SUMMARY Suspended sentences; probation; discharges; quashing of indictments; bail under bond, pending trial for ominous crimes; and early paroles from prison houses are now stretched far beyond the practice of previous years. Schemes for lifting social blight from backsliders have been broadened and quickened notably during recent decades. Children’s courts of probation constantly have risen in numbers, and the gratuitous offices of ever-increasing thousands of laymen and women nobly second service for children haled to those courts. From the mode of operating most of America’s prisons has been deleted all but the semblance of repression and compulsion: and in their stead, powers-that-be boast of having capitalized activities which fit for the sporting limelight, rather than for saving averages at bread-winning work. After-parole efforts for, and supervision over, ex-prisoners, are vastly more inclusive than like endeavor of any foretime. Moreover, the public at In every conceivable way—inclusive of political pull, chicanery, graft, and criminal participation that remind of rottening fruit—the legal paddle has been padded for application to the predal felon; the same, until he construes criminal law in execution to be written agreeably with such interpretation as his nefarious necessities dictate. Self-adjudged reformers of both sexes and of all stripes baldly palliate the chosen occupation of the thief, while him commiserating beyond the period placed by the Saviour. The patrolman who wields his nightstick so as to shock the aesthetic sensibilities of an attacking marauder, is liable to be “broken” if the bandit is one of the many who make irresistible appeal to the super-emotional. A peace officer probably will be condignly “disciplined,” shall he have dared, in self-defense, to man-handle an underworld vote-herder for them to whom the officer must either kowtow or cash in. The chances that a lawbreaker will be apprehended, are about three to one in his favor; that he will be convicted under the wording of a charge or charges brought against him by legal agents, they are about ten to one; and that he will pay with his life if he An escaping prisoner may count on the sympathy of at least eight of ten of the human mass, many of whom actually shield him. Most any old alibi, offered by aids-de-camp of crooks, will serve the accused on trial. Wrest what he will, from whom he will, by what method he will, the predal felon is not held to monetary restitution in so much as a red cent. The looted can sweat for the loot the thief “plants,” then employs in another swing around the criminal circle. The least elastic of the predicates of penal law are held at bay in all but a temerous few of America’s secondary prisons. Far from being the crowded-out derelict he is painted by those who are either ignorant or perjured, the ex-convict usually can go to work at honest work, if he wills to do so. If he is a skilled workman, work almost surely will be provided for him. If he is unskilled, yet of parts such as “undercover” Fagins cultivate, he can always dodge artfully and profitably as skirmisher for them. Hence, for one governing reason, “discharged,” or “sentence suspended,” is so frequently written over the faces of indictments against habitual and consecutive scoundrels. Public opinion still makes hair-trigger response to lament over the lacerated feelings of heartless killers. Search where you may, and there America practically “turns the other check” to thrusts of the rough-riding drone. It hasn’t worked, it doesn’t work, and it won’t work. It has builded to the most brutal of expression in human history, and it does threaten fatefully. Well, then, since bidding for crime and compromising with criminals won’t do, what’s the answer? What’s to be done about it, and how is it to be done? Most unfortunately, such questions now sink to the bottom of an angry social sea, the depth of which the mind of no one man can plumb; but the troubled waters shall have subsided for something like safe passage, when criminals and potential criminals shall have been required to pay after the manner in which nature exacts reactive penalties. Inclusive of moral criminals, the first logical step in arresting criminousness is to make criminousness the most expensive luxury man can essay. First off, oblige predal felons to make restitution in kind: as to offenses against property, dollar for At the same time, drag out and set down hard, those who make a business of beating equitable exchange. Bow out of reformative management all who would build cardinally to other than earnest, consecutive endeavor on the part of prisoners for occupational skill with which to meet the exactions of the free-life working day. Essentially, handcuff mawkish sentimentalists who cannot see the public security for oblique impulse to pamper flippant foragers. Spare imprisoned, sin-driven lads so much as suggestion of the like of pug-charged thrills, while ministering just common sense and Christ-like to their crying needs, and probably the ninety-and-nine of them won’t pack a gun and break for money bags. When the exceptional freebooter just won’t play fair, and just will go gun-hung for plunder, isolate him and keep him isolated. Do it both in and out of prison. There is no call upon the commonwealth to motivate for the commission of crime, through pyramiding upon clemency that is spurned. |