Men and Other Travails

REVIEWS. Juvenile Offenders. By W. DOUGLAS MORRISON. New York: D. Appleton & Co., I897. PP. 317. $I.50. THE problem of this work is the problem of habitual crime. The proportion of habitual criminals in the criminal population is constantly increasing. This implies the partial failure of the methods of penal law and administration, since the object of these institutions is to prevent the repetition of acts injurious to the community. There are two general classes of offenders, the occasional and the habitual. Young criminals pass from one class to the other during the period of immaturity, and their career is determined by causes over which penal machinery has little control. Part I deals with the individual and social conditions favorable to juvenile and habitual crime. By a critical statistical analysis it is shown that serious crime is increasing in continental Europe. England has been generally regarded as an exception, but this impression is based on error. There has, indeed, been a decrease of the number of youth in prisons. But this does not prove an absolute decrease in crime. A milder treatment of young offenders has become common since I867; the average length of sentence has been shortened; fines have been substituted for incarceration; and private institutions have taken up many offenders who would formerly have gone to prisons. In England and in the United States juvenile crime has increased. The chapter on the distribution of juvenile crime gives the variations in the various countries of the modern world. The effects of density of population, of city life, and of centralized industry are considered. Pauperism and crime are in inverse ratio, and the causes of this interesting fact are discussed. The influence of sex on juvenile crime is inferred fromnstatistics; 85 per cent. are males and I5 per cent. are females. This fact is due both to the difference in personal traits and to the social environment. Age has an important bearing on the form of crime. The physical condition of juvenile offenders is carefully studied. 737 This content downloaded from 054.161.069.107 on May 30, 2020 15:44:29 PM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). 738 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY From comparison of death rate, number of orphans, measurements of stature and weight, and observed abnormalities, it is shown that juvenile crime is largely due to degeneration. The vagrant boy comes into collision with a competitive world with which he is not able to cope. The study of mental condition is more difficult and more important. The conclusion is reached that the physical inferiority of the class is necessarily accompanied by mental defect. On the basis of wide induction the author concludes that the domestic environment is decisive in giving direction to abnormalconduct. Parents of criminal youth are, eighty of them in every hundred, addicted to vicious, if not criminal, habits. The economic condition of juvenile offenders might be inferred from their physical, mental, and domestic conditions. As a rule they are not trained for any occupation and belong to the class of unskilled laborers. Society never attempts to instruct them in the art of making an honest living until it arrests them and places them in reformatoryschools; then it is too late. Having studied the personal and social causes of juvenile crime, the author directs Part II to the subject of its repression. First of all he considers the method of admonition and conditional release. The Massachusetts system of placing hopeful cases under the care of a probation officer is highly commended. Mr. Randall's article in the May I896, is used as the basis for a AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY, description and commendation of the Michigan system of child-saving work. When the parents are fit persons to train their children the method of admonition gives them additional control. In cases of children whose homes are immoral this method has little value. Fining is undoubtedly one of the best and most effective forms of punishment. It is almost the only form of punishment which is not irremediable. When corporal punishment is resorted to, or where a sentence of imprisonment is imposed, it is almost impossible to repair the injury to the individual if it is afterward discovered that he has been unjustly convicted. But the fine should be largely in the nature of reparation to the injured party. In case of poor parents who must pay the fine for their offending children the sum should be accepted in installments. In some situations the fine can be worked out without imprisonment, and this should be done whenever possible, since prisoners are a costly burden to the state, and prison life depraves those subjected to it. Whipping is still legal in England, but magistrates shrink from This content downloaded from 054.161.069.107 on May 30, 2020 15:44:29 PM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). REVIEWS 739 applying this punishment, and the "international conscience" is opposed to it. The chapter on imprisonment as a corrective measure is chiefly occupied with its history and with the reasons for using it as seldomi as possible. Police-court missions, probation officers, truant schools, fines, and other substitutes, should be employed. Very interesting is the account of English industrial and reformaThe tory schools given under the head of corrective institutions. are It of in the States briefly mentioned. schools similar kind United is shown that the children treated in these institutions have generally been improved. But the author shows that all these methods at their best do not touch the primary causes of habitual crime, which are in the economic, domestic, physical and educational conditions which surround and form the life. The author might have made more of the influence of heredity on the production of crime. If juvenile offenders are so defective as his statistics show, and if personal treatment of these in prisons, reformatories, and schools have little influence in checking crime at its source, it ought to start inquiry as to the degenerate families which breed such persons. Education, industrial reforms, better housing and sanitation, may do much to mitigate the evil and yet crime may increase in spite of all these agencies if the degenerates are not segregated and prevented from producing multitudes of the same kind. His argument carries us beyond his conclusions and compels thought of abysses below those directly opened to view. The author writes, naturally, from the English point of view, yet in the most catholic spirit and with a mastery of the sources of knowledge for all modern nations. As chaplain of Wandworth prison and a patient student of criminology and penology, his recommendations bear the stamp of a high degree of authority. The treatment is thorough and exact, but so free from all technical difficulty that the literary form is popular. The book will be indispensable for every serious student of C. R. HENDERSON. the child-saving problem. Economics. An account of the relations between private propBy ARTHUR T. HADLEY. G. P. erty and public welfare. $2.50. Putnam's Sons. Pp. xi+496. THIS book attempts to explain modern industries objectively This content downloaded from 054.161.069.107 on May 30, 2020 15:44:29 PM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c).