474
The Green Bag
officially selected boards of experts as im practicable for several reasons. The general subject of the administration of the criminal law is approached from a new angle by Judge Gemmill of the Chicago
Municipal Court, a court noted for the dis patch with which it transacts its business and for some admirable methods of procedure. Judge Gemmill believes firmly in the swift and certain enforcement of the law, as the
fear of punishment is the most powerful deterrent that can be found to prevent the commission of crimes. He gives some most interesting figures with regard to the effect of this policy in Chicago :— “While crimes based upon fraudulent business transactions have increased. all of the more serious crimes have decreased. This does not include homicide. which has remained almost stationary. The number of homicides in a city is no criterion of the crime of a city. They are usually com mitted by men and women who had hitherto been useful and law-abiding citizens. In the last ten years there has been a decrease of thirty-five per cent in the number of prisoners at Joliet over any other ten-year period since 1868. From July 1, 1899. to January 1. 1910. the prisoners at Pon tiac, where all persons between the ages of ten and twenty-one years convicted of felonies must be sent, has decreased from 1.397 to 745—almost fifty per cent in ten and one-half years. The number of prisoners sent to the John Worthy School for delinquent boys has decreased from 913 in 1900 to 272 in 1909-a decrease of seventy per cent in nine years."
At the same time, Judge Gemmill is a believer in parole and probation, properly administered. He does not favor probation for drunkenness, as confinement over night is alone sufficient punishment for the majori ty of cases, and probation would generally mean a sense of degradation and loss of employment. On the subject of parole he says:— "I am in favor of a parole law. not for drunks. but for a certain class of first ofienders who may thereby be given an opportunity to make recom pense for the wrong done and to change their course of conduct. But I am sure that any parole law which advertises to the world that every viola tor of the criminal laws shall have at least two chances to commit crimes before he is in danger
of punishment. will increase crime rather
than
decrease it."
He earnestly advocates methods which do not debase the criminal, and he frowns upon
the Massachusetts practice of exposing the prisoner to curious scrutiny in an iron cage,
and points out the evil efiects of the Massa chusetts policy of imprisonment for drunk enness.
Massachusetts,
he says, has three
times as many criminals in its prisons, as compared to population, as Illinois, and this notwithstanding the fact that it has “the
oldest and best parole law in the United States." Another interesting feature of the journal is a series of articles presenting representative passages from the writings of those English and American thinkers who have advanced a philosophy of penal law. "Only those thinkers will be selected who stand eminent in philosophical science and have treated penal law as a part of their general philosophical system." The series will be edited by three members of the faculty of Northwestern University,—Mr. Longwell, instructor in philosophy, Mr. Kocowrek, lecturer on jurisprudence, and Professor Wigmore. The first philosopher chosen is Thomas Hill Green, whose idealistic theory of punish ment is so carefully thought out in details and so sound in many of its interpretations as to deserve attentive study from the point of view of twentieth century thought. Some of its arguments are not entirely convincing, such as that, for example, that social re
tribution differs in its essential nature from private vengeance. But a complete science of penology must look for its materials to every possible quarter, and the value of analytical research must not be underrated at a time when so much emphasis is laid on anthropological and biological investigation. NOTE Messrs. Little, Brown, and Company. of Boston. begin publishing this fall "The Modern Criminal Science Series," under the direction of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology. The following titles have been chosen by a Com
mittee appointed by Prof. john H. Wigmore. president of the Institute: “Criminal Psychology," by Hans Gross of the University of Graz, Austria; "Modern Theories of Criminology," by Bernaldo de Quiros of Madrid; "Criminal Sociology," by Enrico Ferri, University of Rome; "The Individ ualization of Punishment," by Raymond Saleilles, University of Paris; "Crime. Its Causes and Ranedies." by the late Cesare Lombroso; "Penal Philosophy." by Gabriel Tarde; "Criminality and Economic Conditions," by W. A. Bonger. Univer sity of Amsterdam; “Criminology." by Rafiaelle Garofalo, of Naples; and "Crime and Its Repres sion." by Gustav Aschafienburg. editor of the ll'lonthly journal of Criminal Law and Criminal Law Reform.
