HOW CRIMINALS ARE MADE
Since the close of the Civil War, crime of every kind has made enormous
strides, not only in our large cities but also in our sparsely populated
districts. Various reasons have been assigned for this condition of
things but the reasons given are not entirely satisfactory. One thing,
however, is certain, the temptations of modern times, which engulf and
enslave so many of our young people, were never more numerous or more
alluring than they are to-day. And the saddest thing of all is that very
little is done to take the temptations out of the way or reduce them to
a minimum.
I believe bad homes are largely responsible for many of the moral
shipwrecks of our day. A report of the superintendent of Elmira
Reformatory states that fifty-two per cent. of all the inmates of that
institution came from positively bad homes and only seven per cent. from
positively good homes. Without going any further into this discussion,
it would be well to find out what makes bad homes and, if possible,
furnish a remedy, so as to save our young people from becoming
criminals. By all means find out the disease and then apply the remedy.
This is the only rational thing to do, and to this method of treatment
few persons can object.
The fact that crime increases faster than the ratio of population should
come to our statesmen with startling effect and set them thinking to
know just what methods should be used to change the evil currents of the
times.
As long as fierce temptations are allowed to surge around our young
people, especially in large cities, so long may we expect to see them in
the police net and afterward filling prison cells. Crime is a menace to
our republican institutions and in the end will reduce a free people to
anarchy or serfdom.
One of the crime makers of our time, as is evident from everyday facts
and figures, is the liquor traffic. From fifty to seventy per cent. of
all convicted felons have been ruined by it. Many a man who is behind
the bars to-day never would have been there were it not for strong drink
that robbed him of his senses in a weak moment, and made him a criminal
and a fool. In states where the rum power is under the ban and
prohibition strictly or even partially enforced, jails are usually empty
except for a few petty offenders.
Some men say that immigration is largely responsible for the criminality
of to-day. That there is some truth in this statement we have no doubt
whatever. But to hold immigrants responsible for the criminality of this
age is unfair and uncharitable. That some parts of Europe send people to
this country who are expert criminals and others full of criminal
instincts, is true in part. That people without means and employment
drift to the United States from every land and when in want naturally
attack property under the spur of necessity, coupled, of course, with
low ethical standards and lacking a sense of moral obligation, and
perhaps possessing weak resistive powers, is also true.
Often persons are driven to crime by motives generated in a vicious
nature, and as they are too weak to resist they soon lose their liberty,
and society to protect itself simply places them behind the bars.
Criminality is simply the darkened side of a reckless, sinful life,
showing itself in deeds of wickedness and rebellion against God and man.
Any one with such an impulse will dare to commit the most atrocious
crime on record and will not think of the consequences!
The small army of boys that are committed to prison in this city every
year between the ages of sixteen and twenty, for every crime on the
calendar, shows the trend of the rising generation toward delinquency.
In these figures we leave out of consideration several thousands of boys
and girls who are disposed of by the city magistrates, many of whom are
sent to the Reform School, Juvenile Asylum and the House of Refuge,
while others are discharged on suspended sentences, with a warning to
keep out of bad company.
I believe the first and foremost cause of crime in our large cities, as
I have intimated, as well as the degradation of the poor man’s home, is
the American saloon. Nor will there be any material decrease in the
volume of crime till the power of the saloon has been crushed. Our
stupid, thick-skulled, short-sighted reformers and state legislators
forget that the soul-dishonoring and God-defying gin mill is the great
crime generator of the twentieth century. The one primary cause of crime
to-day is alcohol, and as a well-known authority says: “The decrease in
the use of alcoholic drink must ever remain the great aim of
anti-criminal legislation as well as of future moral and social reform.”
A mass of absolutely correct statistics could be given in support of
this statement, if necessary.
In many of the crimes committed by young men which we have personally
investigated, it has been a question with us who has been the greatest
criminal, the state, the parents or the boy. Many a young man would
never have reached prison had his parents placed around him any
reasonable moral safeguards. When I remember that hundreds of boys who
get into the Tombs every year come from homes of poverty, misery,
drunkenness, profanity and vice of every name, I do not wonder when I
see crime written on their pale faces.
If Gladstone’s dictum were to actuate our state legislature, laws would
be forthwith passed, making it a crime to sell to minors the
blood-curdling novel, tobacco or cigarettes, or intoxicating liquor in
any form. Boys should be prohibited from going to prize fights, the race
course, gambling hells, theatres, billiard halls, or even from staying
on the street after nine o’clock at night. This might seem harsh, but if
strictly carried out we have no doubt whatever that crime would be
reduced thereby.
It was a law in the Commonwealth of Israel, promulgated long before
their settlement in Canaan, that when they built a house in the promised
land they must put a railing or battlement around the roof to protect
their children from injury by accidentally falling off. If the state
were to make it difficult for our young people to do wrong by erecting
around them moral barriers, there would be less criminality among boys
and young men, and fewer human shipwrecks in after life.
When young men are admitted to prison for the first time, efforts should
be put forth to save them. The work of isolation, separation and
classification should then begin. If the authorities were to sift and
separate the good from the bad, the precious from the vile, I am
positive there would be fewer recidivists who are now compelled to
repeat the same prison experiences several times over.
[Illustration:
The new Tombs prison.]
[Illustration:
The open corridor of the women’s prison of the Tombs.]
[Illustration:
The old Tombs entrance on Leonard street.]
Hundreds of boys who are sent to the Tombs enjoy the novelty immensely.
It is a new experience to them, and as such is exciting. In prison they
are huddled together as a band of incorrigibles. There seems to be no
punishment in such an experience. Some of them are better off there than
they would be in their homes. They get enough to eat. In some prisons
they can smoke all the cigarettes and read all the dime novels they
please. If up till this time they have been ignorant of the ways of
pickpockets and sneak thieves, when they come out, after a few weeks’
incarceration, they are expert crooks, and fifty per cent. of them are
soon back in prison.
In order to reduce crime among boys we must take away the operating
causes. There is no other way to reach the desired end, and the sooner
we get our eyes open to these facts, the better for ourselves and
everybody else.
The object of all prison discipline should be the moral transformation
of young offenders. They should be taught righteousness and purity of
life, honesty and industry, self-respect and courteous behaviour to all.
Whenever prison reform comes short of this, it is a failure, and society
at large is injured thereby.
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