The latter are incorrigible through
congenital tendency to degenerate, and the former are incorrigible
through acquired tendency; but they end in the same degree of
anti-sociality and brutalisation. There is, however, this
difference, that habitual offenders nearly always commit less
serious crimes, such as theft, swindling, forgery, indecent
assault, whilst the born criminals, though they may be petty
thieves, or not very formidable swindlers, are more frequently
murderers, footpads, guilty of arson, or the like. Thus the
discipline of their segregation must vary accordingly.
For occasional criminals, social defence must have a character of
prevention rather than of repression, so as to save them from
being driven, by a mistaken prison organisation, to become
recidivists, and therefore habitual and incorrigible criminals.
It is especially important in this category to discriminate
between the young and the adults, for with the former, far
more than with the latter, the preventive methods may have a
sensible effect in diminishing crime. But we must take care, in
place of the pedantic graduation of responsibility which satisfies
the penal codes, to substitute a physiological and psychical
treatment of children and young people, who are actual criminals
or framing for crime.
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