The Science of Penology: The Defense of Society Against Crime

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Preface

THE more familiar one becomes with the details of the attempts of society to secure protection from criminals, from early times to the present, the more profoundly he is likely to be impressed with their inordinate cost and their inutility. Notwithstanding our tremendous expenditure of effort and money, crime continues undiminished, and popular apprehension unrelieved. The laws do not protect. When a great social grievance exists, it becomes every one's duty to endeavor to discover its cause and cure. This responsibility has been very generally recognized. Many valuable and learned books have been written, scientific studies published, and profitable discussions conducted, which have so expanded our knowledge that it appears possible to propose a complete solution of the problem. The comprehensiveness of my public official duties has naturally inclined my attention to the entire range of criminal causes and effects, from birth to the end of life, in every diversity of social environment. Study and observation of this general nature have convinced me that the defense of society against crime cannot be successfully conducted without a complete and definite plan, organized upon a consistent theory and system, and that there is an urgent

VI Preface

necessity for the collection and arrangement of the various important discoveries in penology into such a special system or science. The failure of our codes is due partly to this lack of plan and system, and partly to the fallacious theory on which they have been formulated. It has been my purpose to make this clear in the present treatise.

As the purpose of penology is entirely utilitarian, and necessarily confined to mortal existence, its methods and means are logically and naturally practical and objective, rather than ethical, religious, and subjective. The human result is identical when it is attained by either course, but the waning power of subjective influences over men, as what is called civilization advances, and the very remarkable success which attends objective reformative measures, directed primarily to perfecting the personal organism in order to secure correct function, suggest a very important and fruitful subject for the consideration of philanthropists, religious leaders, and statesmen. The influence of preachers has declined more on account of the change in the receptiveness of their hearers than in the ability of the preachers. The first appeal of religious reformers was to the emotions, then to the reason or intellect ; neither now receive their early response. These appeals have exhausted their power to impress men in their present stage of development. This maybe due to inordinate intellectual culture and atrophy of the moral organs. The sociological teaching of penology is that the whole man must be transformed

Preface vii

and made impressionable before he can be easily reformed ; that the most effective work will be on the object rather than on the means or subject of p onversion. It is possible for a skilled artisan to do work with an inferior machine, out of adjustment, but not the best kind or the largest amount of work. If he is intelligent he will first of all correct the defects of the machine with which he is to operate, and then proceed to do his work with it. So the first task of the reformer is to put the human machine in order before he attempts to make it work righteously. Statesmen are warned by penology not to forget that moral decadence undermines the mutual confidence which is essential to social comfort, material prosperity, and common action; and destroys the patriotism of a people. Public officials and legislators who may be called upon to consider and act upon various projects for the protection of the public from crime require a general plan to guide their action, just as a builder does the plan of the architect, or the landscape gardener a scheme of planting. Courts of justice are governed by laws, authorities, precedents, and principles ; criminal lawyers by accepted standards of practice. Systematized penology presents a consistent and uniform scheme of principles to which all may conform for the common good.

I have endeavored to collect in this book the principal data, to arrange them in order, and to state the generally accepted conclusions of penologists, which may be deemed to have reached the viii Preface

fixed stability of scientific facts, without encumbering the context with the history of the processes by which the conclusions have been reached, or the full array of arguments by which they are supported, if this history and argument are easily accessible by reference. I have made these references, wherever they seemed useful, to those works which supply the fullest information and are of acknowledged authority.

The Science of Pe7iology is offered the public in the hope that, whatever imperfections may appear, it may help to awaken a wider interest in the necessity for a more rational treatment of the violators of law, and assist those who make and execute the laws in the discharge of their duties to the greatest public advantage, by presenting a complete plan to which all details can be adjusted.

My grateful acknowledgments are due to many earnest philanthropists and penologists who have cheerfully assisted and encouraged me in the preparation of this work. I hope each one will accept this general expression of my sense of great obligation to him without the mention of any names, which might be embarrassing to some who should be named, and others who might by chance be

omitted.

H. M. B.

SCRANTON, Pa., February 15, 1901.

PACE

Chapter I. The Science Of Penology Defined

The Social Science — Penological Science — Its Province and Objects

— Its Importance — Number of the Criminal Class — Social Cost of Crime — Necessity of a Reformation in Treatment of Criminals

— Subdivisions of the Science — Diagnostics — Therapeutics — Hygienics .3

Chapter II. The Criminal Class

The Law of Criminal Saturation — Decrease of Crime during Historical Period — Who Compose the Class — Present Constancy of its Numbers — Variation in its Numbers on Account of Variation in Laws — Necessity of Comprehensive Treatment — The Five Categories — Their Characteristics — General Appearance and Characteristics of this Class — Presumptive Criminals — Subdivisions Pathological — Sources and General Causes — Nature of the Disease and Sanitary Measures 15

Chapter III. Crime

Crime Defined — Three General Classes — Purvnew 3f Human Law is Social — Classification by Objective Nature — Distinction between Crin ae and Crimi nality — Moral Depravity the S ource of Cr ime — Depravity a Disease — Sources of the Disea se — Immediate Caus

ix

Contents

V

PAGB

Intrinsic Causes — The Synectic — The Proegumenal — The Procatarctic — The Method of Cure — Criminal Responsibility — Extraneous Causes — Want — Changes of Laws and their Enforcement — Neglects and Defects of Child Training — Statistics of Illiteracy — Concentration of Population — Unrestricted Propagation of Criminals — Necessity of Prevention — Number of Convicts does not Measure the Quantity of Crime 30

Chapter IV. The Detection And Identification Of

CRIMINALS.

The Criminal at Liberty the Danger — Heredity and Human Progress — All Criminals to be Kept ConBned — Scientific Treatment in Prison — Skilful Diagnosis Essential to Cure ; to Future Prosecution — Identification of Presumptive Criminals — The Hertillon System — Methods and Details of — Explanation of its Use — Proof of Accuracy — Indispensable Advantages — National Bureau in America — Importance and Value — Number of Signalments in France, iSgg — A System — Use to Prevent Immigration of Criminals — Census Signalment 52

Chapter V. Criminal Codes

Origin of the Criminal Codes — Unscientific Development of them — Consequent Futility, Shown by Recidivism — Theory on which they are Founded and of Severe Penalties, False — Theory of Punishment Inutile — Abuse of Legal Privileges — Of Presumption of Innocence — Corruption of Juries — Technicalities Preveried to Delay — Security from Second Jeopardy — Evils of Judicial Discretion — Procuration of Perjury — Irrational Incongruity of Penalties — Murders and Lynchings — The Single Sentence — Criminal Madmen — Instinctive and Habitual Criminals — Single Offenders — The State the Only Legal Administrator of Criminal Laws — Drunkards — Prostitutes — Category of Criminality Disclosed at Trial — The Intermediate Sentence — The Real Province of Criminal Codes — Necessity for a New Code — Proposed System of Penalties — State Administration of Reformatory and Penal Prisons — The Pardoning Power 72

Contents xi

Chapter VI. The Defense Of Society, And State Control

OF CRIMINALS.

PAGE

Recidivists the Main Body of the Hostile Force — The Most Dangerous — Proportion of, among Convicts — Must be Cured before Discharge — Benefits of their Confinement — Necessity of Uniformity in the Criminal Codes of all States — Single and Juvenile Offenders The Presumptive Category — Obligation of the State to Execute its Own Laws — County Jails a Relic of Early Conditions — Their Present Disadvantages — State Care a Duty to the Criminal — Economy of State Care 95

Chapter VII. Legal Penalties

Punishment the Natural Reaction of Violated Law — A Necessary Sequence of Crime — Justice Impossible in Legal Penalties — Penalties Deterrent with Majority — Function of Legal Penalties — Effective According to Restraint and Deterrence — Now Generally Reduced to Fines and Imprisonment — The Death Penalty — Homicides and Executions in the United States — Capital Punishment Most Effective Restraint and Deterrent — Murderers Incapable of Restraint — Capital Punishment no Longer Enacts Public Opinion — Castration for Sexual Crimes — Imprisonment for Felonies — Continuous until Criminality is Cured — Hopefulness of Reformation — Reformatories and Indeterminate Sentence for ** Madmen,'* ** Instinctive," and "Habitual Criminals " — First Offenders not to be Imprisoned — Indemnity — How to be Exacted — Simplification of Punishments by Science . . ill

CHAPTER VIIL

THE INDETERMINATE SENTENCE.

Substitution of Reformation for Punishment — Origin and Development of the Reformatory System — Comparison of Results at Elmira and in New York Prisons — Success of Reformator>' System Demonstrated by Z. R. Brockway — His Statement of its Principles — Punishment by Reformation the Natural Reaction — The

I xii Contents

I

PAGB

Theory of Refonnation is the Cure of Disease — Time Limits for Cure Absurd — Varieties of the Disease — State of Opinion in the World concerning the Indeterminate Sentence — Physical Obstacles to its Adoption — Metaphysical Obstacles — What the Real Indeterminate Sentence is — Who shall Pronounce the Cure? — Existing Practice Devolves the Decision on Wardens — Objections — Advantages — Objections to Reformatory System Considered — The Tribunal of Discharge and Appeal — To whom the Sentence i should be Applied 133

Chapter IX. The Reformation Of Criminals

Reformation versus Punishment — Reformation Constitutes the Science of Penology — Its Scientific Basis — Its Philanthropic and Economic Objects — The Five Vital Elements — General Characterization of Criminals by Brockway — Necessity of Classification — Principle V of Classification Adopted by Brockway — The Law of Habit — Correction of Evil Habits — Physical Line of Direction — Mental — Moral — The Physical Means Used — By the Physician — By the Superintendent — Routine at Elmira — Cure of the Minor Defects of the Seriously Defective — General Defectives — The Dietary — Technical Training — The Military Organization — Discipline — Physical Punishments — Commissary, and Bertillon Records — The Mental Means, and School of Letters — Reacting — The Moral Means — Influence of Example — Of the Warden — Moral Training Incessant — The Proper Subjects for Reformatory Treatment — Labor in Reformatories — Conditions of Release — Parole — Experience at Elmira — Necessary Time of Treatment — Reformatories to Separate the Incurable — Incurables to be Consigned to Penitentiaries — Size of Reformatories — Costs — Female Reformatories 158

Chapter X. Drunkards And Prostitutes

Nature of the Disease of Drunkenness — As a Social Crime — Massachusetts Statistics — General Data — National Cost of Drunkards as Criminals — Folly of Existing Treatment — Plea of Drunkenness in Mitigation of Crime — Secondary Cause of Crime — A Crime in Itself — Importance of its Repression — A Curable Disease — Penal Aspects of Drunkenness — State Inebriate Asylums — Laws Needed — Right of Society to Suppress it — Prostitution — As a

Contents xiii

PACS

Crime — Evils — Prevalence — The Action Needed from the State — Summary of Benefits to be Derived from State Control of these Crimes 193

Chapter XI. The Criminal Insane And Insane Convicts

Effect of the Discoveries of Medical Science on Criminal Culpability — Varieties of Insanity — Plea of Insanity in Criminal Trials — Irresponsibility of the Insane — The Criminal Insane — Their Crimes — Professional Scientific Alienists — Doctrine of Irresponsibility more Effective Protection than Dogma of Punishment — Idiots — Epileptics — First Recognition of Doctrine of Irresponsiibility — Second Step — German Code — French Penal Code, and American Practice — Resume of Legal Precedents — Present Legal Status not Good Law — Expert should Appear for the State — Question of Insanity One of Fact, Requiring Judicial Decision by an Expert — Expert Professional Alienists Needed — Insane Criminals to be Removed from Prisons — Feigned Insanity — State Commission of Alienists — State Hospitals for Insane Criminals — Separate from Prisons — And from General Hospitals for the Insane — Where now Established — Expiration of Sentence of the Insane — When Cured Previous to Expiration of Sentence — Disposition of the Insane under Sentence of Death — Of All Others when Cured — Disposition of Cured Life-term Prisoners . .212

CHAPTER Xn.

THE INSTINCTIVE AND HABITUAL CRIMINAL.

Proportion of Recidivists — The most Dangerous and least Controlled Category — The Reprobates — The Instinctive Criminal easily Identified — How to be Disposed of — The Habitual Offender — Proportion of — An Anomaly of Criminal Jurisprudence — Generally a Non-Resident — Necessity of Bertillon Identification — Product of Social Neglect — Society's Duty to the Discharged Prisoner — The Discharge on Parole 234

CHAPTER XIIL

JUVENILE AND FIRST OFFENDERS PROBATION

AND PAROLE.

The most Extensive and Difficult Branch of Penology — Juvenile Offenders Defined — The Criminal Age — Statistics and Deductions i xiv Contents

PAGE

—The Problem Stated — Its Solution — Probation Officers — Sentence for Light Offenses — When Severe Measures are Necessary — For Crimes of Lust — For Felonies and Heinous Crimes — Insane and Defectives — The Probation System — Requirements and Advantages — Experience of Massachusetts — Losses by Failure to Use the Privilege — Possible Saving — Arrests for Drunkenness — For Other Offenses — Parole — Duty of State to Discharged Prisoners — How to be Exercised — Conditions of Parole — Probation, Reformation, and Parole 245

CHAPTER XIV.

PRISON LABOR.

The Problem Stated — Public and Legislative Discussions — An Insignificant Item in Industrial Economics — Prisoners should Earn as Much as Possible toward their Maintenance — Concentration of Prison Labor on a Few Products Objectionable — An Important Reformatory and Penal Consideration — Necessary for Discipline — High Concern to Prisoners* Health and Training — Essential Element of Reformation — Obligation of State to Employ Prisoners — The Fundamental Principle — How Tried and Failed — Conclusions of National Industrial Commission, 1900— Conclusions Discussed — Restriction of Hours of Labor — Prohibition of Machinery — Boycott of Prison-made Goods — ** State's Use*' Plan — Labor in Penitentiaries — Life Convicts in Public Works — Labor in Jails and Reformatories — In Industrial Schools and Asylums — Number of Jail Prisoners in Idleness and Results — Working out Fines as a Remedy — Local Public Work for Short-term Prisoners — General Scientific Scheme of Prison Labor — Social Duty of Employing the Discharged Prisoner 264

CHAPTER XV.

THE INSTALLATION AND ADMINISTRATION OF PENAL AND REFORMATORY INSTITUTIONS.

The Kinds of Institutions Enumerated — Police Stations — Workhouses — County Jails — \Vho should be Committed to Jail — Location and Construction of — Industrial Schools — For Boys — For Girls — Reformatories — Administration — Female Reformatories — Inebriate Asylums — Criminal Insane Asylums — Penitentiaries — Location — Accommodations — Discipline — Corporal Punishment — Dietary — The Wardens — Prison Laboratories — Summary 287

Contents xv

Section Iii,— Hygienics, Chapter XVI

POLICE PREVENTION. PROHIBITION OF THE

MARRIAGE OF THE UNFIT.

PAGE

Excessive Arrests — Proportion of Convictions to Arrests — Illustrated by Boston Statistics — Possible Saving — Municipal Police a Survival of Medieval Necessities — Has Become the Chief Instrument of Enforcing Law — Logically a State Force — Should Execute all Constabulary Functions — Its Use in Riots — Organization and Discipline — Relief of the Military — Other Advantages — Care over Children in Public Places — The Prohibition of the Marriage of the Unfit — Constitutional Power of the State — Heredity — The Contrast of the Edwards and the Jukes Families — Such Processes Constant — The Preventive Legislation Necessary — Advantages to be Secured 311

CHAPTER XVII.

PRESUMPTIVE CRIMINALS : THE MINOR WARDS

OF THE STATE DEFECTIVE, DELINQUENT,

NEGLECTED, AND ABANDONED CHILDREN.

Necessity of State Care over All Children — Presumptive Criminal Source of Three Fourths of the Criminal Class — Training of Children Easier than Reformation of Criminals — The State alone Competent to Treat this Class — State Care not necessarily Institutional — Modern Family Cottage Institutions — Authority of the State Superior to that of the Parent — The Subdivision of Minor Wards of the State for Treatment — Legal Prohibitions Needed — Juvenile Courts — State Boards of Children's Guardians — Their Duties and Powers — The Five Classes of State Juvenile Institutions — Truant Schools — Industrial Schools — State Children's Aid House — State Orphanages — Children's Hospitals — Five Kinds of Asylums Needed — Evils of State Subsidies to Private Institutions — Illustrated by Experiences in New York — Census of Children under Charitable Care — Results of Private Charity in Child Saving 332 xvi Contents

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

PACS

Proportion of the Criminal Class due to Defective Parental Training — Early Training the Best Prevention Known — Necessity of State Supervision — Washington*s Injunction — National Legislation, and Recommendations of Later Presidents — General Grant's • Recommendations — Of Later Presidents, and Congressional Neglect — Evidences of the Failure of Existing Methods — Percentage of National Illiteracy — Percentage of School Enrollment — Brevity of Attendance — Good Citizenship the Only Object of State Supervision — Cause of Failure the Abolition of Moral Training from the Schools — Their Control by Local Boards — The Incompetence of Teachers — Failure Inevitable under the Conditions — Duty of Congress — Private Initiative in Educational Matters Unsatisfactory — Government Initiative and Control Necessary — The Congressional Action Required — State Legislation — Mental

y Education alone Pernicious — Duties of District Directors — Great Value of Physical Education — How Conducted — Principles of Mental Training — Public Morals the Gauge of Civilization — Moral Training the Supreme Object of the Public School — What Constitutes Morality — The United States a Christian Nation — Its Public Education must be Christian — The Bible its Foundation — Correction of Evil Habits — Non-sectarian Religious Instruction — Inculcation of Moral Principles — Knowledge of the Duties of Parenthood — How Imparted — Special Education of Teachers — Conclusion 355

CHAPTER XIX.

KINDERGARTENS AND ORPHANAGE TRAINING.

The Vital Importance of Good Maternal Culture in Early Infanc)' — The State must Insure the Education of All its Females in Maternal Duties — Ignorance of this Prevalent among the Best- Educated — Importance of Competent Nurses and Governesses Need of Training the Middle Class — Help as well as Instruction Required by the Lowest Class — Necessity of State Instruction on Account of Negroes and Immigrants — Obligation upon the State to Insure Competence of Mothers — To be Secured through the Kindergarten — The Idea of the Kindergarten — Confirmed by Science — Universality of the Law of Development — Froebel's Object — Kindergartens to Supplement Maternal Deficiencies —

Contents xvii

PACE

Growth of Kindergartens — Results Observed — Mother Training Essential Part of Public-School System — Kindergarten Normal Schools — Kindergartens a Subprimary — Who should Attend — Compulsory Attendance — State must Care for Every Child — Kindergartens in Orphanages — Regulations — Only State Care Adequate — Moral Obligation of the State 392

CHAPTER XX.

PENOLOGICAL ETHICS IN THE ADMINISTATION

OF LAW.

Maintenance of Law the Special Duty of Lawyers — Economic Interest of this Duty to them — Criminal Law the Foundation of All Laws — The Criminal Lawyer — Perversion of Legal Talent to the Escape of the Guilty — Honor of Defense — Duties of Judges — Ethical Laws of Trial — Illegal Verdicts by Juries — Patriotic Duty of Good Citizenship — The Public Prosecutor — The Advocate of the Defense — Mill's Rules of Ethics — Certainty and Celerity of Punishment equally Essential 416

CHAPTER XXI.

A COMPENDIUM OF THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC

PENOLOGY 434

APPENDIX A— Statistics of All the Cities of the United States Having 100,000 Inhabitants and More in 1900, Showing Estimated Arrests and Convictions for the Year 1899 448

APPENDIX B— Statistics of Illiteracy. Suffrage, and Crime in the

United States for 1900 450

APPENDIX C — Number of Homicides, Executions, and Lynchings in the United States Collected by the Chicago Tribune from Newspaper Reports for Eighteen Years 452

INDEX 453

Section I. Diagnostics

SECTION I.

DIAGNOSTICS.

Chapter I. The Science Of Penology Defined

The Social Sciences — Penological Science — Its Province and Objects — Its Importance — Number of the Criminal Class — Social Cost of Crime — Necessity of a Reformation in Treatment of Criminals — Subdivisions of the Science — Diagnostics — Therapeutics — Hygienics.

** A RT is long," but science is perpetual, ever ^^ living, ever growing. The life of art is but the sap of science. Art is the flower which blooms on the tree of science, but the tree is perennial; slow of growth and everlasting. Time adds layers of strength to its trunk, new branches to the ever expanding body, and forever feeds its vitality but brings to it no germ of decay. This is the tree of human knowledge, whose unfolding leaves are for the healing of the nations. Science is an intellectual energy which is never lost. The expansion of sociological science has been greater in the last quarter of the nineteenth century than in all preceding time. Civilized mankind enters the twentieth century with a much greater knowledge of and more general interest in the laws which affect the commonweal than it has ever before possessed. ** Know thyself" is the primordial basis of the efficiency of science to society as well as to individuals, so that humanity has now acquired an unprecedented power over its own welfare. The laws of cause and effect are recognized as operative in social as well as in material nature. Sociology is admitted by common consent into the ranks of the positive sciences, both as a whole and with its subsidiaries, — history, religion, jurisprudence, economics, politics, ethics, pauperism, hygiene, medicine, charities, criminology, penology, and others. But while many of these elementar}'' branches have been organized and perfected for human use, and a vast fund of information and experience accumulated concerning Penology, which is in fact the main trunk of sociolog}^ no complete and independent statement of the theory and system which is the natural product of this accumulation of knowledge has yet been made. This is the more surprising when we consider that it was the first rod of regulation which grew out of the virgin soil of social existence. When, in the very beginning, several human beings became associated together, a law protecting individual life and rights was necessary, and enforced by penalties. Protection from violence and crime was the origin of all law, — the subject which engrossed the attention of the earliest lawmakers of every people and which has been most constantly before legislators until the present time. Penology was not only the origin, but it is the basis and the object of all human law, the stem, as we have said, from which all the social sciences branch. Scientists, statesmen, philosophers, and penologists have apparently been allured away from the main subject by the attraction of discovery and novelty in special directions.

Penology may be defined as the science of the protection of society from crime by the repression, reformation, and extirpation of criminals. It consists of such positive knowledge of these subjects as is comprised in the whole body of scientific observation, investigation, experimentation, and reasoning upon its particular phenomena ; co-ordinated, arranged, and systematized for the use of mankind. It is the discovery, formulation, and explanation of the immutable laws which govern and regulate successful action for the defense of society against criminality. This knowledge is now sufficiently extensive and exact, and the consensus of intelligence concerning these laws and principles ample enough, to warrant the presentation of a distinct system which will constitute a complete and independent science. ** Prison science is working out, as it can, in the present progress, a methodical system of Penology which is in accord with the true science of our common human nature."^ As knowledge expands, a return to specialization becomes necessary for achievement. The natural limitations of the brain

* The Reformatory System in the United States^ International Prison Commission, igoo, Z. R. Brockway, p. 27.

and intellect restrict the capacities of individuals, while the general diffusion of intelligence stimulates competition, increases the requirements of success, and compels a concentration of effort along particular lines in order to overcome existing conditions. Generalizations cease to be impressive or inspiring. Specific statement, definite principles, positive laws, and complete system are essential in every department of science.

This has become especially important in Penology, where the dense outgrowth of legislation has almost hidden the original purpose, while the investigations of sociologists and criminologists have developed and clearly demonstrated the nature and causes of crime and criminality, the several physical, mental, and moral characteristics of the criminal ; and experience has proved the absolute failure of criminal law in the past to attain its objects. It is manifest that criminal law and codes are the sporadic growths of past social circumstances and necessities, without any consistent theory or principle ; devoid of order, harmony, or system. When any particular crime became prevalent or annoying to society, a penalty was offset against it, in the hope, which has proved vain, of preventing its commission through fear of the penalty. Criminal codes as they exist are, in the light of twentieth-century intelligence, a conglomeration of penalties of various degrees of atrocity, irrationality, absurdity, and inutility. They are the relics of blind social struggles against social evils, useful chiefly as antiquities, to be collected with thumb-screws, iron boots, racks, and torture wheels in museums. To provide an efficient substitute for these codes, to enunciate the principles upon which a successful defense of society against crime must be conducted and the abolition of criminality accomplished, is the special province and object of Penology.

Its importance is subjectively very great because the criminal class terrorizes and preys upon society universally, and imposes on it a tax for protection enormously disproportionate to its numbers ; although objectively the class constitutes an insignificant part of the social whole. According to the United States census of 1890, there were then thirteen hundredths of one per cent, of the population confined in reformatories, jails, and penitentiaries. If, as is assumed by sociologists, only one of ten of the criminal class is under confinement at any one time, the whole criminal class averaged but one and three tenths per cent, of the population in 1890, or 13,170 persons in the million. Of the 47,413,559 people ten years of age and over, there were two hundred and five thousandths per cent, in confinement ; which would make the criminal class a somewhat larger proportion of that part of the population from which it was entirely derived, or nearly one and three quarters per cent. The number of male convicts was thirtyone hundredths per cent, of the male population ten years old and over; which would, upon this assumption, imply a criminal class amounting to three and one tenth per cent, of the males of that age.

Although no general census of the criminal class has ever been attempted, and from the nature of the case is quite impossible, we have some statistics which are a basis for calculation, and which support the assumption of the criminologists that only one in ten of the class is in confinement at any one time. The untried prisoners held in confinement on the 30th of September, 1897, in the State of Pennsylvania numbered 3210; there were committed during the year 69,517; a total of 72,727: of these 5824 were convicted during the year. Thus eight per cent, of the persons tried for crime in that State from September 30, 1897, to September 30, 1898, became convicts.

In Massachusetts the arrests during 1898 numbered 99,336. The convicts in confinement September 30, 1899, were 6765, or six and eighty-one hundredths per cent, of arrests.^ Of the 424,410 persons estimated to be arrested for other crimes than drunkenness and prostitution in the United States during 1899, 44,897 were convicted ; somewhat over ten per cent.^ Of course many of these arrests were of the same individuals, and some of them, doubtless, of innocent persons, but it is unlikely that any one was arrested unless a crime of which he was accused had been committed by some one, so that each arrest of a different person represented a criminal at the time, whether the right one was arrested or not.