A Plea for the Criminal Part 10

The following is a list of all the trades taught in the Reformatory:--

Barbering Bookbinding Bra.s.s-smithing Bricklaying Cabinet-making Carpentry Clothing-cutting Electricity Frescoing Hardwood-finishing Horseshoeing House-painting Iron-forging Machine-wood-working Machinist's Moulding Music Paint-mixing Photo-engraving Plastering Plumbing Printing Stenography & typewriting Shoemaking Sign-painting Steam-fitting Stone-cutting Stone-masonry Tailoring Telegraphy Tinsmithing Upholstery Also, Mechanical-drawing

In the year 1903 there were 1986 pupils instructed in these trades.

=The Results of the System.=--English critics have regarded the system as being somewhat extravagant and as placing the honest labourer at a disadvantage to the criminal. This criticism has been considerably weakened of late years and the results investigated instead of being imagined. The most careful investigation has made it impossible to deny that the Reformatory achieves all that it claims to, viz.:--that it contributes nothing to the strengthening of the criminal habit[1] and therefore it is not a partial remedy, and that it actually returns to society as useful citizens no less than 82 per cent.[2] of those committed to it.

Lombroso speaks of the system as a practical application of the results of the science of Criminology.

Should the system be adopted in other countries, it would need to be so translated that it would accord with the traditions and customs of the people.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] It is generally supposed that such a system cannot act as a deterrent to crime. The American delegates to the International Prison Congress (held in Paris in 1895) declared that the obligation imposed upon the prisoners, in such inst.i.tutions, to raise themselves by mental as well as by industrial labour, into higher grades as a necessary condition for liberation, is felt by many of them, to involve so much exertion, that they would rather be consigned to some ordinary prison, where self-improvement is not specially enforced. This system, they declared, was more deterrent than was generally supposed.

[2] Of some 13,000 criminals who have pa.s.sed through the Reformatory, the number known definitely to have returned to crime is a little less than 1 per cent. of the whole!

Chapter X.

CONCLUSION.

The reader will have formed his own conclusion. He may conclude that the author has a sentimental affection for the criminal and would have all disturbers of the public peace treated with more compa.s.sion than the hard-working and honest labourer. But that reader will have jumped to his conclusion from his preconceived prejudices. The reformation of the criminal is no chimera, it has been undertaken for thirty years and every year has seen better results. The results for 1903 (86 per cent.

of reforms) ought to convince the most sceptic that the reformation of the criminal is the true aim for society to pursue.

Another reader may ask why, if all these results are so good, does not the Government adopt some such system as the Elmira one instead of continuing the present obsolete penal system. The New York State Government experiences a difficulty in finding, for their reformatory staff, men who will undertake their work with a real sense of mission.

Nor is this the only difficulty. If New Zealand is going to undertake the reformation of its criminals and to restore them to society as honest and industrious persons, society itself must be prepared to drop its prejudices and suspicions and receive the men at their present worth, and not forever stamp them as outcasts. Nothing less, then, is required than an earnest desire among all cla.s.ses to recover those among men who have fallen into villainy and vice and to receive back among their ranks all those who, having responded to the efforts made on their behalf, can make a claim upon the confidence and good-will of society.

But the reformation of the criminal is not the only obligation laid upon society, there is also the education of the child. It is frequently being stated that criminals are on the increase; it has been shown that this increase is not a national one, it must be then that for some reason the practice of virtue is becoming more and more difficult, whereas that of vice is becoming increasingly easier. Recruits are steadily joining the ranks of crime, and when one sees that, as a result of their home and school training, the rising generation is developing all the characteristics of the criminal, a somewhat alarming conclusion very strongly suggests itself. Society has the criminals that it deserves. It may fail to recover those who have entered upon a criminal career, or it may be actually guilty of manufacturing criminals. What are we doing? New Zealand has this hope, that its traditions do not fetter it, and its inst.i.tutions are young and plastic.

THE END.