Crime and Its Causes | Page 4

In the case of children sent to

Reformatory Schools, the previous history of the child is always
tabulated. Enquiries are made and registered respecting the parents of
the child; what country they belong to, what sort of character they bear,
whether they are honest and sober, whether they have ever been in
prison, what wages they earn, and whether the child is legitimate or not.
A similar method to the one adopted with Reformatory children ought
to be instituted, with suitable modifications, in European prisons and
convict establishments. It is, at the present time, being advocated by
almost all the most eminent criminal authorities,[1] and more than one
scheme has been drawn up to show the scope of its operation.
[1] See Appendix I.
In addition to the service which a complete personal and family record
of convicted prisoners would render as to the causes of crime, such a
record would be of immense advantage to the judges. At the present
time a judge is only made acquainted with the previous convictions of a
prisoner; he knows nothing more about him except through the
evidence which is sometimes adduced as to character. An accurate
record of the prisoner's past would enable the judge to see at once with
what sort of offender he was dealing, and might, perhaps, help to put a
stop to the unequal and capricious sentences which, not infrequently,
disgrace the name of justice.[2]
[2] In his interesting work, "Die Beziehungen zwischen Geistesstörung
und Verbrechen," Dr. Sander shows that out of a hundred insane
persons brought up for trial, the judges only discovered the mental state
of from twenty-six to twenty-eight per cent. of them.
Passing from this point, we shall now inquire into the possibility of
establishing some system of International Statistics, whereby the
volume of crime in one country may be compared with the volume of
crime in another. At the present time it is extremely difficult to institute
any such comparison, and it is questionable if it can ever be properly
done. In no two countries is the criminal law the same, and an act
which is perfectly harmless when committed in one part of Europe, is
considered in another as a contravention of the law. Each country has
also a nomenclature of crime and methods of criminal procedure
peculiar to itself. In each country the police are organised on a different
principle, and act in the execution of their duty on a different code of
rules. In all cases, for instance, of mendicancy, drunkenness, brawling,

and disorder, the initiative rests practically with the police, and it
depends almost entirely on the instructions issued to the police whether
such offences shall figure largely or not in the statistics of crime. A
proof of this fact may be seen in the Report of the Commissioner of
Police of the Metropolis, for the year 1888. In the year 1886, the
number of persons convicted in the Metropolis of "Annoying male
persons for the purpose of prostitution" was 3,233; in 1888, the number
was only 1,475. This enormous decrease in the course of two years is
not due to a diminution of the offence, but to a change in the attitude of
the police. Again, in the year 1887, the Metropolitan police arrested
4,556 persons under the provisions of the Vagrant and Poor Law Acts;
but in the year 1888, the number arrested by the same body under the
same acts amounted to 7,052. It is perfectly obvious that this vast
increase of apprehensions was not owing to a corresponding increase in
the number of rogues, beggars, and vagrants; it was principally owing
to the increased stringency with which the Metropolitan police carried
out the provisions of the Vagrant and Poor Law Acts. An absolute
proof of the correctness of this statement is the fact that throughout the
whole of England there was a decrease in the number of persons
proceeded against in accordance with these acts. These examples will
suffice to show what an immense power the police have in regulating
the volume of certain classes of offences. In some countries they are
called upon to exercise this power in the direction of stringency; in
other countries it is exercised in the direction of leniency; and in the
same country its exercise, as we have just seen, varies according to the
views of whoever, for the time being, happens to have a voice in
controlling the action of the police. In these circumstances it is
obviously impossible to draw any accurate comparison between the
lighter kinds of offences in one country and the same class of offences
in another.
In the case of the more serious offences against person and property,
the initiative of putting the law in motion rests chiefly with the injured
individual. The action of