The Review, Vol. 1, No. 11, November 1911

NOVEMBER 1911 ***

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VOLUME I, No. 11. NOVEMBER, 1911

THE REVIEW

A MONTHLY PERIODICAL, PUBLISHED BY THE =NATIONAL PRISONERS’ AID ASSOCIATION= AT 135 EAST 15th STREET, NEW YORK CITY.

TEN CENTS A COPY. ONE DOLLAR A YEAR

T. F. Carver, President. Wm. F. French, Vice President. O. F. Lewis, Secretary, Treasurer and Editor Review. Edward Fielding, Chairman Ex. Committee. F. Emory Lyon, Member Ex. Committee. W. G. McClaren, Member Ex. Committee. A. H. Votaw, Member Ex. Committee. E. A. Fredenhagen, Member Ex. Committee. Joseph P. Byers, Member Ex. Committee. R. B. McCord, Member Ex. Committee.

THE STATISTICS OF CRIME

BY EUGENE SMITH

PRESIDENT PRISON ASSOCIATION OF NEW YORK

=[Mr. Smith read a very carefully prepared paper on the above subject at the Omaha meeting of the American Prison Association. The Review would gladly print the address in full but space admits only of certain abstracts, which follow.—EDITOR]=

In the deplorable and chaotic condition of the very sources from which all statistical matter must be drawn, it is hopeless to look for any improvement in our census statistics, unless a radical change can be effected in state administration. The records of the police, the courts, the prisons, can be made of statistical value only by the action of the state itself; and there is apparent but one method by which the state can act to this end.

There should be established in each state a permanent board or bureau of criminal statistics, whether as an independent body or as a department of the office of the attorney general or of the secretary of state. This bureau should be charged with the duty of prescribing the forms in which the records of all criminal courts, police boards and prisons shall be kept and specifying the items regarding which entries shall be made. The law creating the bureau should direct that the forms prescribed by it should be uniform as to all institutions of the same class to which they respectively apply and be binding upon all institutions within the state.

The bureau should issue general instructions governing the collection and verification of the facts to be stated in the record; it should also be its duty, and it should be vested with power, to inspect and supervise the records and to enforce compliance with its requirements. Such a bureau might secure a collection of reliable statistical matter, uniform in quality throughout the state. Indiana is now, it is believed, the only state in the Union where such a bureau exists.

But even this result is not enough. Supposing all the criminal records within each separate state to be made uniform without the state, still they would not be available for comparison or for the purposes of a national census, unless all the states could be brought to adopt the same form and method, so that all criminal records throughout the Union could be kept upon one uniform plan. Here we encounter a serious obstacle. The diversity and conflict of state laws are crying evils of our time, universally recognized and denounced, and yet the most strenuous efforts to bring about harmonious action between the legislatures of separate states have always failed. No single statute, however skilfully drawn, proposed for universal acceptance has ever yet been adopted by all the states of the Union. Still the states _must_ act in unison upon this matter of uniform criminal records or else our statistics of crime must continue to be a national failure and a national reproach.

Not the slightest reflection can be cast upon the federal census bureau; on the contrary, when consideration is taken of the fragmentary and chaotic state records with which the census bureau had to deal, the systematic and orderly results and the general deductions embraced in the census report of 1904 must be regarded as a signal scientific triumph.

Uniformity in criminal records throughout the Union we have seen to be an imperative need. Is it a visionary ideal, impossible of attainment? If there is any means through which the ideal can be realized, it is through the agency of state bureaus of criminal statistics, such as have just been suggested. Each of these state bureaus, in preparing uniform plans and forms for its own state, would naturally place itself in touch with the national census bureau; while the national bureau would not be legally vested with the slightest power to dictate to the state bureau or to direct its action, _practically_ its wide experience and grasp of the entire situation would enable the federal bureau to wield commanding influence in shaping the action of every state bureau. If the creation of efficient state bureaus, of the kind indicated, in the several states could only be secured, it is not chimerical to believe that through the dominating influence of the federal census bureau, tactfully exerted, a uniform system of statistical records relating to crime could ultimately be established throughout the United States. It is the first step that counts. If a few of the leading states in the Union could be induced to establish such a bureau; if to Indiana could be added New York, Illinois, Nebraska, and in the South Virginia, the force of example would be potent in the sister states. * * *

One exceedingly common and popular error needs special mention; a marked increase in the number of convictions for crime indicates to the public mind an increase necessarily in the volume of crime committed. In fact, it may be owing to increased activity and efficiency on the part of the police and detective officers, to greater severity and thoroughness in the administration of the courts, to a change in the economic conditions of the community, to diminished care and skill on the part of offenders in escaping detection; indeed, there are many possible factors that may have combined to produce an unusual statistical result. A slight change in the laws or methods of procedure, may cause startling statistical fluctuations.

For example, in the year 1890, the number of convictions for drunkenness in Massachusetts was 25,582; two years later, the number had fallen to 8,634. An amazing diminution of drunkenness in Massachusetts—nearly 70%? Not at all; it was owing to a new statute passed in 1891, the effect of which was that only those arrested for the third time within a year were subject to conviction.

The congestion of population in cities and the progress of invention necessitates every year the enactment of numerous statutes and municipal ordinances making certain acts, that are harmful to the public, misdemeanors (that is, legally crimes); but these acts, committed in large part through ignorance or negligence, are not essentially of a criminal nature. Statistically, they swell the number of crimes committed, but most of them are not crimes in the meaning popularly attached to that word. These considerations suggest that all attempts to draw conclusions from, and to explain the significance of the rise or fall of the statistical barometer must be conducted with extreme caution.

An error into which speakers and writers upon crime are prone to fall is that of regarding the statistics of crime as a measure of the total volume of crime committed in the country, affording an answer to the vital question: Is crime increasing? There are two fundamental facts relating to crime that must never be forgotten. First, that criminal statistics are, and must necessarily always be, confined to those crimes that are known and are officially acted upon by the police or the courts. Secondly, that there is a large number of crimes that are committed secretly and are never divulged, the perpetrators of which are never detected, and crimes that never result in the apprehension of the offender.

The crimes of this second class cannot possibly enter into any criminal statistics and yet they form a very large part of the total volume of crime committed. It does not seem to be commonly appreciated that these unpublished, unpunished crimes, which can never be included in any criminal statistics, probably far exceed in number those that are followed by conviction and punishment. * * *

In addition to unpublished crimes, there are numerous cases where crime is committed and reported to the police, but proceed no further. In these instances, the offender may be known, but has escaped or the offender is unknown and eludes detection; in either case there is no conviction and the crime remains unpunished. * * *

Perhaps the highest value of criminal statistics consists in the light they may throw upon the practical effects produced by penal legislation, by judicial procedure and by the administration of police and detective officers. For example, within the past decade, radical changes in the administration of justice have been established in this country by laws relating to juvenile offenders, and by the extended use of the suspended sentence and probation. A question has arisen in many minds whether the severity of the penal law has not thus been unduly relaxed. It is a matter of supreme importance to know whether and how far, the tenderness of the modern law toward children serves to rescue them from a life of crime—to know whether the clemency of the law toward adults by suspension of sentence and probation promotes their rehabilitation, and to know to what class of offenders this clemency may properly be extended—to know whether these milder methods of treatment are affording adequate protection to the public or whether sterner measures of restraint and discipline may be made more effective in repressing crime.

These vital questions can receive final answer only by following the subsequent career of the offenders to whom these methods are applied and thus gaining data for statistical tabulation. In the same way, the virtue of the indeterminate sentence ought to be substantiated by the statistical test. Statistics can be made to show what class of crimes comes most frequently before the courts in a given community, and whether an increase in the severity of punishment tends to increase or diminish the number of convictions.

A movement is now in progress which may greatly widen the scope of criminal statistics. It has long been realized that many persons sentenced for crime are feeble-minded and seriously defective; mentally and physically but, within the past few years, the conviction has been growing that our penal system is radically imperfect in that it provides no adequate means for deciding whether or not a person on trial for crime is really responsible criminally. * * *

THE PAROLE SYSTEM IN CANADA

=[In the current annual report of the Minister of Justice as to the penitentiaries of Canada, appears an interesting account, partly historical, of the Canadian parole system. We print portions of the report.]=

Adult criminals seem to have been under a “ticket of leave” system in England, as far back as the year 1666, in the reign of Charles II, when a statute was passed, giving judges power of sentencing offenders to “transportation to any of His Majesty’s dominions in North America.” This authority was re-affirmed by another statute passed in the year 1718, during the reign of Charles I. In England and France, at that time, adult criminals, also juvenile or minor offenders, were placed on a sort of parole, and given over to societies, or orders, for supervision, while the state still held custody of them, which custody was relaxed as the good effects of their being thus placed became more apparent. The ticket of leave system grew out of the transportation of criminals by England to her colonial possessions. Transportation ceased temporarily in 1775, because of the war with her American colonies, but it was revived in 1786, and a consignment of convicts was also sent in this year to New South Wales.

The control of this colony was not regulated by statute, but was left to the wisdom of the colonial governor. The necessity of raising crops for their sustenance, the construction of buildings, and the making of homes for the colonists, induced the governor greatly to modify the sentences of the well-disposed prisoners, that he might have a needed moral and possibly a physical support from them in his administration. He set many of them free, and gave them grants of land, and afterwards assigned to these men, thus free, other convict laborers who were being received from the mother country. Following this precedent it became the custom for the governors of different penal settlements to manage each according to his own ideas, and the custom developed into granting such liberties as have been included in the ticket of leave system.

The holder of the ticket of leave, which was granted to the convict who had satisfactorily fulfilled a certain period of his sentence in the cellular prisons then adopted in the penal settlements, would be granted the freedom of the colony during the remainder of his sentence, but he was placed under certain restrictions, such as being confined to certain districts unless he received a pass to go elsewhere, and also being obliged to present himself for inspection to the authorities monthly, quarterly or yearly, as provided for in his license, and being prohibited from carrying fire-arms or weapons of any kind, except under special permission. The ticket of leave was first legalized during the reign of George IV, between 1820 and 1830, and in 1834 it was regulated by a statute, which defined the minimum periods of sentence by which a ticket of leave could be gained. For example, it required a service of four years for a seven year sentence, six years for a sentence of eight, and fourteen years for a life sentence, in what was termed “assigned service or government employed.” These periods could be increased by the slightest misconduct on the part of the prisoner.

Under this law a convict who had held a ticket of leave without having been guilty of misconduct, and who was recommended by responsible persons in the district where he resided, could have his application for a full pardon transferred by the governor of the colony for the consideration of the Crown, but Sir Robert Burke, in a report made by him in 1838, intimates that convicts were granted ticket of leave to some extent at the discretion of the home government upon application of influential persons in England. Under this system the convict on ticket of leave was entitled to his earnings. In case of misconduct, the employer could complain to the nearest magistrate, who could order the convict to be flogged, condemned to work on the roads, or in the chain gang. Any magistrate could order 150 lashes, until the year 1858, when the number was limited to 50. A convict, if ill-treated, might lay a complaint against his master, but for that purpose he must go before a bench of magistrates, the majority of whom were owners of convict labor and masters of assigned convict servants. Such abuses grew up under this system as to make life a living hell for the convicts.

In the year 1838 a committee of parliament condemned the system of transportation, with its attached evils, as “being unequal, without terrors to the criminal classes, corrupting both the criminal and colonists, and very expensive.” They recommended the establishment of penitentiaries instead. It was then ordered that no convicts should be assigned for domestic service, and in the year 1840 transportation to Australia was stopped entirely.

Another advance was made in the year 1842, which was called the “probation system.” It was founded on the idea of passing convicts through various stages of control and discipline, by which it was hoped to instill a more progressive system for their improvement. Probation gangs were established in Van Dieman’s Land, through which all convicts for transportation were to pass. These gangs were scattered through the colony, and were employed on public works under the control of the government. A school master or a clergyman was to be attached to each gang. From the probation gang, the convict passed into a stage during which he might, with the consent of the governor, engage in private service for wages, but he was required to pay the government a part of the wages, which was retained as security, and forfeited if the convict was guilty of any misconduct. Next followed a ticket of leave with the same privileges, save that the freedom of the convict was greatly enlarged. The last stage was that of a conditional pardon. This probation system failed, as Sir Edmond Ducaine stated, for several reasons: 1st—that suitable means were not provided for insuring proper order or discipline in the probation gang; 2nd—that the officers of the gangs were characterized by insubordination and vices, unnatural crimes being proven to exist to a terrible extent; 3rd—that the demand for labor was found to be very insufficient to employ the ticket of leave portion of the men, so that idleness soon destroyed all the good that had been accomplished under the probation system. The difficulty may be summed up in one or two words—they did not get to the root of the matter as regards discipline and labor, and there was an entire absence of mental and moral training.

In the year 1846, Mr. Gladstone decided that all transportation of convicts to the outside colonies must be suspended, and in 1847 the present system of imprisonment was adopted, under which convicts must pass through the prisons before a conditional release will be granted. Under the present system of penal servitude in England, there are three distinct stages of operation. During the first, which generally lasts nine months, recently greatly reduced in number, the prisoner passes his whole time, except meetings and exercise, in his cell apart from all other prisoners, working at some employment, but always kept separate and alone. During the second stage he eats and sleeps in his cell, but works in association with other prisoners. During the third period he is conditionally released, but is kept under the surveillance of the police, reports at stated periods, and is returned to prison for any infraction of his licence. The system is altogether automatic in its operation, and as far as I can ascertain about one-half of the entire number released on ticket of leave, lapse into crime again.

The “Prevention of Crimes Act” passed in 1871 provides that any person convicted a second time of an indictable offence may be sentenced to be subject to the supervision of the police for seven years after the expiration of his sentence.

The system of conditional liberation was adopted by the king of Saxony, in 1862. In the same year it was adopted by the grand duchy of Oldenburg, by the Canton of Sargovie in Switzerland, in 1868; the kingdom of Servia, in 1869, the German Empire, in 1871, Denmark, in 1879; the Swiss Canton of Vaud, in 1875, also in the same year, the Kingdom of Croatia in Hungary, the Canton of Unter Walden, in 1878, the Netherlands, in 1881, the Empire of Japan, in 1882, the French Republic in 1885, and since these dates it has been adopted in Austria, Italy and Portugal. The system of parole, or conditional liberation, is also now in vogue in many of the United States.

The Canadian parole system, first adopted for the penitentiaries in the year 1899, and since extended to the jails and reformatories, differs from any system now in operation in the entire world, and will compare favorably with any of them. There is nothing automatic in the operation of this system, and it does not conflict with the remission earned in the penitentiaries, which applies to all prisoners whose conduct and industry merit consideration.