them into other penal institutions is 14 per cent., the percentage of those incurring this penalty among such as have been on probation for a year or more is 17, and of those on probation for two years or more, 18. Then, again, of probationers in their nineteenth year, 21 per cent. were committed to other penal institutions, and of those in their twenty-first year, 31 per cent. The following table,' presenting the condition of all probationers in their twenty-first year, is very discouraging, for at least 38 per cent. have, in reality, not been doing well. Doing well..... Not doing well.... 69 or 58 per cent. 4 or 3 per cent. Have been in other penal institutions 37 or 31 per cent. It should be remembered that a large number of the boys at the Lyman School are not innately vicious, but have fallen into criminal ways simply through neglect and an evil environment: they improve at this school as they would have done in any ordinary home had they been subjected to a fairly good training. This consideration makes it appear probable that the reformatory influence of the school upon the innately vicious is much less than we might infer from the statistics. We must believe then of the Lyman School, and of all others of its kind, that 1 Report of Trustees for 1898, p. 41. 1 a large percentage of vicious boys undergo the best training which can as yet be offered, and are still unreformed: they go out into the world to swell the number of criminals.' The State Reformatory at Elmira, N. Y., is a penal institution which has received world-wide and well-deserved praise. It serves for the reception of "males between the ages of sixteen and thirty years, who have been committed to it under an indeterminate sentence for felony. The method of treatment seeks to fit these men for free life again by physical, mental, moral, and industrial training.' 2 The institution was opened in 1876, and the latest Year Book states that, since that time, 8829 criminals have been received as inmates, of whom 7.5 per cent. have "probably returned to criminal practices and contact." This estimate as to the number of the unreformed cannot, in the nature of things, be made with any degree of accuracy. For if a criminal conduct himself well while in the institution and during the period of parole which precedes his absolute release, and still more if his behavior be satisfactory for some time after this latter event, he must be classed among the" reformed." But this improvement in conduct by no means necessarily shows that there has been a true moral change, but can be fully accounted for on the supposition that the criminal has determined upon a new course of action merely because, amid his new environment, such a policy is more agreeable to himself. It must be admitted by all that a 1 Appendix 2. 2 For the year ending Sept. 30, 1898, pp. 20 and 25. man may do the thing which is right—deeming such action to be to his advantage-and still have no appreciation of right as right. He may be of the densest moral obtuseness and yet, if intelligent, may so comply with the nicest distinctions between right and wrong as prescribed by law and public opinion that his irremediable moral deficiency may never be suspected. And, withal, the man is utterly without scruple, and is a constant menace to society. That this consideration must apply to many of the supposed cases of reformation at Elmira is strongly suggested by a comparison of the following tables, given in the latest Year Book of the institution': (a) Susceptibility to moral impressions (estimated :) Positively none. Possibly some... Specially susceptible.. 3203 or 36.3 per cent. 3432 or 38.9 per cent. 1814 or 20.5 per cent. 379 or 4.3 per cent. (b) Moral Sense (even such as shown under examina tion, either filial affection, sense of shame, or of If the examination of this large number of criminals shows 29.7 per cent. to have absolutely no moral sense and 41.8 per cent. only possibly some, and if, on the other hand, 79.5 per cent. have good mental capacity, while in 6 per cent. it is even excellent and in 13.5 per cent. fair, and deficient in only I per cent. we cannot, in the light of modern knowledge, believe otherwise than that often, when a case of reformation is reported among the 29.7 per cent. of no moral sense, or among the 41.8 per cent. of possibly some that is among the 71.5 per cent. who present little or nothing upon which we may build a hope the reformation is not the true thing, not a change of heart, but a mere change of conduct based upon an enlightening of selfish motive. 66 The criminal returns of almost every country in Europe show that the percentage of well-conducted prisoners in penal institutions was never higher than at the present time. But unfortunately the same returns show that the proportion of prisoners who return to a life of crime after their release 1 was never so great as it is now. In other words, the good conduct of a criminal while in prison is of very little value as an indication of the kind of life he will probably lead upon recovery of his freedom. To any one aware of the frequency of grave physical and mental defects among criminals, it cannot seem strange that they should so often continue absolutely incorrigible. The hysterical, the epileptic, the insane, and the morally imbecile are, as a rule, utterly incapable of true reform. A reliable 1 W. D. Morrison, loc. cit., p. 234. 1 authority says of hysterical criminals: " Punishment has only a transitory influence upon them-just for the moment: in one minute they forget the sufferings of the week or two in the dark cell, and begin again their eccentricities." The epileptic's impulse toward crime is often perfectly irresistible; indeed, the criminal act may be accomplished during a condition of unconsciousness, and no knowledge of what he has done ever come to the perpetrator. It is evident that criminals of this kind cannot be reformed by moral suasion or judicial penalties. The utter disregard of consequences which usually characterizes the actions of the insane is a matter of familiar knowledge: very often the lunatic murders a series of innocent victims and then, by taking his own life, successfully evades all punishment. Toward softening the flint-like obduracy of the moral imbecile all remedies remain unavailing. We may in some measure restrain, but can never reform him, The general public has not yet grasped the truth, now so well established, that "moral sense," like every other mental capacity, requires a fitting basis of brain-structure, and that if this has never existed, or has been destroyed by disease, a moral sense is impossible. Every one will admit that there are individuals who have no "ear for music "-none of that special structure of ear and brain through which alone an appreciation of music is possible-and that these persons can never develop such a capacity, every rudiment of it being absent. In like manner, 1 Dr. E. Laurent, Les habitués des prisons de Paris, p. 248. Paris, 1890. |