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The Green Bag
namely, the fact that he could make no study of the convicted person's previous life or en vironment, or the causes of his act, nor avail himself of the study of any expert on the subject; and the further fact that, even if he could accom plish these things, he could take little or no advantage of them, but must still impose a predetermined prison sentence, regardless of its fitness to the crime or its probable deterrent or reforming effect on the criminal. . . . "Were it possible for the court to delay sentence, to cause the investigation which I have suggested to be made, to ascertain where the real difficulty has been, and then to treat the case as an individual problem, prescribing such measures, either therapeutic, disciplinary or segregative, as its history indicates to be best, society might easily acquire a sober, industrious citizen, instead of an enemy." "Criminal Law for Men." By Robert Ferrari. Case and Comment, v. 18, p. 731 (May). What are the practical reforms the state should institute? . . . "(1) Do not sentence your prisoners to a fixed period of servitude, debasement, and brutalization, but to an indeterminate time of education, trial, and experiment. "(2) Have your civil and criminal judges separate in office. Criminal law, if it is to be properly administered, is a long and difficult study and requires unremitting time and patience on the part of judges to understand the criminal and to sentence him in the proper way. "(3) Teach criminology in law schools, to pave the way for experts on the criminal bench. "(4) Give your judges more power over the destinies of criminals than they have now. "(5) Put the children of convicts in industrial schools, and in houses of correction. _ Catch the future criminal in the bud and give him ample time to flower as a useful member of so ciety. "(6) Adapt your treatment to different kinds of criminals. Some need the lunatic asylum, some need work in the open, some need work in the shop, some may be sent to the mines; it is better that criminals be sacrificed to fire damp than that honest workmen should be._ "(7) Abolish the cellular system in prisons and establish agricultural colonies. "(8) Attach experts to your criminal courts to examine and classify criminals. "(9) Give the state the right of appeal. If the individual has the right to say that he shall not be condemned through the mistake or ignorance of his judges, society also has the right to demand that those whose acquittal is equally the result of mistake or ignorance shall not be allowed to go free. "(10) Give the appellate court the right to increase the punishment already meted put by the lower court. Society has rights which the individual must respect. Even in the classic land of the habeas corpus and of intense personal freedom, the appellate court may increase the punishment. "(11) Let the state compensate the individual for judicial errors. If it has prosecuted unjustly, let it stand the expense and offer at least partial balm.
"(12) Let the perpetrator of a wrong in demnify the victim of it. "(13) Employ, for occasional criminals, the suspended sentence. "(14) Treat habitual criminals as pests of society. "(15) Compel reparation of damage in the case of the criminal through the impulse of that passion which is not anti-social, but excusable, such as the passion of love and that of honor." "Humanizing Criminal Law." By Arthur MacDonald. Case and Comment, v. 18, p. 711 (May). "It is as true of a prison as of a university, that buildings do not make it, but men. The public, however, are unwilling to pay for trained men. Even the wardenship of a prison is not regarded as a very high political office, nor are intellectual qualifications a conspicuous requisi tion. The regular duties of a warden (not to mention his political ones) leave him little time and less energy to make an individual study of his prisoners, and too many of the under officers are incapable from lack of education or intelli gence, or both. Many of the criminals are more intelligent than their keepers, whom they are admonished to respect. . . . "It is not unjust or unreasonable to make the reformatory a humanitarian laboratory for pur poses of study, provided no injury be done the inmates." "Is There a Criminal Class: William Allan Pinkerton says No." By Frank Parker Stockbridge. Hampton's, v. 28, p. 267 (May). "No one," says Mr. Pinkerton, "can study criminals at close range and believe in the existence of a criminal class, regardless of what Lombroso and his disciples may claim. . . . Humanity is not thus divided into criminals and non-criminals. There is but one classification that can be made — the class of those who have committed crimes and the class of those who have not yet committed crimes. Within cer tain limits, varying with the individual, every human being is a potential criminal. I have seen this illustrated so often that I am never surprised to learn that any man or woman, however highly placed and however greatly esteemed, has done something which the law for bids and for which society demands a penalty. On the other hand, however — and this is the bright side of the shield — every criminal is potentially an honest man, and with the right kind of encouragement from society will remain honest by preference. It is my observation of hundreds of criminals whose reform has been complete and permanent that makes this con clusion a definite one." Cy Pres. "The Application of the Cy Pret Doctrine to Trusts for Charitable Purposes." By T. Bourchier-Chilcott. 28 Law Quarterly Review 169 (Apr.). "An erroneous, but apparently well-established opinion formerly existed, and it must be said still exists, that the court, whenever its juris diction is invoked to direct a scheme for the administration of a charitable trust, has power
