CHAPTER IX. THE PREVENTION OF CRIME. "Principiis obsta, serò medicina paratur, THE prevention of crime in one's country is an object worthy of deepest thought to the moralist, the legislator, and the Christian. Questions of prison discipline derive from this their chief importance. If these are radically vicious, they foster and multiply crime. If indifferent, they discharge only part of their functions-they merely punish. If wise and good, they repress crime, and lessen the expenditure of the State. Prevention of crime may be viewed either in reference to the lapsed members of society, the classes most in danger of falling into crime, or to the community at large. To begin with the lapsed :— About 30,000 individuals, that is, one-fourth of the whole annual prison population of this country, return to prison again. The aggregate of these numbers is fearful, and shows the importance of the subject. But the proportion is encouraging, and demonstrates a fact, too little credited, the willing ness of the great majority of criminals to turn from their evil course. Ninety thousand criminals in a year, whether deterred by punishment, and sheer dread of the law, or reformed in character, or influenced by mixed motives, do actually, by their own efforts, against extraordinarily great disadvantages, return to a better course of life after legal punishment. Paley states it to be the principal difficulty in the treatment of prisoners, "how to dispose of them after their enlargement," and remarks: "By a rule of life, which is, perhaps, too invariably and indiscriminately adhered to, no one will receive a man or woman out of a gaol into any service or employment whatever. This is the common misfortune of public punishments, that they preclude the offender from all honest means of future support." He suggests that "until this inconvenience be remedied, small offences had better, perhaps, go unpunished. I do not mean," he says, "that the law should exempt them from punishment, but that private persons should be tender in prosecuting them." Facts, after all, show that the State has only to consider how to prevent relapse into crime in 25 per cent. of the discharged. How far present improvements in our penal regulations may effect a further diminution remains to be proved. Should they reduce it only by one-third, i. e. 10,000 individuals, it will yet be a glorious result, and worth more than all the trouble and expense lavished, as some would say, with this object. Should no such result be manifest, it must not be too hastily concluded that those improvements have failed in their grand purpose; for the fact is, that by those means, as well as by the general efforts of benevolence and Christianity, we are, in the present day, not only meeting old difficulties, but a host of new ones continually, from increase of population, and other causes, springing into existence. Is it Christian-is it politic not to lend a helping hand, in some way, to those who are willing to be reformed? What, if some have been rescued from crime, in the very act, by the voice of sympathy and Christian feeling! On one occasion, the late Rowland Hill preached a funeral sermon on the death of his servant man. In the course of that sermon he said:-" Many persons present were acquainted with the deceased, and have had it in their power to observe his character and conduct. They can bear witness, that for a considerable number of years he proved himself a perfectly honest, sober, industrious, and religious man; faithfully performing, as far as lay in his power, the duties of his station in life, and serving God with constancy and zeal. Yet this very man was once a robber on the highway. More than thirty years ago, he stopped me on the public road, and demanded my money. Not at all intimidated, I argued with him; I asked him what could induce him to pursue so iniquitous and dangerous a course of life? 'I have been a coachman,' said he; 'I am out of place, and I cannot get a character; I am unable to get any employment.' I desired him to call on me. He promised he would, and he kept his word. I talked further with him, and offered to take him into my own service. He consented; and ever since that period has served me faithfully, and not me only, but has faithfully served his God. Instead of finishing his life in a public and ignominious manner, with a depraved and hardened heart, as he probably would have done, he died in peace, and, we trust, prepared for the society of 'just men made perfect.' Till this day the extraordinary circumstance I have related has been confined to his breast and mine. I have never mentioned it to my dearest friend." 66 Respecting the reception of the liberated prisoner again into society," writes the King of Sweden, "a feeling of morality, degenerated to implacability, ought not to repulse his contrition, or suppress his good intentions; but his return to evil must be prevented by his being enabled to obtain honest employment. There is an extensive field for communal and private exertion. After the law has executed the punishment, and the State has taken care of the inward improvement, it is the business of the citizen to offer a helping hand to the individual restored to freedom. Both charity and prudence urge this; for it is the noblest and safest means of preventing new crimes." Now, it is no longer a question that society can really do a great deal in preventing relapse into crime, and that it is plainly the interest, and the duty, of the State to assist their efforts, but a matter of actual observation, wherever the experiment has been tried, either abroad or at home. Reformatory agricultural schools, for juvenile offenders, have now for years been tried in France with great success; and it is delightful to observe, how much Christianity, in its general characteristics of morality and benevolence, in the hands of earnest, large-minded, and good men, has accomplished in that country, for the amelioration and improvement of that class, particularly at Mettray. The directors of this famous establishment were formerly two-Monsieur Demetz, and the Vicomte de Bretignères; to these gentlemen, a third, the Vicomte de Villiers, nephew of Monsieur de Bretignères, has been lately added. The first of those gentlemen must be regarded as the founder. M. Demetz began his good work by the formation of the Société Paternelle, under the presidency of M. le Comte de Gasparin, Peer of France. The first Article of the Constitution of this Society, thus denotes its objects : 1. To exercise a benevolent guardianship over children, acquitted on the ground that they had acted without discernment, who may be confided to its care by the magistrate, in administering the judicial instruction, dated 3rd Dec. 1832; to procure for such children (being in a state of conditional liberty, and sent to an Agricultural Colony,) a moral and religious education, as well as elementary instruction; to have them taught a trade, to accus |