And yet our law-making bodies and prison authorities seem to forget all about it in this mad age. Recent statistics show that crime among young people is alarmingly on the increase, and one of the main reasons for it is what may be termed “criminal contamination.” But little or nothing is done to prevent it.
Charles Dickens in Oliver Twist mentions the case of a crafty old Jew, named Fagan, who was known to the London police as a “fence,” or receiver of stolen property. Fagan carried on a business much like that of a pawnbroker, in advancing money on all the “stuff” or stolen goods that was brought to him. He had a number of confederates of both sexes in his employment. They were adepts at the business, and could destroy the identity of all the stolen property which he purchased daily from his thievish customers.
Fagan always kept on hand a dozen of boys, whom he called apprentices. These with the aid of dummy figures, dressed in male and female attire, he carefully taught the art of pocket-picking. As soon as they had learned the business, they were sent out in pairs into the thoroughfares of London, where they “worked” rich men and women for all they were worth, and often brought back large quantities of plunder. Fagan was finally captured “with the goods,” and hanged for his crime. This is the origin of what is known in criminal parlance as “Faganism.”
Within twenty-five years “Faganism” has become a profitable business in the New World. This is especially true of New York, where strong evidence of “Faganism” is presented in our criminal courts from time to time.
The work is done by a gang of greedy, diabolical wretches who teach boys and girls to pick pockets and when they become experts send them forth to steal in the street, street cars and large stores. The work is so carefully and systematically done by our East Side “Fagans” that they are able to cover their tracks so as to elude detection. It is a shocking state of affairs to be told by the District Attorney’s detectives as well as many settlement workers who live among these people, that many of the police are in league with the “Fagans” and share their plunder.