"You see, Your Grace, we don't dare lose a man. If one of our tame zanies goes haywire again, the courts will stop this pilot project fast. There's a lot of pressure against us.
"In the first place, we only work with repeaters. You know the type. The world is full of them. The boys that are picked up over and over again for the same kind of crime."
He nodded. "They're the ones we wait for. The ones we catch, convict, and send to prison—and then wait until they get out, and then wait some more until they commit their next crime, so that we can catch them and start the whole cycle over again."
"That's them," I said. "When they're out, they're just between crimes, that's all. And that puts the police in a hell of a position, doesn't it? You know they're going to fall again; you know that they're going to rob, or hurt, or kill someone. But there's nothing you can do about it. You're helpless. No police force has enough men to enable a cop to be assigned to every known repeater and follow him night and day.
"In this state, if a man is convicted of a felony for a fourth time, a life sentence is mandatory. But that means that at least four victims have to be sacrificed before the dangerous man is removed from society!"
The Duke nodded thoughtfully. "'Sacrifice' is the word. Go on."
"Now, the type of crime we're working with—the kind we expect future laws to apply to—is strictly limited. It must be a crime of violence against a human being, or a crime of destruction in which there is a grave danger that human lives may be lost. The sex maniac, the firebug, or the goon who gets a thrill out of beating people. Or the reckless driver who has proven that he can't be trusted behind the wheel of a car.
"We can't touch the kleptomaniac or the common drunk or the drug addict. They're already provided for under other laws. And those habits are not, by themselves, dangerous to the lives of others. A good many of our kind of zany do drink or take drugs—about fifty per cent of them. But what they're sentenced for is crimes of violence, not for guzzling hooch or mainlining heroin."
My phone chimed. It was Lieutenant Shultz, of Homicide. His square, blocky face held a trace of excitement. "Inspector Royall, Inspector Kleek told me to report to you if there was any news in the Donahue case."