the question is often asked, is crime increasing? statistics of all kinds can be gathered on this subject. in the main they seem to show that crime is on the increase in most civilized countries. it is very unsafe to use statistics without at the same time considering all the questions on which conduct rests. an increase of crime, as shown by statistics, may mean that the records are kept more completely than in former times. it may mean temporary causes like bad times are adding to the number of arrests and convictions. it may mean new classifications. it may mean that figures are based on arrests instead of convictions. it may include misdemeanors with graver offenses. it may or may not include repeaters. statistics in any field are useful, but usually for broad generalizations, and they must always be interpreted by men of experience who are not interested in the results. still, on the whole, it is probable that statistics show that crime is on the increase. what have reason and human experience to say on the subject?
we should always bear in mind that crime can never mean anything except the violation of law, when the violator is convicted; that it has no necessary reference to the general moral condition of man. is the number of criminal convictions growing, and if so why? in the first place, the criminal code is lengthening every year. when civilized man began making criminal codes, there were comparatively few things forbidden. the codes were largely made up of those acts which, in some form, have for ages been generally thought to be criminal. religious beliefs, customs and habits were included in the penal statutes. so were such things as sorcery and witchcraft. property was then not an important subject in man's activities. when the instinct to create and accumulate property began to rule life, the criminal code grew very rapidly. complex business interests, combined with the constantly increasing value placed on property, were always calling for new statutes.
the same tendency, indirectly, demanded still other statutes until at the present time this class of crimes makes up a large part of the criminal code and is growing steadily each year. then too, the necessity of property has called for the violation of this part of the criminal code more than any other, and it has naturally caused a considerable increase of crime. man in his social and political activities is ever weaving and bending and twisting back and forth. for a number of years the universal tendency, especially in america, has been toward what is called "social control", the idea being that more and more people should be controlled in an increasing number of ways. of course, if people are to be controlled they must be controlled by other people. this policy has been extended until we are ever pushing further into the regulation of the habits, customs and lives of all the individual members of the community. the majority, when it has the power, has never hesitated to force its ways of living, its ideas, customs and habits on the minority. the majority, when strong enough, has always assumed that it was right, and provided that others must live its way or not at all. the pendulum is now swinging far this way as is evidenced by prohibition, the persistent campaign for sunday laws, and the growing belief in social control as a means of changing and directing humanity.
this has added to the criminal code and has increased the number of men in prisons. two statutes of recent date in most of the states are responsible for a very large increase in the number of convicts. the conspiracy statute which is used today is a deliberate scheme on the part of prosecutors to get men into the penitentiary by charging an agreement or confederation of two or more persons to do something, which, if really committed, would be a misdemeanor, or no crime whatever. under this charge, whether made specifically or in connection with another crime, the rules of evidence have been opened and relaxed until the wildest and most remote hearsay is freely admitted for the plain purpose of convicting men who have really been guilty of no specific act. it is in effect punishing one for his thoughts; the business of the court or jury being to find out whether in some particular he has an evil mind.
the statute forbidding the use of the "confidence game" in obtaining property sends to prison a constant stream of persons who, until a few years ago, would have been guilty of no crime. this law, as interpreted by the courts, really means the procuring of money by dishonest means. under this statute the court and jury hear the evidence and say whether the means charged are dishonest or not. this, of course, leaves the law so that the temporarily prevailing power, perhaps only the prosecuting attorney, may send men to prison who take means of getting money that are not practiced or at least advocated by the ones who procure the passage and enforcement of the law.
numberless ways used by the strong to get money are considered dishonest by a large class of men and women: exaggerated and lying advertisements, forestalling the markets, the acts and wiles of the professional salesman, misrepresenting goods and other methods that could never be catalogued because new ways are constantly coming to light. the logical end of all these indefinite and uncertain laws is to pass one statute providing that whoever does wrong shall be imprisoned, et cetera, et cetera. the law never can specify all the ways of doing wrong and many of the meanest and most annoying things have never been, and from the nature of things never can be, prohibited by the statutes. no man is a good citizen, a good neighbor, a good friend, or a good man just because he obeys the law. the intrinsic worth is determined mainly by the intrinsic make-up.
civilization is all the while making it harder for men to keep out of prison. especially do the weak and ignorant and poor find that environment is constantly creating more inhibitions as time goes on. while rules and customs are prohibiting more and more ways of getting property, the needs growing out of civilization are always increasing. the simple inexpensive life of the past has given place to a more complex way of living, which calls for greater expense and harder work. it has created rivalry and jealousy to get the things that others have, and has placed men in a mad race with each other which often leads to jail or death.
students of biology are constantly noting the difficulty that hereditary human traits, which have been evolved for simple reactions and plain living, find in making the necessary adjustments to the extravagant demands and complicated environment of the present day. this departure from the old normal and simple environment, due largely to machinery and commerce, is not only destroying individual lives by the thousands, but is seriously threatening the whole social fabric.
the creation of new courts, like "boys' courts," "juvenile courts," "courts of domestic relations," "moral courts," with their array of "social workers," "parole agents," "watchers," et cetera, shows the growth of crime and likewise the hopelessness of present methods to deal effectively with a great social question. numbers of people in our big cities are making their living from the abnormal lives of children. whether they are doing good or not, or whether their service is unselfish, as much of it doubtless is, are both quite aside from the question. the important fact is that the present system brings no results and that the disease is growing.
instead of any considerable number of people taking hold of the question of crime, as physicians have taken hold of disease, and seeking to find its cause and to remove that cause, we content ourselves with prosecuting and punishing and visiting with misery and shame, not only the boys and girls, the men and women, who are the victims of life, but the large number of fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters, whose lives are ruined by a catastrophe with which at least they had nothing to do. if a doctor were called in to treat a case of typhoid fever, he would probably find out where the patient got his milk supply and his drinking water and would have the well cleaned out to stop the spread of typhoid fever through infection. a lawyer called to treat the same kind of a case, legally speaking, would give the patient thirty days in jail, thinking that this treatment would effect a cure. if at the end of ten days the patient were cured, he would nevertheless be kept in prison until his time was out. if at the end of thirty days the disease was more infectious than ever, the patient would be discharged and sent upon his way to spread contagion in his path.
the transgression of organized society in the treatment of crime would not be so great if students and scientists had not long since found the cause of crime. it would be hard to name a single man among all the men of europe and america who have given their time and thought to the solution of this problem, who has not come to the conclusion that crime has a natural origin, and that the criminal for the most part is the victim of heredity and environment. these students have pointed the way for the treatment of the disease, and yet organized government that spends its millions on prosecutions, reformatories, jails, penitentiaries and the like, has scarcely raised its hand or spent a dollar to remove the cause of a disease that brings misery and despair to millions and threatens the destruction of all social organization! to the teaching of the student and the recommendations of the humane the mob answers back: "give us more victims, bigger jails, stronger prisons, more scaffolds!"
not only has the constant multiplication of penal laws helped without avail to fill jails, but the failure to repeal laws that are outgrown does its part. as already stated, there are many anti-social and annoying things that can be done without violating the law. this, no doubt, is responsible for some of the general statutes like that aimed at the confidence game that catches a victim when the crime is not clearly defined as in "robbery," "burglary," "larceny" and the like. still it has been the general opinion of those who have studied crime and influenced the passage of penal laws, that criminal statutes should be clear and explicit so that all would know what they must not do. it is obvious that if one is to be punished simply for doing wrong, there could be no judges or juries or jailers condemning and punishing and no crowds shouting for vengeance. all do wrong and do it over and over again, and day by day. it is not only those specific things that the great majority think are wrong, but the graver offenses that are meant to be the subject of criminal codes. of course, codes do not work out this way in practice. in effect, they forbid the things that the strongest forces of the community wish forbidden, things which may or may not be the gravest and most anti-social acts, but which at least seem to the strong to be most hostile to their interests and ruling emotions.
