Chapter 1

This little book presents an appeal to society to consider its criminals
with greater charity and with more intelligent compassion. No other plea
is advanced than that the public mind should rid itself of all prejudices
and misunderstandings, and should make an honest endeavour to understand
what the criminal is, why he is a criminal and what, notwithstanding, are
his chances in social life.

The criminal has a claim to be understood just as well as any other
creature. It is not necessary that his sympathisers should shut their
eyes to the fact that he is capable of shocking crime, that he is often
an ungrateful wretch that will bite the hand that feeds him and that
among his ranks are to be found the most depraved specimens of humanity
that the mind can conceive. A failure to recognize these facts is
actually a failure to do justice to his cause. Notwithstanding the
hideous history that he may have to unfold, he does ask to be
understood.

The majority of people take a most prejudiced view of the criminal's
case. They will read the account of some fearful outrage or the details
of a disgraceful divorce suit with absolutely no interest what ever in
the persons concerned but only for the sake of the morbid satisfaction
which such reading gives them. A glance at the sentence will draw forth
from them the exclamation that the wretch got no more than he deserved
or that he didn't get half enough. This simply indicates that society as
a whole has made very little real progress in the manner in which it
regards its criminals. The old barbaric idea of revenge is still the
dominant one and any scheme for the betterment of the criminal, even if
it should give unmistakeable signs that it will accomplish his absolute
reform, is carefully investigated to see whether it provides for a
sufficient degree of penal suffering. Suffering which is of an entirely
penal nature, has very little deterrent value and absolutely no
reformative value whatever. And yet our refined and educated men and
women will read the accounts of crimes and, in their own minds, sentence
the actors to five, ten, fourteen or twenty years; even death, as if
criminals were so used to this sort of thing that they thought no more
of it than their self-chosen judges would if deprived of a day's sport
or disappointed over a ball.

"But," as an ex-member of the Justice Department said to me, "do you
know what the wretch has done?" Yes, I do know what he has done, and I
know him personally and well, and I know of what he is capable and such
knowledge brings with it the conviction that society commits a greater
crime than that which he has committed when it undertakes to punish him
for his offence upon a principle of pure vengeance.

"Vengeance is mine," saith the Almighty, "I will repay." Society is not
God any more than is the individual, so that by acting in the collective
capacity no additional plea of justification may be advanced.

The endeavour of this book will be to show that the best interests of
society are not served by the infliction of punishments which are
essentially penal but by the accomplishment of the reform of the
criminal. This latter process is for the criminal himself, infinitely
more severe than the former, but it inflicts a pain which raises the man
to a higher level; it is purgatorial, and not one which, being penal,
leaves him a greater enemy to mankind than ever.

The criminal is not excused for his wrong-doing, he is not regarded as
an automaton, but simply as a creature of capabilities and possibilities
which require the intelligent sympathy of his fellows in order that they
may be properly developed.

There are many persons who regard the reform of the criminal as an
absolutely hopeless task and a waste of time to think over; they
advocate his extermination. They would fling back to the Creator His own
work as having, in their judgment, proved worthless, even mischievous.

Dr Chapple is astounded that the existence, or at least the birth, of
defectives should be allowed. It is, he says, due in a large measure to
the tide of Christian sentiment which is to-day in full flood. The
Christian does at least recognize that of every defective God says,
"take this child and nurse it for Me," but to speak of Christian
sentiment being at its flood-tide to-day is surely not the speech of one
who professes much belief in the future of Christianity.

Dr Chapple preaches a Gospel for the defective, and his banner is the
skull and cross-bones! Christian sentiment when at its flood-tide will
have swept away all such emblems. In replying to Dr Chapple, I have
endeavoured to show that his proposal touches but the fringe of the
problem, and even there after an unscientific and immoral manner. There
is room for a measure of surprise that Dr Chapple should have undertaken
to write his book with such a scant knowledge of the facts as they
really are.

In presenting this little book to the public, the author does so with
the hope that it may tend to restore the confidence in human nature that
Dr Chapple has somewhat weakened, but also in some measure to inspire
society towards greater collective ameliorative effort, in which our
full confidence may unhesitatingly be placed. The author hopes that the
criminal, a subject of patient study for the last ten years, will be
seen in a somewhat new light. Criminologists declare the criminal to be
seven-eighths of an average man. May society find in itself the ability
and good-will to contribute the other eighth!

Small as this volume is, it has required many communications with the
old world, and the author's thanks are due to many students engaged upon
the study of this science in England and in the United States, and who
have rendered him valuable assistance. Also, the assistance of many kind
friends in New Zealand is gratefully acknowledged, and particularly that
of Mr Alfred Grant, without whose aid the preparation of these sheets
for the press would have been an almost impossible task.