The penalties for the non-observance of these requirements were as follows—(a) Any ticket-of-leave man, convicted of an indictable offence, ipso-facto forfeited his license, and this in addition to any punishment to which he might be sentenced upon indictment; (b) Any ticket-of-leave man proved to have transgressed the conditions of his license by an act not of itself punishable either upon indictment or upon summary conviction, nevertheless rendered himself liable to be summarily punished by imprisonment not exceeding three months. In 1871 the "Prevention of Crimes Act,"[242] amending "The Habitual Criminals Act" of 1869, extended the principle of keeping notoriously bad characters under observation, by enacting that persons twice convicted of certain crimes may be subjected to police supervision for not more than seven years after the expiration of the sentence imposed, provided that a previous conviction for an offence in the same category is proved at the time of the second conviction. Such persons are commonly called 'supervisees,' and they come under the same conditions as license-holders. These conditions have since been modified by Acts of Parliament passed in 1869 and 1891, and they may now be summarized as follows. Both ticket-of-leave men and supervisees are required to report themselves within forty-eight hours after their arrival in any police district to the Chief-Officer of Police in that district, to report themselves once a month afterwards,[243] and to notify any change of address to the same authority; they are also expected to satisfy the police that they are earning their living by honest means.

A constable is justified in arresting without warrant any license-holder or supervisee whom he reasonably suspects of having committed an offence, or of having failed to comply with the above-mentioned conditions; and if it be found, after investigation by a competent magistrate, that such an offence has been committed or default made, the license-holder thereupon becomes liable to the forfeiture of his license, and the supervisee to imprisonment with or without hard labour for a period not exceeding one year, unless he can prove to the satisfaction of the proper authority "that being on a journey he tarried no longer ... than was reasonably necessary, or that he did his best to act in conformity with the law."[244]

In order that police supervision may be safe and effectual, it is of course necessary that the identification of habitual criminals should be certain and the registration of convicts complete. The present system would have been fraught with the gravest dangers to public liberty had it been attempted at the time when there was no possibility of any more reliable record than that founded upon the memories of policemen and prison-warders; but since the introduction of photography, and especially since the recent adoption of the system of anthropometry which is associated with the names of M. Alphonse Bertillon and Mr Francis Galton, the chance of any miscarriage of justice, due to mistakes in identification, has been reduced to a minimum. Photography was first adapted to police purposes in 1854, when the governor of Bristol Gaol began to make daguerreotype pictures of the prisoners who passed through his hands; and gradually what was at first but the experimental hobby of an amateur developed into the officially recognised system. The "Prevention of Crimes" Act (1871) had directed that registers of all persons convicted of crime in England should be kept at Scotland Yard, but it was soon found by experience that a less voluminous record would be of greater practical value. Accordingly it was decided in 1877 that, in future, the registers (the compilation of which was at this time transferred from Scotland Yard to the Home Office) should contain only the descriptions of habitual criminals, officially so called. In 1880 a new department was opened at the Head-Quarters of the Metropolitan Police, called the Convict Supervision Office, which was largely occupied with the classification of offenders by means of books containing the photographs of habituals. These albums, together with a register of distinctive marks, including a record of tattooed symbols and initials so universal amongst criminals, formed a regular rogues' gallery, and were instrumental in proving the identity of many inveterate delinquents who might otherwise have improperly participated in the leniency intended only for first offenders.

Some of the more energetic police forces in the provinces, also, prepared local registers; and something like a general scheme for tracing the antecedents of criminals was evolved by means of circular "Route Forms" (as descriptions of offenders whose identity was uncertain were technically called) which were forwarded in rotation from one police district to another, wherever the required information was likely to be forthcoming. The results obtained, however, hardly justified the expenditure of time and energy incurred in the process; accordingly in 1893 a Parliamentary Committee was appointed "to enquire into the best means available for identifying habitual criminals," and it was on the recommendation of this expert committee that the perfect anthropometric system of identification now employed was based.

Very briefly stated, the system is as follows. All persons convicted of crime against whom a previous criminal conviction has been proved, or who are subject to police supervision, are carefully measured before they are liberated, and the results tabulated on what are called card-registers. The parts of the body selected for measurement are those which in an adult are the least liable to alteration; the length and breadth of the head, and the length of the foot, for instance, being reliable indicia by means of which thousands of individuals may readily be classified.

Whilst M. Bertillon's system of anthropometry is especially well adapted for purposes of classification, Mr Galton's finger-print method is preferable for purposes of identification. The minute lines which may be noticed on the skin covering the under side of the top joint of the human finger or thumb invariably display a well defined series of curved ridges, which, though never quite alike in different subjects, always approximate to one of four types, that is to say, they assume the form of an arch, a whorl, a right loop, or a left loop. The sum of the combinations which can be formed of these types and their modifications on the ten digits being a practically inexhaustible quantity, every human being carries on his finger-tips an infallible record of his personal identity. Accordingly the criminal is required to make signature by pressing with his thumb, fore, and middle fingers of both hands (previously smeared with printer's ink) on the reverse side of the card-register; whilst to make assurance trebly sure, the exact location and measurement of any distinctive marks that may be found are noted, and his photograph, both full-face and in profile, is added. When completed, the card-registers are filed in cabinets on an ingenious plan which enables the searcher to lay his hand on any particular "dossier" in the space of a very few minutes.[245]

The immense importance of having a comprehensive and accessible record of this nature can hardly be over-rated, for without its help it would be impossible to combat (with any chance of success) what is unquestionably the most dangerous development of contemporary criminality. It has recently been pointed out by Dr Anderson, of the Criminal Investigation Department, that despite the marked decrease of crime which we congratulate ourselves has been one of the most noteworthy features of the Victorian era, "the professional criminal is developing and becoming a serious public danger."[246] Since the abolition of transportation the company of criminals who are criminal by deliberate choice has been steadily increasing, and every mitigation of the penal code, every alleviation of prison existence, has helped to bring recruits to the profession. Frequent sentences of imprisonment will never deter the delinquent who is well acquainted with the inside of a gaol, as long as he can count on brief spells of exciting and luxurious liberty between whiles; moreover the tax on the police is excessive, for the habitual criminal may be trapped again and again, only to be released time after time to devise new and more elaborate attacks on a long-suffering society.[247]

A way will have to be discovered to eliminate this unexpected product of our penal system, and to this end various suggestions have been made. Some advocate life sentences for persistent offenders; others would make the restitution of the plunder, or at any rate a confession implicating the receiver of the stolen property, the only condition of release in cases of theft; but although authorities differ as to the exact course which ought to be pursued, all agree that the character of the criminal rather than the enormity of his offence should chiefly determine the question of the punishment administered. Whatever may be the nature of the plan of campaign eventually decided upon for the suppression of professional delinquency, the preliminary stage of the operations is necessarily the same, and consists in the preparation of a record containing an accurate and concise account of the antecedents and previous convictions of all habitual criminals.