MODERN EXCUSES FOR CRIME
Modern penologists tell us that a large number of our present day law
breakers possess criminal instincts and in a sense are not entirely
responsible for the unlawful deeds they commit. What generates these
instincts it would be difficult to say. Perhaps early training, erratic
temperaments or mental diseases of various kinds may account for them.
We are inclined to think that much of our modern criminality is nothing
less than old fashioned depravity. By nature most of us are so
cross-grained that we find it easy to go wrong, and there is no telling
where evil tendencies may lead to. Sometimes it needs only a spark to
draw out the crookedness in man and make him a full-fledged criminal.
While the matter of self restraint should be kept continually before the
minds of young people, the question of how far one should be allowed to
tempt another to the committal of a crime is one of vastly greater
importance. In this we believe the State should draw the line. This is
in accordance with Gladstone’s well known dictum, “That it should be the
duty of every well organized government to make it easy to do right and
difficult to do wrong.” There is no mistaking that the present is a fast
age. More than that, the competition for human existence, education,
wealth and social standing is so great as to be unhealthy, because of
the nervous strain which it creates. These conditions have developed an
army of moral defectives in almost every walk of life.
Placing temptations before such people is simply making them criminals
in advance. A vast number of men and women are unable to resist evil, as
they lack the moral stamina. Many of this class, having been brought up
in homes of vice and evil environments, can no more stand the
temptations of the present day than a hungry dog can resist taking a
piece of unguarded meat from a neighbor’s door.
The dipsomaniac, kleptomaniac, morphine, cocaine, cigarette users, and
high livers, generally all belong to this class, many of whom are on the
way to the madhouse!
It has been ascertained by long study of the subject that those who
possess criminal instincts have little or no resistive power when
tempted to commit crime. If the judge on the bench, before passing
sentence on a convicted felon, had the insight or perception to see the
moral deformities and lack of will power existing in the individual
before him, we are inclined to believe that he would send the prisoner
to a sanitarium for treatment rather than to prison for punishment. And
it is our candid opinion that there are hundreds of moral defectives in
all the penal institutions of this and other States who ought to be
under the care of a physician rather than a jailer.
Sometimes the police disguise themselves, then induce gamblers to play
roulette and other games of chance for the purpose of securing evidence,
after which they arrest them for violating the law. This may be good
ethics from the police standpoint, but we question it. It is absurd to
think that we have any moral right to tempt a person to commit a crime
against the laws of God or man.
Not long since a city magistrate reprimanded two plain clothes policemen
for inducing a German saloon keeper to open his store on Sunday morning
and give them a drink. They succeeded in doing so only under false
pretences by saying they were sick. After they had secured the evidence,
they placed him under arrest. In this way they compelled him to break
the law. A woman was tried in the Court of General Sessions, some time
ago for keeping a disorderly house. It was proved that she kept a
boarding house, but there was no evidence to show that she or any of the
inmates were immoral or that impure language was used on the premises.
The police, however, suspected the house and sent a plain clothes
officer who stayed on the premises for a day or two. After a time by the
skillful use of money he was able to tempt the woman to place herself in
a compromising position and in this way secured evidence against her.
Now the law says that any person who directly or indirectly induces or
procures another to commit a crime is as bad as the principal.
As an unusually large number of persons had passed the examination for
positions on the City Police and Fire Departments some time ago, the
Civil Service Board became suspicious. It occurred to them that somebody
was stealing the examination papers. Two detectives were put on the
case. They secured the services of an athletic instructor to prepare
them to pass the examination for a position on the Fire Department and
offered him $400 for his labors. He promised to do so, provided he could
secure the stolen examination papers. The instructor secured the papers
and both men passed. When passing sentence the presiding Judge commented
unfavorably on the large money temptation placed before the defendant
which was in the nature of a bribe and was the one thing which made the
crime possible.
It is a question in our mind how far valuable property, such as gold,
diamonds and other jewelry, should be exposed on the counters of large
stores. Multitudes cannot view these things without secretly trying to
carry some away. Nor should people expose money unnecessarily before the
gaze of strangers; for in doing so, many a man has been robbed and some
have lost their lives.
The fair sex are sometimes at fault in this respect and indirectly
responsible for certain kinds of crime. When they go shopping they carry
in their hands wallets or pocket-books containing small amounts of
money. In former years they carried their money in their dress pockets.
By exposing their pocket-books they tempt the moral defective to commit
crime. Men and women also tempt the instinctive criminal, when they
carry, exposed to public gaze, watches and jewelry on the person. It is
true that this is our right. But we must not tempt men. I believe that
the crimes of pocket-book snatching and larcenies from the person would
be few and far between if people carried their valuables concealed from
public view.
Frequently we meet people who possess a morbid propensity to commit
crime. On some things they are perfectly rational, on others they are
incapable of acting correctly. You can safely say, they are mildly
insane!
Here is a lady on the street with a chatelaine bag dangling around her
waist. The thief presumes that it contains money and other valuables.
The owner is unconsciously tempting a poor weakling. From our standpoint
this is a dangerous expedient. By and by there comes along a poor,
hungry, homeless, penniless creature. He possesses criminal instincts.
He sees the pocket-book in the lady’s possession. It is a well known
fact that the sight of money awakens the worst passions of men. An evil
impulse takes possession of him. He seizes the money and runs away. This
is not an exceptional case. The criminal annals of New York can furnish
hundreds of such cases, where men were seized with an impulse to commit
a crime that sent them to prison for many years.
We knew personally the cases of two young men, bank messengers, who were
bonded in a surety company for five thousand dollars each, but had only
a salary of eight dollars per week. They were entrusted with large sums
of money daily, which they received in collections. Both claimed at
different times, to have been seized with an evil impulse to abscond
with the money, which they did. The first took $5,000 and left the city.
He went to Chicago, then to a southern city. Here he considered what he
had done, in the light of cold reason. He sent a dispatch to the bank,
saying that he would return with the money in two days. He did so. He
accounted for all he took away except the railroad fare and hotel bills,
which his people made good. That young man had always borne a splendid
reputation for honesty and truthfulness. When I asked him why he left
the city with other people’s money, he replied, “An irresistible impulse
came over me and for a time I was like a crazy man under a spell. It is
all a dream to me. I cannot understand it.”
The second lad had gone away with $56,000, $6,000 of which was in hard
cash and the balance in bonds. He returned the bonds to the bank by a
messenger. They were really useless to him. When he had spent nearly all
the money he concluded to give himself up.
A poor unfortunate who was sent to prison for a long term for
pocket-book snatching explained his conduct by saying, “I was cold and
hungry. All at once I was seized with an uncontrollable impulse to take
by force what did not belong to me. It came over me like a spell.”
Under ordinary circumstances, I am not inclined to take much stock in
this “spell” theory. I think that in most cases, we can restrain
ourselves when these impulses come over us.
A Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge, who is noted for his outspoken good
sense, while sitting in a neighboring city trying criminal cases,
severely rebuked some rich people for carelessly tempting working men
employed on their premises. It seems that while certain persons were
employed as painters and decorators in the home of a millionaire, that
jewelry and other valuables were left carelessly within their reach. The
result was that one of the men stole some of the valuables, and was sent
to prison. It was shown at the trial that this workman was not a
criminal and had always borne a good reputation. But the jewelry which
lay around so carelessly in this home appealed to him. Such temptations
arouse in men the worst passions, and even prey on their minds.
A young man whom I met in the Tombs broke down and wept as he told me
the story of his disgrace. He loved a young woman and desired to seal
his engagement to her with a gold ring. He went down to a Maiden Lane
store. He explained the object of his visit to the salesman. He had nine
dollars in his pocket and was willing to pay a fair price for what he
wanted. The salesman went to a case and took therefrom a handful of gold
rings and placed them before him on a velvet cloth and then went away.
As the young man examined the rings alone the temptation seized him to
secrete one and conceal it on his person. He did so with the result that
the salesman saw him. He had not only tempted him but he concealed
himself and watched all his movements with aid of a mirror.
Another way in which both men and women are frequently made criminals is
by the present instalment system. For example, persons purchase watches,
jewelry, typewriters, clothing and furniture and agree to pay for the
same by weekly or monthly instalments. The buyer is compelled to sign an
agreement in which he waives his right to his property till the last
payment is made. If he has purchased a watch or suit of clothes and
defaults on a payment he is compelled to surrender the property or be
liable to an indictment for grand larceny. The trouble is, our
legislature, to accommodate commercial sharpers, changes what has always
been considered a civil suit into a criminal offence. Any one who sells
another a typewriter takes chances to get his money back, the same as
the baker who sells him a loaf of bread. If he is unable to pay that
debt honestly the seller has no right to have recourse to an indictment
to force him. This is all wrong.
Just where our State or local authorities can draw the line between an
insane and a rational criminal, it would be hard to say. And how far
people who possess criminal tendencies should be allowed to roam at
large is also important. But how far individuals and corporations should
be allowed to tempt moral weaklings to commit crime is a question for
the twentieth century statesman and penologist to decide.
------------------------------------------------------------------------