IMAGE EVALUATION
TEST TARGET (MT-3)

1.0

I.I

1.25

1.4

M
2.0

1.8

1.6

Photographic

Sciences
Corporation

^q\'

^9)

^-i?

ri?

23 WEST MAIN STREET

WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580

(716) 872-4503

&?/

CIHM/ICMH

Microfiche

Series.

CIHM/ICMH
Collection de
microfiches.

Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions / Institut canadien de microreproductions historiques

»%,

^1Q

Technical and Bibliographic Notes/Notes techniques et bibliographiques

The Institute has attempted to obtain the best
original copy available for filming. Features of this
copy which may be bibliographically unique,
which may alter any of the images in the
reproduction, or which may significantly change
the usual method of filming, are checked below.

D
D

Coloured covers/
Couverture de couleur

I I Covers damaged/

Couverture endommag^s

Covers restored and/or laminated/
Couverture restaur^e et/ou pellicul^e

Cover title missing/

Le titre de couverture manque

Coloured maps/

Cartes giographiques en couleur

Coloured ink (i.e. other than blue or black)/
Encre de couleur (i.e. autre que bleue ou noire)

Coloured plates and/or illustrations/
Planches et/ou illustrations en couleur

Bound with other material/
ReliA avec d'autres documents

Tight binding may causa shadows or distortion
along interior margin/

Lareliure serree paut causer de I'ombre ou de la
distorsion le long de la m&rge interieure

Blank leaves added during restoration may
appear within the text. Whenever possible, these
have been omitted from filming/
II se peut que certaines pages blanches ajouties
lors dune restauration apparaissent dans le texte,
mais, lorsque cela 6tait possible, ces pages n'ont
pas 6ti filmdes.

Additional comments:/
Commentaires supplementaires;

L'Institut a microfilme le meilleur exemplaire
qu'il lui a ete possible de se procurer. Les details
de cet axemplaire qui sont peut-dtre uniques du
point de vue bibliographique, qui peuvent modifier
une image reproduite. ou qui peuvent exiger une
modification dans la m^thode normale de filmage
sont indiquis ci-dessous.

I I Coloured pages/

Pages de couleur

Pages damaged/
Pages endommag^es

□ Pages restored and/or laminated/
Pages restaurees et/ou pelliculdes

Pages discoloured, stained or foxed/
Pages d^colordes, tachet^es ou piquees

□ Pages detached/
Pages detachees

SShowthrough/
Transparence

□ Quality of print varies/
Quality indgale de I'imprassion

□ Includes supplementary material/
Comprend du materiel supplementaire

□ Only edition available/
Seule Edition disponibi

sponible

Pages wholly or partially obscured by errata
slips, tissues, etc., have been refilmed to
ensure the best possible image/
Les pages totalement ou partiellement
obscurcies par un feuillet d'errata, une pelure,
etc., cnt 6t(§ fiim^es A nouveau de facon a
obtenir la meilleure image possible.

This item is filmed at the reduction ratio checked below/

Ce document est film* au taux de reduction indiqu* ci-dessous.

10X 14X 18X 22X

26X

30X

12X

16X

20X

24X

28X

32X

tails

du
3difier

une
Tiage

The copy filmed here has been reproduced thanks
to the generosity of:

Seminary of Quebec
Library

The images appearing here are the best quality
possible considering the condition and legibility
of the original copy and in keeping with the
filming contract specifications.

Original copies in printed paper covers are filmed
beginning with the front cover and ending on
the last page with a printed or illustrated impres-
sion, or the back cover when appropriate. All
other original copies are filmed beginning on the
first page with a printed or illustrated impres-
sion, and ending on the last page with a printed
or illustrated impression.

The last recorded frame on each microfiche
shall contain the symbol —^-(meaning "CON-
TINUED"), or the symbol V (meaning "END"),
whichever applies.

L xemplaire film6 fut reproduit grAce d la
g4n4irosit6 de:

Siminaire de Quebec
Bibliothdque

Les images suivantes ont 6t6 reproduites avec le
plus grand soin, compxe tenu de la condition at
de la netteti de I'exemplaire film6, et en
conformity avec les conditions du contrat de
filmage.

Les axemplaires originaux dont la couverture en
papier est imprimie sont filrn^s en commen^ant
par le premier plat et en terminant soit par la
derniire page qui comporte une empreinte
d'impression ou d'illustration, soit par le second
plat, salon le cas. Tous les autres exemplaires
originaux sont fiim6s en commen^ant par la
premidre page qui comporte une empreinte
d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par
la dornidre page qui comporte une tello
empreinte.

Un des symboles suivants apparaftra siir la
dernidre image de cheque microfiche, selon le
cas: le symbole -^ signifie "A SUIVRE ", le
symboto V signifie "FIN".

rata
)

elure,
a

I2X

Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at
different reduction ratios. Those too large to be
entirely included in one exposure are filmed
beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to
right and top to bottor,., as many frames as
required. The following diagrams illustrate the
method:

Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre
filmte d des taux de reduction diffdrents.
Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre
reproduit en un seul cliche, il est film6 d partir
de Tangle supdrieur gauche, dt* gauche k droite,
et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre
d'images n^cessaire. Les diagrammes suivants
iiiustrent la m^thode.

j'iV

^ t ;' <:C^/<^cA^i2t^

"I^U&^Ll /if

With the Compliments of
The Prisoners' Aid Association of Canada.

How to Treat

The Criminal Classes*

By Lyman Abbott, D.D. ^^^^

n.f:-

L..^i

TORONTO :

DUDLEV 4 BuHNS, PniNTrRS.

1896.

How to Treat the Criminal Classes.

BY LYMAN ABBOTT, D.D.

There 're in every community avowed and open enemies
of the social order, men who disregard it and are endeavour-
ing to break it down and to destroy it. They are what we
call the criminal class. Some of these criminals drift into
crime ; some of them perpetrate occasional crime ; some are
educated for crime ; some consecrate themselves to crime as
their profession, as men consecrate themselves to medicine,
law, or theology. And they are a very * onsiderable class. It
is estimated that in the United States, if you take all the crimi-
nals and all the people who are dependent upon the criminals,
something like one in every seventy belongs to the criminal
class. And this criminal class has been, on the whole, increas-
ing throughout Christendom. In Great Britain apparently
not, though the statistics do not fully agree ; but in Spain it is
said to have doubled within ten years ; in France to have
increased several hundred per cent, within the last quarter of
a century ; and in the United States to have increased one-
third faster than the population since the Civil War.

These are very serious facts. What are we to do with these
enemies of the social order ? Hov shall we treat them ?

*A sermon preached at Plymouth Church, Brooklju. Reported
stenographically, and revised by the author for the Outlook.

Society has very often given two answers to this question. It
has sometimes said, Get rid of them. The simplest way to
get rid of them is to kill theui. Until a very recent period
that was the method ordinarily pursued. In Great Britain,
under Henry VIII., two hundred and sixty-three crimes were
punished with death ; and even as late as the close of the last
century, two hundred crimes were so punished. It is esti-
mated that in the reign of Henry VIII , 72,000 persons were
hung in Great Britain. And it is even said by some authori-
ties in penology that one reason why the criminal class is not
increasing in Great Britain is that the progenitors and
ancestors were killed off by that remorseless process in past
centuries.

Bui we are now too humane to continue that process. We
no longer kill them. But we banish them. We send them
to Botany Bay. I have seen it seriously proposed to organize
a penal colony in Alaska. Why ? To get rid of them.
France sends them to a chain-gang. We send them to the
prison and shut them up and forget them. A boy steals an
apple from an orchard ; steals a lot of apples ; he keeps on
stealing apples. What shall we do with him ? We bring him
before a magistrate and send him to a gaol and lock the door
on him and forget about him. Do you know what a gaol is ?
I read a description of an American gaol from General
BrinkerhofiT, of Ohio, who is an authority on penology :

" To establish a school of crime requires (1) teachers skilled in the
theory and practice of crime ; (2) pupils with inclination, opportunity,
and leisure to learn ; (S) a place of meeting together. All these
recjuirements are provided and paid for by the public, in the creation,
ort;ani/.ation, and e(juipment of county gaols and city prisons. With
less than half a dozen exceptions, all the gaols and city prisons in the
United States are s(diools of this kind, and it is difficult to conceive
how a more efficient system for tlie education of criminals could be
devised. . . Every observant gaoler knows with what devilish skill

the profesBors of this school ply their vo<!ation. Hour after hour they
beguile tiie weariness of enforced continunient with marvellous tales of
successful crime, and the methods by which escajjc has been accom-
plished. If attention fails, games of chance, interspersed with obscene
jokes and ribald songs serve to amuse aiul Mhile away the time. In
this way the usual atmosphere of a gaol is made so foul that the
stamina of a saint is scarce strong enough to resist. Let a prisoner
attempt to be decent, and to resist the contaminating influences
brought to bear upon him, especially in a large gaol, and he will find
that, so far as personal comfort is concerned, lie might as well he in a
den of wild beasts."

That is what comes of the attempt to solve the penal
problem by simply locking the criminal up and forgetting him.

The other remedy — it seems worse, but I am inclined to
think it is in some respects better — is to hate the criminal and
hurt him ; and, lest you should think what I say to you is
rather strong language, I will read from an authority on thi<=
subject. I read from Sir James Stephen's " History of Crimi-
nal Law " :

" 1 think it highly desirable that criminals should be hated, that
the punishment inflicted upon them should be so contrived as to give
expression to that hatred, and to justify it so far as the public pro-
vision of means for expressing and gratifying a natural healthy senti-
ment can justify and encourage it."

This man has done society a wrong ; he is a wicked man,
so we must hate him. We must give expression to that hate
by hurting him. We will put him in the pillory, and fling
stones or rotten eggs at him ; we will tie him to the whipping-
post and beat him ; we will send him to the prison and make
it as uncomfortable as we can for him. In one form or
another we will give expression to the hatred of the man who
has done society a wrong. That plan has been tried, and on
a large scale. It went along concurrently with the plan of
getting rid of the criminals by killing them. Men imagine
that the Inquisition in the Middle Ages expressed the rancour

and bitterness of the Church. They are mistaken. The
cruelty was not of the Inquisition, it was of the Middle Ages ;
and the same cruelty which was expressed in punishment of
heresy was expressed in punishment of all other crimes. The
Church simply said, Heresy is a crime. Then society said»
You are to hate the criminal and you are to hurt him as much
as you can ; and this is the way in which society carried out
this principle of Sir James Stephen :

"The wheel, the caldron of boiling oil, burning alive, burying
alive, flaying alive, tearing apart with wild horses, were the ordinary
expedients by which the criminal jurists sougiit to deter crime, by
frightful examples which would make a profound impression on a not
over-sensitive population An Anglo-Saxon law punishes a female
slave convicted of theft by making eighty other female slaves each
bring three pieces of wood and burn her to death, while each con-
tributes a fine besides.

" In France women wore customarily burned or buried alive for
simple felonies. The criminal code of Charles V., issued in 15.30, is a
hideous catalogue of blinding, mutilation, tearing with hot pincers,
burning alive, and breaking on the wheel. . . In England to cut
out a man's tongue or to pluck out his eyes, with malice prepense, was
not made a felony until the fifteenth century, in a criminal law so
severe that, even in the reign of Elizabeth, the robbing of a hawk's
nest was similarly a felony ; and as recently as 1833 a child of nine
was sentenced to be hanged for breaking a patched pane of glass and
stealing twopence- worth of paint."

There is no danger of a revival of that kind of torture ;
certainly not. But when Sir James Stephen says we are to
hate the criminal and to give expression to that hate, that is
not written in 1542, that is modern, and it is the expression
of the same philosophy which finds its expression in these
horrible cruelties of the Middle Ages. The theory is this :
Man i{ endowed with an instinct of vindictive justice ; and he
is to gratify that vindictive justice. When a man has done a
wong and caused a suffering, he ought to suffer a wrong, and
we ought to inflict it. The function of society is to exercise

that vindictive or retributive justice. That is the claim. And
in doing this it will deter men from perpetrating crime. The
man who has suffered the penalty will not do the wrong again.
He will say, It does not pay. And the man who looks on
and sees the penalty inflicted, he will not do a like wrong, he
will say. It will not pay. And thus society will protect itself
from crime. This is the theory. Vindictive justice is the
motive ; protection of society the end ; and ti»e deterrent
power of fear the means.

I believe that the whole system that is built up on those
three foundation-stones is wrong from foundation-stone to
topmost pinnacle. It cannot be reformed. It should be
eradicated. It is wrong in every part of it. It is true there is
an instinct of retributive justice in man ; and he is to con-
sider what is the end for which it is given him, and that end,
not the gratification of his blind instinct, is to determine the
punishment.

And as the satisfaction of the sentiment of revenge is not to
be the motive, so the protection of society is not to be the
aim. Society is not to be satislled always to say, There are
700,000 criminals in the United States : how shall we guard
ourselves against them ? It is not to corral them and put a
fence around them. It is not to secure society from the thief,
the robber, the assassin. The protection of society is not the
end. It is something higher, it is something better. And the
deterrent power of fear is not the means. It has been tried,
and it has failed. Men are not deterred from crime by fear.
We have broken men on the wheel ; have boiled them alive ;
have hung them. We have done it in public. We have
gathered the criminal class around the gallows to see the
execution and be deterred by the crime, and the man to be

hung has made his speech and " died game," and the meu
who gathered to see the execution have gone back to plunge
deeper in crime than they did before, Severe penalty insti-
gates, duplicates, multiplies crime. It does not prevent.

I want to make my meaning as to this just as clear as I can.
I deny that we have any right to administer justice, if by
justice is meant the giving to every wrong deed its proper and
just equivalent in penalty. That is not our function. God
has r ' authorized us to do it. He has not given to one ma i
a right to determine what is the legitimate and proper penalty
to fall upon a fellow-sinner for the wrong he has done. On
the cjntrary. He says we are not, and He says so clearly and
explicitly. Judge not. He says. And by that He does not
mean, do not judge unfairly, do not judge inequitably ; He
means, Judge not. It is not our business to administer
justice

Hate the criminal and express your hatred, says Sir James
Stephen ; he is the enemy of society. Christ says, Love him,
and by love cure him. What Christ says, Paul says, possibly
even more explicitly : Recompense to no man evil for evil.
What does that mean ? Repay to no man the evil for the evil
he has done you. Repaying evil to a man because he has
done evil against you, this is retributive justice, and Paul says
You are not to do it ; when a man has done an evil, you are
not to measure what amount of evil is to be given back to
him. " Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give
place unto wrath : for it is written, Vengeance is Mine ; I will
repay, saith the Lord." That word " vengeance " is literally
" execute justice." That is what the Greek word means.
" Dearly beloved, execute not justice ; I will execute justice
that belongs to Me, saith the Lord."

We are neither to get rid of" the crin^'iial, nor nre we to
execute justice on the criminal. Our sole, single business in
life is to work out redemption. We have not the fight and
we have not the capacity to execute ji'scice. " Prisoner at the
bar, stand up. You are accused of s'.ealing a pair of shoes ;
you are found guilty ; I will determire what i^- the right and
just penalty to give to you because yoL stole that pair of shoes."
Mr. Judge, are you prepared to do tha^ ? Do you know who
that man's father and mother were? Do you know what his
ancestry was? Do you know what temptations surrounded
him ? Do you know what early influences surrounded him ?
Do you know even whether you or he is the worse sinner ?

And as we have neithei the right nor the capacity, so we
have not the power. That is the way we administer justice
when we try to adjust the penally to I'.he wrong-doing. Two
men — this is not a fanciful case— two men committed a
burglary. One of them was an old offender. He had per-
suaded the other man to join with him, They were arrested.
The younger man was ashamed of himself ; was sick of the
wiiole business ; wanted to plead guilty, take his punishment,
pay his debt, and begin life over again. He went before a
severe judge and received a sentence of twenty years' im-
prisonment. The old offender knew of that judge's severity,
got a shrewd lawyer, had his case put off, got himself brought
before a good natured judge, and received three years' im-
prisonment. Cio before some j\ dges for sentence before
diwiier and you will get one kind of a setitence , go after
d'nner and you will get another kind of a sentence. After
all, judges are very much like the rest of us. I am not con-
demning judges ; I am condemning the vhole attempt on the
part of n.ankind to determine how penalty should be adjusted
to the wrong-doing.

Christ tells us we are not to undertake to administer justice
— that is to say, this wrong-doing deserves this amount of
penalty : now visit it on the criminal. What then ? We are
to administer redemption. And from the beginning to the
end of our criminal system, from the letter A to the letter Z,
from the very starting-point to its final consummation, there
is to be one object, and only one object — namely, the reforma-
tion of the offender. It is not to be the satisfaction of retribu-
tive justice, it is not to be the protection of society ; it is to
be, simply, solely, singly, the reformation of the wrong-doer,
and the reformation of the class to which the wrong-doer
belongs.

In the first place, its root is not to be hatred of the criminal,
it is to be love and pity for the criminal. Philosophers all
discriminate between sin and crime. There is a distinction.
What is it ? Sin is any violation of God's law. Crime is any
violation of man's law. Some crimes are not sins. It was a
crime to give a glass of water to a fugitive slave in 1850, but
it was not a sin. Now, how does God treat men when they
violate His law ? He comes to earth ; He identifies Himself
with them ; He be:.;s their stripes in His own person ; He
suffers the penalty of their wrong-doing, and by His own life
and sufferings here on the earth He endeavors to reclaim
them. And then He turns to them and says, Even as Je.^us
Christ forgave you, so also do you.

Do not misunderstand me ; do not think I am arguing for
sensationalism ; do not think I approve of sending flowers and
cakes to prisoners. It is said that when a man is in prison
for murdering his wife, he is almost sure to have offers of
marriage received from women, in case he gets out. That is
not the kind of pity I am speaking for. It is not sentiment.

It is the sense in one's self. Here is a horrible calamity that
has come upon this man : how can we help him to a new and
better life ? Christ treats sin as disease, and He comes to
cure the disease. We shall nnt start our criminal system
aright until we get wholly rid oi this notion that we are to
hate the criminal and hurt him, and come back to the funda-
mental Christian notion that we are to love and pity and
redeem and cure the criminal. That is to be the starting-
point. Love is to be the motive, the inspiration. And, that
being the inspiration, everything is to be attuned and set to
that.

In the first place, to give some specifications, imprison-
ment ought not to be the first penalty. In Massachusetts
they are trying what they call a probation system. It is work-
ing, apparently, very well. When any child is arrested, he is
not first sent to a prison. The State official whose function
it is to be the guardian of such children, is called into requisi-
tion. He is told to examine the case. He brings his report
to the judge. If it will do, the boy is sent back to his home,
and then the guardian is to keep an eye on him. If he has
not any home, or any adequate home, the guardian finds a
home for him. If there is not any home that can be found
for him, the guardian puts him into an institution. The
institution is the third and last resort. Whether the method
is right or wise is not the question—the spirit is admirable.
What Massachusetts is doing for children it is also beginning
to do for men— for there are some men that are twenty-one
who are children in will-power, and even in intellect. The
great majority of criminals are weak.

When a man is sentenced, the sentence should be adjusted
with reference, not to the crime he has committed, but wholly

to the cure to be accomplished. Not that this ideal could be
instantly reached, but that this ideal is to be kept constantly
in view. I confess I am amazed at our patient folly. We
arrest a man in New York for drunkenness ; we send him up
to the Island for ten days ; he stays there just long enough to
get sober, and then he is discharged. He comes back to New
York; in twenty-four hours he is arrested again for drunken-
ness and sent to the Island again for ten day.s. There are
men in New York who spend two-thirds of the time on the
Island. We are paying Police Justices in New York for that
operation. What we ought to do is this : When the man is
arrested for his first drunkenness, his friends should be found,
if he has any ; when he is arrested for the second or the third
or the fourth, patience should be exercised : but when the
right time comes, he should be put into an institution, the
object of which is to cure men of inebriacy, and if he cannot
be cured, he should stay there the rest of his life. You say.
Would you imprison a man for life for getting drunk ? No !
I would not ; but I would keep him in an institution for life
rather than let him come out to prey upon the community by
his drunkenness.

The sentence should be adjusted wholly with reference to
the remedy Men will say. Can you be sure the man is cured ?
No ! we cannot. Will you not have some men discharged as
cured who will come out and prey on society ? Certainly.
We cannot do anything perfectly in this life. We cannot
adjust the penalty adequately to the crime committed. But
under the one system over fifty per cent, come back and prey
upon society again, and under the other system less than
twenty per cent.

When the man is in the prison, all the discipline of the

•c

prison should be conducted with simple reference to reforma-
tion. It is a disgrace to our nineteenth-century civilization
that boys should be sent to ich a i^^aol as that General
Brinkerhoff describes. It is done every day in this State of
New York. When the man is arrested, separate confinement
should be the beginning ; he should be put by himself and
studied there by himself for the first month, or six months, or,
as in England, nine months, before he should be allowed to
mingle with his fellows. The mingling then should be under
such authority as to prevent the increasing and stimulating of
crime. There should be schools in the prison for the purpose
of teaching this man how to earn a livlihood by honest inuustry
when he comes out. There should be an industrial system—
not to make money, but to make men. We have gotten rid
of the contract system in this State. Formerly we took
p.isoners, put them in State prison, sold their labour to a con
tractor, and told him to see how much he could get oi.t of the
prisoners. And the man who went in hating industry came
out hating industry worse than ever. Industry should be
organized for the purpose of making the man industrious, not
for the purpose of making the prison self-supporting.

The plan which I have hinted at underlies what is known
as the Elmira Reformatory system ; it underlies the probation
system of Massachusetts; it underlies the separate confine-
ment, (iroup these all together, and out of them construct
the ideal system for the moment. A man is arrested ; he is
brought before the court. Inquiry is made into his life, his
character, his surroundings, his friends. If it is found that he
has some friends who will be responsible for him, who will
take care of him, who will see that this thing does not occur
again, he is put under the tutelage of these friends. If it is

found that he has no such friends, or that no such trust can
be reposed in them, or that his criminality is too firmly fixed,
he is sent to a prison, put into a separate cell, compelled to
reflect. His industry is carried on in his cell; he is kept
separate from the other prisoners ; is not allowed to come out
into fellowship until he has proved some degree of submission
to authority, some degree of readiness for reform. Then he
is put into a school and into a workshop ; but the work is
organized to secure development, not to secure money for the
State or the prison ; and the school is organized for the moral
culture as well as the intellectual culture of this man. His
record is kept. There are three grades in the prison. He
begins ai the lowest; if he falls back he is put back into
cellular confinement ; if he goes forward he is put into the
second grade ; if he still improves, he is put into the third.
A court sits in the prison to determine the length of his
imprisonment ; and when he has proved that he is able to
earn an honest livelihood and is determined to earn an honest
livelihood, then some employment is found outside where he
can earn an honest livelihood, and he is set free.

I want you to notice two things: one, that, though this
redemptive system is not yet perfected, it protects society
better than the punitive system. When a man is killed, it is
true he will not trouble society any more, but when he is
reformed he will not trouble society any more ; and experi-
ence demonstrates that the way to reform those that lie out-
side the circle is to reform the men that lie within it. And
the second thing I want you to notice is this : An English
writer criticises the Elmira Reformatory. He says. Perhaps it
does discharge eighty per cent cured, but what is its effect on
the criminal population outside? It does not deter them.

He is mistaken. One of the Judges of the Criminal Courts
of New York tells me that criminals plead not to be sent to
Elmira under the indeterminate sentence. The criminal
would rather take ten years in Sing Sing than a chance of
getting out of the Elmira Reformatory in five years. For the
one thing a determined criminal does not want is to be put
under influences that are all the time saying to him, You shall
be honest ; the one thing he hates is to be reformed.

Redemption and retribution are, so far as this world is con-
cerned, different spellings of tTie same word ; and the best and
most effective deterrent is a penalty which holds the grip of
law on the wrong-doer until he becomes a right-doer. Christ's
method of dealing with the enemies of society is to treat them
as diseased men ; to pity them, not to hate them ; and to
administer for them a system of redemption, not to attempt
the impossible task of administering a system of retributive
justice.