The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Criminal & the Community, by James Devon

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Title: The Criminal & the Community

Author: James Devon

Release Date: October 20, 2013 [eBook #43986]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CRIMINAL & THE COMMUNITY***

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THE CRIMINAL & THE COMMUNITY

THE CRIMINAL &
THE COMMUNITY

BY JAMES DEVON
MEDICAL OFFICER OF H.M.
PRISON AT GLASGOW WITH
AN INTRODUCTION BY
PROF. A. F. MURISON, LL.D.

TORONTO: BELL AND COCKBURN
LONDON: JOHN LANE MCMXII

WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS
PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND

TO
MATTHEW G. KELSO
AND
SAMUEL GIBSON
FRIENDS INDEED

INTRODUCTION

The importance of the subjects handled in this volume requires no demonstration. Already, and for long, the treatment of them has naturally engaged the sympathetic study of philanthropists, and more recently it has attracted the earnest attention of scientific inquirers. Hitherto, however, the results have been far from satisfactory; and there is ample room for further discussion, especially from the standpoint of a thoroughly practical man with large experience both of criminals and of the social conditions that breed them.

Nowadays there is a growing sense of social interdependence; there is a more general and a more definitely realized aim to elevate the condition of the less fortunate of our fellow-citizens; there are express efforts of scientific investigators to discover a firm basis for practical reforms; and practical reforms are urgent. Such tendencies of thought and feeling may be expected to go far to ensure a warm welcome to this volume.

Dr. Devon’s book is executed on a breadth of scale never before attempted. It has three distinct parts: The Criminal; Common Factors in the Causation of Crime; The Treatment of the Criminal. His exposition is perfectly clear; he sees precisely, and he states directly, simply, and definitely what he sees and what he thinks about it, very frequently driving home a point with epigrammatic force. If he throws overboard unceremoniously what he regards as mere lumber accumulated by the industry of speculation divorced from experience; if he betrays some impatience with existing theories and systems; if he advances his own views with confidence—the handling is at any rate piquant, and brings the matter promptly to a head.

We are supposed to have travelled far from the mediæval brutality of prison life, but have the changes not been superficial rather than deep? Setting aside the catalogue of minor regulations and regarding the broad spirit of prison life, one cannot but recognize that the conditions still prevailing have much in common with the past. If we look for the really essential changes during a hundred years, we find just these: (1) a surface cleanliness of apparent perfection; (2) conversation, prison visits, and arrangements tending towards a decent sociability between prisoners and prisoners and between prisoners and the public reduced and rendered difficult by multitudinous bye-laws. On the one hand, a cleanliness obtainable only by irritating industry disproportionate to its proper value; on the other hand, a reduction of such facilities as are most likely to prevent a prisoner from degenerating to a social alien, an automatic machine, or a lunatic.

The after-effects of a long sojourn in prison are not readily realizable: it would require a very lively imagination to picture the life and its inherent possibilities. The fact that some prisoners do manage to get through their existence without falling into despair may be taken rather as a tribute to the chances of exception confounding rule than as a proof of conversion to virtue through punishment. It is too much to expect that an ordinary man that has been incarcerated for a period of seven, or five, or even three years, can become, on his liberation, once more a “respectable” member of society. His spirit has been cowed; his self-respect has been annihilated; he has been disqualified for reabsorption in the community; he has been prepared to gravitate once more towards crime and prison.

Another unfortunate aspect is the position of the prison warder. Apart from the care of those under him, he is subject to so much personal discipline—is so much the slave of “Rules”—that his life often becomes little superior to that of his charges. In point of social origin or of intellectual attainments he is not inferior to the ordinary policeman; but, while the policeman is taught by society, the warder spends most of his time in an atmosphere of degradation, fatal both to character and to intellect.

We are pretty well agreed that consideration and sympathy should be extended to the first offender, except in case of sheer brutality—and, as Dr. Devon points out, even a man that commits an act of brutality is not necessarily a brute—for the first offender is usually the victim of “accidental misconduct.” In the case of the habitual offender, who returns to prison time after time for various transgressions, it would seem judicious to keep him permanently from actual freedom, but to treat him more as a diseased and positively dangerous man than as a noxious animal. At any rate, first offenders should not be herded together with case-hardened criminals.

Dr. Devon argues stoutly for the liberation of prisoners when responsible citizens come forward to undertake for necessary periods the guardianship and care of them. On this point it is important to note his precise position: it is not for a moment to be thought that he advocates any reckless liberation of scoundrels upon society. Let us see his actual words: “Unconditional liberation has ended in disaster to all concerned. Conditional liberation can only be expected to produce good results if the conditions are reasonable.... A prison ought merely