CHAPTER VIII

THE PROPER TREATMENT OF CRIME

Reason and judgment as well as an almost endless array of facts has proven that crime is not without its cause. In showing its cause, its cure has been made plain. If the minds and energies of men were directed toward curing crime instead of brutally assaulting the victims of society, some progress might be made.

It is often difficult to trace results, because their relations are not always direct and plain. Even in the realm of physical facts it is always easy to stray from the straight path between cause and effect. When we observe the conduct of men and seek to find its cause the problem is still more complex. Each human being is an entity made up of all that is and of all that has gone before. It may not be possible to tell from whence he obtained every quirk or peculiarity of his brain, but one thing is sure, he did not form his own skull and could have but little part in arranging the brain cells within the bone. This portion came from his father, this his mother gave, this was bequeathed by a bloody ancestor who died long generations since; but all who went before did their part, and gave their little mite to make the composite brain that drives its possessor here and there.

While the exact cause of any act may not be ascertained, still the general causes are beyond dispute. A stunted body means that either its owner or its ancestor has almost surely been starved and that want and hunger have left their traces on the brain. An inferior mind means some incapacity, disease or disadvantage, either in the individual or his ancestor, that has left him different from his fellow men. An unsymmetrical head may reach back to the early ape, and account for any possible seeming deficiency or peculiarity in the brain, which after all must be molded in the shape that the bone allows it to assume. Starved bodies can be cured by food. True, it may take more than one generation to cure them as it may have taken several to produce them, but, after all, they can be cured by food; and a rational humane world would commend itself more to thinking men and to the posterity which will judge us, by feeding these starved bodies rather than imprisoning them in pens. An inferior mind or an ill-shaped head can be reached in a generation or more by feeding the body that supports it, by treating it with tenderness, charity and kindness, rather than ruling it with hatred, bitterness and violence.

Nearly every crime could be wiped away in one generation by giving the criminal a chance. The life of a burglar, of a thief, of a prostitute, is not a bed of roses. Men and women are only driven to these lives after other means have failed. Theirs are not the simple, natural lives of children, nor of the childhood of the world; but men and women can learn these professions or be bred to them. After other resources are exhausted they will be chosen for the simple reason that life is sweet. With all its pangs and bitterness, it is the nature of life to send its poor tendrils deep into the earth and cling with all its force and power to this poor, fleeting, transitory world.

Men are slow to admit that punishment is wrong and that each human soul is the irresponsible, unconscious product of all that has gone before; and yet every kind and wise parent in the world proves by his every relation with his child that he knows that he is the author of his being and the molder of his character, and that he, the parent, is infinitely more responsible for the soul he launches than is the child himself. There might be some measure of justice in trying and punishing the parent for the conduct of the child, but even this does not reach back. The source of every life runs back to the Infinite itself. Every right thinking father does his best to have his child reared in those influences and surroundings which will best contribute to his physical, mental and moral growth. Even then he feels that the future is doubtful enough; that man is weak and finite and blind; that he sees but a little way into the dim, uncertain future; that he is filled with passions, emotions and desires; that he must travel a path beset with all sorts of temptations and promises; that his weak sight will look upon beautiful cities and fair prospects which are only mirages and sent to beguile and insnare his soul. Few judges, if called upon, would not sooner slay their innocent sleeping child with their own loving hands, than abandon him to grow up in the streets or make his way unaided through the tangled mazes that confront the homeless and the poor; and yet these same judges will coolly arraign men who all their lives have walked in the shadows through a tangled maze beset with passion and fear, and sentence them to death and ask God to have mercy on their souls. Every man who loves his child and seeks to surround him with what is best for his physical, mental and moral needs denies in his very life the right of man to judge and punish his fellow man.