The same evolution will take place in regard to the segregation of
criminals as in regard to the seclusion of the insane; first,
hospitals and prisons, with a terrible communion of corruption in
both cases; then barrack life, in asylums or penitentiaries, vast
and isolated; lastly, for the insane, a system of so-called
village asylums, and even a free colony for harmless idiots who
can be put to agricultural work and minor trades, as at Gheel in
Belgium. Similarly for criminals, the sanitary ``elbow room'' of
agricultural colonies will be substituted for the infectious
barrack-life of the great prisons.
As for habitual criminals, their anthropological characteristics
remind us that we must distinguish between the two crises of their
criminal activity, and, as a consequence, between the methods of
defence against them. That is to say, we must distinguish
between the initial moment at which they commit their first crime
and the subsequent period in which they become habitual offenders,
recidivists, and even incorrigible.
Thus it is clear that at the initial moment of their criminal
career they ought to be subjected to the measures which I am about
to indicate for occasional criminals; whereas, when from
occasional they have become, partly by their imprisonment,
habitual offenders, they must be subjected to the measures already
indicated for born criminals.
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