Crime and Its Causes

by William Douglas Morrison

Punishment is only a means say some; its real end is the reformation of the offender. The practical application of such a principle would lead to very astonishing results. It is perfectly well known that there is no more incorrigible set of offenders than habitual vagrants and drunkards. And on the other hand, the most easily reformed of all offenders is often some person who has committed a serious crime under circumstances which could not possibly recur. According to the theory that reformation is the only end of punishment, petty offenders would be shut up all their lives, while the perpetrator of a grave crime would soon be set free. An absurd result of this kind is fatal to the pretention that punishment is merely a means and not also an end.

Is it the end of punishment to act as a deterrent? We are often told from the judicial bench that a man receives a certain sentence as a warning and example to others. If such is the end of punishment it lamentably fails in its purpose, for in a number of cases it neither deters the offender nor the class from which the offender springs. It was under the influence of this idea that criminals used to be hanged in public, but experience failed to show that these ghastly exhibitions had much deterrent effect on the community. Besides, it is rather ridiculous to say, I do not punish you for the crime you have committed, I punish you as a warning to others. In these circumstances the effect of punishment is not to be upon the person punished, but upon a third party who has not fallen into crime. Unless the punishment is just in itself, society has no right to inflict it in the hope of scaring others from criminal courses. Justice administered in this spirit, turns the convicted offender into a whipping boy; the punishment ceases to be related to the offence, and is merely related to the effect it will have on a certain circle of spectators.

In our view, punishment ought to be regarded as at once an expiation and a discipline, or, in other words, an expiatory discipline. This definition includes all that is valuable in the theories just reviewed, and excludes all that is imperfect in them. The criminal is an offender against the fundamental order of society in somewhat the same way as a disobedient child is an offender against the centre of authority in the home or the school. The punishment inflicted on the child may take the form of revenge, or it may take the form of retribution, or it may take the form of deterrence, but it undoubtedly takes its highest form when it combines expiation with discipline. Punishment of this nature still remains punitive as it ought to do, but it is at the same time a kind of punishment from which something may be learned. It does not merely consist in inflicting pain, although the presence of this element is essential to its efficacy; it consists rather in inflicting pain in such a way as will tend to discipline and reform the character. Such a conception of punishment excludes the barbarous element of vengeance; it is based upon the civilised ideas of justice and humanity, or rather upon the sentiment of justice alone, for justice is never truly just except when its tendency is also to humanise.

"Sine caritate justicia

Vindicationi similis."

From the theory of punishment let us now turn to its methods. The most severe of these is the penalty of death. A great deal has been said and written both for and against the retention of this form of punishment. To set forth the arguments on both sides in a fair and adequate manner would require a volume; it must, therefore, suffice to say that in the field of controversy the contest between the opposing parties is a fairly even one. In fact, looking at the matter from a purely polemical point of view, the advocates of the death penalty have probably the best of it. It has, however, to be remembered that such questions are not solved by battalions of abstract arguments, but by the slow, silent, invisible action of public sentiment. The way in which this impalpable sentiment is moving on the question of the death penalty may be seen, first, in the manner in which crime after crime during the present century has been excluded from the supreme sentence of the law, and secondly, in the steady diminution of capital executions throughout the civilised world. If the present drift of feeling continues for another generation or two it is not at all improbable, in spite of temporary reactions here and there, that the question of capital punishment will have solved itself.

Another form of punishment is transportation. As far as Great Britain is concerned, transportation possesses only a historic interest. No one is now sent out of the country for offences against the law. Experience showed that penal colonies were a failure, and that the truly criminal could be more effectively dealt with at home. Within recent years the French have resorted to the system of transportation; but, according to several eminent French authorities, the penal settlement in New Caledonia is hardly justifying the anticipations of its founders.

Penal servitude has taken the place of transportation in Great Britain. Every person sentenced to a term of five years and over undergoes what is called penal servitude. The sentence is divided into three stages. In the first stage the offender passes nine months of his sentence in one of the local prisons in solitary confinement. In the next stage he is allowed to work in association with other prisoners; and in the last stage he is conditionally released before his sentence has actually expired. If a prisoner conducts himself well, if he shows that he is industrious, he will be released at the expiration of about three fourths of his sentence. If, on the other hand, he is idle and ill-conducted, he will have to serve the full term.

During the first nine months of his confinement the convict sentenced to penal servitude is treated in exactly the same way as a person sentenced to a month's imprisonment; the only difference being that he is provided with better food. During the period of detention in a Public Work's Prison the convict may, if well-conducted, pass through five progressive stages; each of these stages confers some privileges which the one below it does not possess. The first stage of all is called the Probation Class. In this, as well as in every succeeding class, a man's industry is measured by a process called the Mark system. This system is somewhat similar to the method adopted for rewarding industry in our public schools. In those schools a boy's diligence is recognised by his receiving so many marks per day, and he would be an ideal pupil who received the maximum number of marks. In convict prisons, on the other hand, the maximum number of marks, which is eight per day, can easily be earned by any person willing to do an average day's work. If a convict earns the maximum number of marks per day for three months he is promoted at the end of that time out of the Probation Class into a higher stage called the Third Class. He must remain in the third class for at least a year; while in this class he is permitted to receive a visit and to write and receive a letter every six months. He is also rewarded at the rate of a penny for every 20 marks, which enables him to earn twelve shillings in the course of the year.

After the expiration of one year in the Third Class the prisoner, if he has regularly earned eight marks a day, is advanced to the Second Class. In this stage he can receive a visit and write and receive a letter every four months. He is allowed a little choice in the selection of his breakfast; the value attached to his marks is also increased, and he is able in the Second Class to earn 18 shillings a year. At the termination of a year, if a prisoner continues his habits of industry, he is promoted to the First Class. Persons whose education is defective are not permitted to enter the First Class, unless they have also made progress in schooling. In the First Class a man is allowed to receive a visit and to write and receive a letter every three months. He is also given additional privileges in the choice of food. In the First Class he can earn 30 shillings a year.