Read Ebook: The Review Vol. 1 No. 6 June 1911 by Various National Prisoners Aid Association Publisher

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WM. HEALY, M. D.

Director, Juvenile Psychopathic Institute, Chicago

Reasons for the abundant ineffectiveness in the treatment of the criminal are to be found in the historical development of the situation. His case is handled by court procedure evolved, almost wholly, from legal precedent and consisting of rules which appertain, as it were, to a definite contest. As the result of this evolution it has come about that even modern criminal procedure in several respects fails to apply well established scientific knowledge and so lags far behind the dictates of common sense.

It may be that the experiential wisdom of the ages, crystallized into modern law, serves well enough as the setting for criminal trials in which there is much presumption of innocence, as well as for civil cases, although in this hour of testing mental capacities even some points here seem doubtful. But what shall we say about the trial of recidivists, those repeaters who make up the costly and dangerous class, the confirmed criminals? If there is anything clear about the matter to the man in the street it is that certain facts either purposely avoided in court procedure, such as inadmissible evidence, or not brought out on account of incomplete examination into the case are frequently most important for decision from the standpoint of the welfare of society and indeed often of the defendant's own well-being. The fact that the defendant has been convicted of crime and perhaps of this particular type of crime before, that he has mental peculiarities or physical infirmities that make him specially liable to commit crime, that he comes from a family in which mental deficiency is inherited or the criminalistic tendency is rampant--these points among others are not only of scientific import, but seem clearly germane and most valuable for deciding what ought to be done with him.

Even if a statistical survey of crime and recidivism did not point directly in explanation to the peculiarities of the unit offender, it would in general seem as if the anthropological outlook, applied to the criminal himself, would be easily the best point of vantage in studying the crime situation. Here is a given individual, performing acts inimical to his fellows and retributively painful to himself. What leads him socially to react thus and so? Taking this view, common sense would seem to demand study of the causative factors in every case, and this means, first and foremost, investigation of those mental characteristics which underlie conduct.

Beginning such a study of the causative factors of crime and taking account of deviation from the normal among the criminalistic, we immediately see that mental defect looms very large. Just how extensive this factor is we are unable to say, because thoroughgoing examinations of delinquents have not yet been registered in sufficient numbers. Sutherland, who has had a large experience and has well considered the matter, states in his work on Recidivism that it is not wide of the mark to say that one-third of criminal recidivists are pathological specimens, "suffering from physical and mental degeneracy characterized by mental warp, instability and feeblemindedness," and that of petty offender recidivists it is equally safe to hold that two-thirds are pathological in the same sense. The British Royal Commission for the study of the feebleminded looked at 2,300 prisoners in cursory fashion and without mental tests decided that they could determine about ten per cent. to be feebleminded. Incomplete work from many sources testifies to considerable proportions of feebleminded among criminals. We ourselves, in our Chicago Institute, are for several reasons doing fairly intensive work, and I would at once disclaim that our figures have much statistical value. Yet of 620 cases of youthful repeaters carefully studied by us and classified in a scale of mental ability and peculiarity, twenty-six per cent. grade distinctly below the class which we call poor in native ability.

We found:

Scattered for the most part through these classes we found 7-1/2 per cent. of the total 620 to be definitely epileptic.

What a curious maladjustment it seems that while all this acknowledged social failure is in progress, and while there is this obvious incompetency of legal methods in ascertaining adequate facts for betterment of the situation, there should be so very little study of where the trouble lies. In courts for adult offenders there is almost no opportunity for unbiassed investigation of the individual criminal. In the juvenile court, with its advantages of intimate relationships established there, how can the judge from his short examination determine even this question of the mental status of the delinquent? Opinion on this subject in courts is formed by the questionnaire method, which from a scientific standpoint, for various reasons, is notoriously unsafe. Not only in court room procedure is there inadequate investigation of the individual, but all through the situation in regard to the handling of delinquents the same is true. Nowadays when the value of efficiency bureaus is everywhere recognized, it seems strange that this most business-like bit of work should not have been taken up. The outlay is millions and hundreds of millions for repression, but practically nothing for the study of how efficiently to repress.

In the past the legal disposition of offenders with mental peculiarity has very largely hinged on the question of criminal responsibility. Now this question, especially in the case of high-grade mental defectives, involves some pretty fundamental philosophical points and probably this most dangerous class will never have its responsibility completely standardized and determined. We have in sight no likelihood of finding a test or criterion of the power of ethical discernment and control. The best thinkers have finally relegated the whole problem to the common sense of juries. But a much more profitable way of looking at the matter is whether or not the individual is going to do it again, whether he is going to become a recidivist, a menace to society, and whether he is to breed progeny of the same ilk. The self-protection of society is herein involved. Why should we not drop the technical and hardly decidable question of criminal responsibility and the idea of mere punishment, and take up the much more vital problem of how society is to protect itself?

Looked at as a matter wherein the welfare of society is the chief concern, one most difficult point in the problem of mental defect grows more readily soluble. I speak of those cases in which evidence of feeblemindedness, although distinct, especially if studied by means of tests, is minor in degree as compared with the ethical defect present. These form a class of offenders most difficult to deal with because so frequently, on account of good development of language ability, they pass in the world in general, and in courts in particular, as practically normal individuals. This type has been designated by various terms. Anton has recently published a symposium monograph on the subject showing that the consensus of opinion is that there certainly exists a distinct group in which moral defect is out of proportion to the amount of mental subnormality. The recent report of the Massachusetts commission on the increase of criminals emphasizes this very point. To those who doubt the existence of mental defect in such cases I commend the use of psychological tests. Better study of the individual will, in any case, give some indication of that most important point for the welfare of society, namely, whether or not the crime will be repeated.

Turning in the interests of society to the study of the individual offender, especially the recidivist, we shall at once be led by practical considerations into an attempt to decipher the causative factors of his career. The great value of such intelligent study can be shown in many types of cases, but nowhere is it more evident than when the offenders are mentally defective. The recent work of Miss Moore for the Public Education Association of New York shows the after-records of some children formerly in the subnormal rooms in the New York public schools and also of some of the feebleminded men who were paroled from the Elmira Reformatory to New York. The financial and moral cost to the community has been very great from such sources. We ourselves have many such records, showing the terrible burden a criminalistic defective is to the community. Dozens of times, indeed up to a hundred times in the police stations, is the record of even some of the younger members of this group, as we have observed them.

Intelligent study of the problem of recidivism means catching the repeater as early as possible and making a diagnosis and prognosis for disposal of his case at once or in the future. The advantages of studying the recidivist when young are many, both from a scientific and a reformatory point of view. It is often also of immense importance to study the adult repeated offender. The disposal of him offers more difficulties frequently than the adjustment of the juvenile case. There is one matter in connection with adult offenders upon which I wish to lay special emphasis. It is in regard to the parole of criminals. It seems clear to me that if the whole matter of adult probation is to be placed upon the most sensible basis, the scientific facts which have bearing upon the situation must be brought into use. I hold that no criminal should be released upon parole until enough of a study has been made of his individuality and the causative factors of his delinquency so that there may be some sort of a guarantee that his offenses will not be continued. As it stands, almost nothing of this sort is being done. It should be the first and main inquiry of any board of parole to know whether or not the individual under consideration is likely to be a recidivist. Several points of view would be connected in such an inquiry, but the point we are concerned with today is one of the greatest value for the decision. The first question to be asked, if the matter is to be sensibly decided, is about the mental status of the individual. This inquiry with its various ramifications will often be found of great significance in answering the vital question: "Will crime be committed again by this individual?"

Intelligent study of an actual or a potential recidivist means a fairly complete investigation and is worth days of work if this be necessary. It needs a combination of the sociological, medical and psychological standpoints. We ourselves find particularly rich fields for explanation of the case in getting the history of families and of developmental conditions and in psychological examinations. The latter has been much hampered in the past by lack of practical tests, but of late these have been developed. At the present time any intelligent observer can judge something of the mental capacity of an individual by seeing his performance, under proper conditions, on a group of tests which correspond to the normal ability of the child. The well-known Binet tests, imperfect though they probably are in some respects, form an epoch-making advance in the study of feeblemindedness. We ourselves have been at much pains in the last two years in developing, with the help of a number of psychologists, a group of tests directed to the estimation of native mental ability in older and higher types of individuals. We may hope for much greater standardization of tests in the future, but, even as it now stands, there can be no doubt that just such a practical mental classification as the work with delinquents demands can be readily carried out by qualified persons.

The time is ripe for better methods of handling this class of cases. The study of recidivism shows it as a blot upon our civilization, and demonstrates that many recidivists are mental defectives. The study, on the other hand, of the individual defective criminal demonstrates him to be a source of great financial loss and much moral contagion. Studies in heredity prove that he frequently begets his kind. Developments along medical and psychological lines have given us practical methods for diagnosis of mental defectives--even the border-line cases being easily determinable as such--and give us assurance of the social future of this class of cases. The work of our own institute proves not only the applicability of common-sense study of causative factors in general to court work in this country, but directly demonstrates the overwhelming value of early differentiation of a type of offender, who by the very nature of his mental make-up is bound under ordinary social conditions to become a recidivist.

In order to get a more business-like administration of criminal affairs so that there may be practical application of at least some points which are scientifically demonstrable as imperative for the well-being of society, certain things are necessary. Concerning our immediate point, the needs are: first, better education of everybody implicated in the criminal situation as to the part that mental defect plays in delinquency. Then in connection with criminal courts, and especially in connection with juvenile courts, where the development of crime can be checked, there should be thoroughgoing study of the recidivist. The court should be acquainted with the practical value of such study and should act on it. No offender should be allowed on parole unless he is known to have the mental make-up which, on the whole, will in his environment tend to prevent his freedom from being inimical to society. Then, not a difficult matter to insure, there must be better classified institutional treatment. Finally, the court should have the power to adjudicate cases of mental defect in the best interests of society.

TREATMENT OF THE MENTAL DEFECTIVE WHO IS ALSO DELINQUENT

DR. HENRY H. GODDARD, VINELAND, NEW JERSEY

Twenty-five per cent. of delinquents are mentally defective. While we have no absolute statistics, there are many indications that this is a safe estimate. All mental defectives would be delinquents in the very nature of the case, did not some one exercise some care over them.

There is only one possible answer to the question, "What is to be done with the feebleminded person who is delinquent?" He must be cared for, but he must be cared for in a place where we care for irresponsibles. The jail or prison or reformatory, is not for him, neither must he be turned loose on the streets or sent back to the home and environment in which he has already become a delinquent.

In the present state of our laws and customs, delinquency is the one means by which we are able to get hold of a certain type of mental defective and provide for him as he should be provided for. Many of these feebleminded of the moron type come from homes or have attained to such an age or position that we have no way of getting hold of them until they do some wrong and come under the head of delinquents. But when that has happened and we have them where we can prescribe for them, it is worse than folly for us to let them go and turn them back into their former environment where they must only repeat the offense or even commit a worse one.

We must have enough institutions or colonies for the feebleminded to care for all the feebleminded delinquents at least. As it is today, even under the best conditions, many a judge recognizes mental defect in the cases that come before him and would gladly send the child to an institution for the feebleminded, but there is no room, and so he is compelled to utilize some makeshift which oftentimes is worse than nothing at all.

But the broadest treatment of this topic must go farther back than the question of what to do with these feebleminded persons who have already become delinquent. We must consider the cause here as we are trying to do everywhere in modern methods, and treat the cause rather than trying to cure. In other words, the feebleminded person should be taken care of before he becomes a delinquent. Here the first problem is diagnosis. How shall we recognize this feebleminded child of high type, this moron grade, as we now call them?

Until recently we have been more or less helpless in this matter, but now we may say with perfect assurance that the Binet tests of intelligence are entirely satisfactory and can be relied on to pick out the mental defective at least up to the age of twelve years. The public schools will be the clearing house for all these cases, they may there be tested and their mental condition found out, and they can then be cared for as condition leads. We have too long attempted to treat all children alike, whether in the public school or before the courts. When we have learned to discriminate and recognize the ability of each child and place upon him such burdens and responsibilities only as he is able to bear, then we shall have largely solved the problem of delinquency.

PLACING MISDEMEANANTS ON PROBATION

JAMES A. COLLINS

Judge of the City Court, Indianapolis, Indiana

In the city campaign of 1909 I pledged the people of the city of Indianapolis that if elected judge of the city court, I would introduce a probation system as a means of helping delinquent men and women. The enactment of a law by the legislature of 1907, under which courts may exercise the right to suspend sentence or withhold judgment in the cases of adults, made possible the application of a probation system in the administration of justice in circuit, criminal and city courts.

The probation system inaugurated in the city court of Indianapolis has covered:

The power to suspend sentence has saved many novices in crime from undergoing the harsh punishment that would be otherwise meted out to them, and that seems to be contrary to the constitutional provision that "all penalties shall be proportioned according to the nature of the offense."

During the past year sentence has been suspended in 236 cases and judgment withheld in 3,474. The majority of these were first offenders. In those cases where the judgment was suspended, the court has had to set aside the suspension of sentence and commit the defendants in only two cases, and where the judgment has been withheld less than two per cent. have been returned to court for a second or subsequent offense.

While there is no provision under the law for the employment of paid probation officers, adequate supervision in 352 cases was made possible by good citizens volunteering to serve in that capacity. These probationers were required to furnish the court a monthly report signed by the probation officer. Time will not permit the details of these reports. Each tells its own story of heroic efforts toward right living.

The old method of collecting money fines which compelled the defendant to pay or replevy the same moment he was fined was always a source of great hardship on the poor. It was unreasonable to expect a common laborer arrested late at night and convicted in the morning to be prepared to settle with the state. If he was unable to pay or make arrangements to have his fine stayed for the statutory period, he was sent to prison, not because the court had given him a term of imprisonment, but because he was poor, which is in effect, imprisonment for debt.

To aid this particular class there was introduced as a part of the probation system a plan for the collection of fines in small payments. In those cases where the defendant appeared deserving he has been released on his own recognizance and the case held under advisement for thirty to sixty days, as the circumstances seemed to justify, at the expiration of which time he was required to report to the court that he had paid in the amount designated as the fine and costs to be entered against him.

At the close of the year 830 persons had been given an opportunity to pay their fines in this way. Of this number, 64 were re-arrested and committed for their failure to pay their fine, and the affidavits in 32 other cases are held for re-arrest. The balance lived up to their obligation with the court and paid in more than ,100.

This plan operates to the benefit of the defendant in several ways: it saves him his employment; it saves his family from humiliation and disgrace, as well as from the embarrassment incident to imprisonment; but more than all, it saves him his self-respect. With but a single exception not one to whom this opportunity has been given and who had paid his fine in full has been in court a second time.

No unfortunates appeal more strongly to the court than the victims of the liquor habit. In all cases of first offenders charged with being drunk and in those cases where the defendant had others dependent upon him for support, the court has made it a condition on withholding judgment or suspending sentence that the defendant take the pledge for a period varying from six months to one year. At the close of the year 101 persons had taken the pledge, and of this number all but ten had kept the same faithfully.

In the severe cases where the defendant was bordering on delirium tremens, he was committed to the workhouse and the superintendent informed of his condition. While there are no special arrangements for the treatment of inebriates at the workhouse, Superintendent O'Connor has successfully provided a separate department for such cases. With these inadequate facilities a splendid work is now being done among this class of unfortunate and harmless offenders.

Men suffering from physical defects have frequently been before the court charged with offenses entirely out of harmony with their antecedents and environments. In these cases the court has been able to call to his assistance some of the best-known surgeons of the city. During the year three surgical operations were performed. Two of these were brain operations and one was sterilization for degeneracy. Three additional cases were successfully treated at private institutions for the drug and liquor habits.

Acting upon the suggestion of Amos W. Butler and Demarchus C. Brown, the court set aside Wednesday afternoons for the separate trials of women and girls. A woman probation officer maintains an adequate system of investigation and supervision.

During the seven months that the work among women and girls has been in charge of a probation officer, 139 cases have been investigated, and of that number only 11 were imprisoned, and adequate supervision provided for 70 during the probation period.

In 18 cases of drunkenness, under the supervision of the probation officer, pledges were taken, and all but three have kept the same faithfully. In 15 cases of country girls coming to Indianapolis and falling into bad company, resulting in their arrest, arrangements were made, by this officer, for the return of these girls to their homes in various parts of the state. In the balance of these cases investigation disclosed that the defendants were more sinned against than sinning and the cases were dismissed.

The criminal code is absolutely silent upon the question of recovery for loss or damage to property and injuries to the person growing out of criminal acts except that in cases of malicious trespass the court may fine a defendant a sum equal to twice the amount of the property damaged. To fine a person double the value of the property damaged and because of his failure to pay the same, place the additional burden on the citizen of supporting him in the workhouse or jail seems in itself an absurdity.

As a part of the probation plan the court requires every person charged with any offense involving the loss or damage to property and injuries to the person to make full and complete restitution to the injured party before the final disposition of the case. Upon a proper showing that restitution has been made the court is then in a position to take such action as the other facts in the case justify. Under this plan more than ,800 in restitution has been recovered and turned over to the proper parties.

The results of the operation of any system of justice are not to be measured by dollars and cents.

During the year 1910 the court disposed of more than 15,000 cases. Notwithstanding this tremendous volume of business there was a saving to the county in the cost of feeding prisoners in the county jail of ,393.61 and in the maintenance of the workhouse, ,631.95.

Yet the reduction by fifty per cent. of the number of commitments of persons to the workhouse, jail and correctional department of the woman's prison speaks with far greater force in favor of the probation system than any saving in dollars and cents, for of greater significance to the community is the moral uplift.

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