[Reprinted from Boston Transcript of December 5, 1913]
There has been a steady decline in the prison population in England and
Wales in the last ten years. During the year which ended on March 31
last there were fewer commitments in those parts of Great Britain than
in any previous year covered by statistical records. According to the
deductions made by the editor of The Lancet from the annual reports of
the Commissioners of Prisons and Directors of Convict Prisons, this
condition of affairs is to be attributed to several causes: The present
higher standard of conduct, a more humane tendency in society, general
prosperity, and a wider choice of alternative penalties.
“In any moral inquisition,” says the editor, “such as is generally
regarded as one of the most important functions of statistical inquiry
in the modern state, it is natural that a special degree of interest
should attach to the statistics of criminality. These statistics
seem at first sight to offer a direct and positive measure of the
moral health of the community: and the assumption that they have this
significance is in fact so commonly made by popular opinion that any
considerable oscillation in their movement is usually interpreted
without further question as an index of a corresponding change in
public morals.
“In connection with criminality, however, there is even more need than
in the case of other social phenomena to bear in mind the proverbial
limitations of statistical evidence, especially when drawn from a
limited area or when they refer wholly to some single one among the
many aspects of this complex question.
“It may be useful to recall these qualifying considerations in judging
of the real significance of the remarkable decline in the prison
population, to which attention is specially drawn in the latest annual
report of the Commissioners of Prisons and Directors of Prisons. From
that report it appears that during the year ended March 31, 1913, the
number of commitments to prison in England and Wales was lower than
in any year of which there is statistical record. Moreover, as the
commissioners show by a comparative table giving the numbers of the
prison population over a series of years, this shrinkage is not due
to any sudden and exceptional causes operative within the last twelve
months, but is, on the contrary, a continuation of a downward movement
which has been evident throughout the last decade.
“Obviously, this steady diminution in the number of persons sent to
jail is in itself an extremely gratifying fact, and it would, of
course, be still more satisfactory if we could infer from it that the
moral tone of the community has been improving in anything like the
same measure.
“There are, fortunately, good reasons for thinking that in many
respects the standard of conduct prevalent nowadays is very probably
higher than it was even in the memory of the present generation, and
we may perhaps in an indirect way find support for this view in the
falling numbers of the prison population, in the sense that this
phenomena is doubtless evidence of a humaner tendency in society, of a
more careful discrimination in its way of dealing with those who fail
to conform to its laws.
“To go further, and to assume that these statistics are proof of a
real decrease in delinquency, is, however, a very different matter,
and is much more than the evidence will warrant. The statistics of
imprisonment, it must be remembered, are peculiarly misleading.
“To a greater extent even than is the case with other statistics of
criminality, the oscillations in the numbers of the prison population
are affected by fluctuations in economic conditions; for the rise
or fall in general prosperity influences not merely the number of
offenses committed, but also the proportion of these offenses which
will be compensated by the payment of fines. A year, therefore, of
booming trade, such as last year was in so conspicuous a degree,
will ordinarily be a year in which the forms of illegality that are
numerically of most importance, such as crimes of acquisitiveness and
parasite offences generally, will be fewest, and in which also the
proportion of petty offenders who pay fines will be highest.
“These two influences, both tending in the same direction, have
probably been the most important factors in bringing about the decline
in imprisonment. But their effect has certainly been helped by another
tendency which the student of sociology will note with interest and
approval--the tendency, that is to say, to be more sparing than
formerly in the use of this particular mode of punishment. Public
opinion has changed considerably within the last few years with regard
to the value of imprisonment, more particularly in its application
to certain categories of offenders, and in harmony with these newer
and better views the law has provided a wider choice of alternative
penalties.
“As a consequence, some classes of offenders have already ceased to be
sent to jail, and in the case of several other classes imprisonment
is merely retained as a violent remedy to be tried only when milder
and more appropriate methods have proved unsuccessful. The increasing
use of the probation act and the establishment of Juvenile Courts
under the children’s act may be specially instanced to illustrate this
point; these changes in the law have operated powerfully to decrease
the number of commitments to prison. And it may be presumed that if
the provisions of the mental deficiency act are used as they ought to
be in dealing with weak-minded delinquents and drunkards, there will
be a further decrease in the population of our jails, in which these
troublesome recidivists have hitherto bulked so largely.
“In the main, then, we may take it that the diminution in the prison
population, in so far as it is not accounted for by temporary
variations in the economic factors of crime, is due to a changed
public opinion which no longer regards the jail as a social panacea.
Among the influences which have contributed to bring about this saner
attitude, one of the most important has been the clearer perception of
what should be the true function of imprisonment, a perception which
necessarily leads to closer scrutiny of the conditions that determine
the effective performance of that function; and on these points our
knowledge has been considerably widened of recent years, thanks to
the more scientific spirit which has been introduced into the penal
administration of this country.
“The record of Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise and his colleagues in this
work of reform should therefore entitle them to speak authoritatively
regarding the application of this method of treatment which they have
done so much to render really corrective and reformatory. And they
will certainly demand that the present abuse of imprisonment shall be
amended, and that an end shall be made of the futile and pernicious
system of repeated short sentences for petty offences.
“How great is the extent of this evil may be gathered from the
commissioners’ statement that of the prisoners received from the
ordinary courts during last year no less than 121,126 or 80.6 per cent.
of the total number committed were sentenced to terms of one month or
under. These amazing figures are certainly sufficient proof that there
is need of some statutory alteration of the existing laws to prevent
the continuance of the useless and mischievous practice; and it is
satisfactory to learn from the commissioners that there is a prospect
of legislative action on the matter in the near future.”