A student of prison affairs once said that the prison population
consists of two classes--people who never ought to have been sent to
prison and people who never ought to be allowed to leave it. It is
unfortunate that students interested in either one of these classes
are too often apt to forget the importance of the other.
There are many habitual criminals, weak persons readily giving way
to temptation, who should not be classified as professionals. The
professionals are only those who deliberately set about supporting
themselves by crime. These are the ones who are among all criminals
most unlikely to change their ways, and it was for their control that
Detective Wooldridge suggested some years ago that after several
convictions such criminals should be given a special trial to decide
whether they were true professionals or not, and if they were, they
should be imprisoned for life.
If more attention were given to professional crime and if harsher
methods were used in protecting society from it, the result would be
merciful in the end--merciful both to the citizens protected from such
crime and to the men who, as conditions now are, graduate every year
into such careers.