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The recent development of anarchy
has been sufficiently discussed. Legal journals are now taking up
the question of its suppression. It may be said in passing that
neither England nor the United States can boast of having done in
the past all that they might have done in that direction. Being
free countries, they are naturally the resorts of political refugees,
and have become too much hiding places for desperate criminals of
the anarchist type. The rest of the world may well call upon them
to be diligent in the duty they owe to other nations in connection
with this matter. The United States especially, having now felt
the sting of the reptile fraternity, may be expected to take strenuous
measures to cope with the evil, especially in view of the part played
by American anarchists in the Italian regicide of last year. A consideration
of the subject naturally draws attention to the repression of crime
from a wider point of view, and suggestions appropriate thereto
are now in order. The Central Law Journal, in a recent issue,
published a summary of the views expressed on this subject by Prof.
Arthur McDonald, of the United States Bureau of Education, who has
made a special study of the criminal, pauper, and defective classes.
The conclusions he has arrived at are, as our contemporary remarks,
very pertinent at this crisis, and are commended to law makers [sic]
as a basis for a practical advance in the treatment of criminals.
These conclusions are as follows: 1. The prison should be a reformatory
and the reformatory a school. The principal object of both should
be to teach good, mental, moral, and physical habits. Both should
be distinctly educational. 2. It is detrimental financially,
as well as socially and morally, to release prisoners when there
is a probability of their returning to crime; for in this case the
convict is much less expensive than the ex-convict. 3. The determinate
sentence permits many prisoners to be released who are morally certain
to return to crime. The indeterminate sentence is the best method
of affording the prisoner an opportunity to reform without exposing
society to unnecessary dangers. 4. The ground for the imprisonment
of the criminal is, first of all, because he is dangerous to
society. This principle avoids [717][718]
the uncertainty that may rest upon the decision as to the degree
of freedom of will; for upon this last principle some of the most
brutal crimes would receive a light punishment. If a tiger is in
the street the main question is not the degree of his freedom of
will or guilt. Every man who is dangerous to property or life, whether
insane, criminal, or feeble-minded, should be confined, but not
necessarily punished. 5. The publication in the newspapers of criminal
details and photographs is a positive evil to society, on account
of the law of imitation. In addition, it makes the criminal
proud of his record, and develops the morbid curiosity of the people;
and it is especially the mentally and morally weak who are affected.
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