The prevention and repression of crime : being a report of the fifth section of the International Congress of Charities, Correction and Philanthropy, Chicago, June, 1893 / edited by Frederick H. Wines.

Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The prevention and repression of crime : being a report of the fifth section of the International Congress of Charities, Correction and Philanthropy, Chicago, June, 1893 / edited by Frederick H. Wines. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    If the restraints are imperfect we lose the confidence and co-opera- tion of the patient, and stimulate his mind into opposition and con- stant endeavors to thwart and destroy its effects. Unless our dis- cipline is thorough and stimulating in all its parts, and rigorously enforced, we are educating these men into methods of intrigue, and building up contagious forces, increasing the difficulties of manage- ment, and lowering our reputation in the public estimation. The sharp discipline of military asylums, filling the mind with new duties and ambitions, employing the energies in physical labors, is particularly fitted to strengthen and develop the feeble impulses, and to control the diseased longings—this is the basis of reform. Military discipline, and occupation of both body and mind, indicate the most hopeful promise for the future. These statements apply especially to criminal inebriates. If we admit patients of this class, we must have the means to enforce obedi- ence and make relapse difficult. They must be separated from others and placed under a rigid military discipline, which will have care of all their habits and surroundings, punishing for all violations with certainty and exactness, and under no circumstances relaxing the military surroundings in less than two to four years. There is another class of patients, called repeaters, who are com- pounds of criminals and pauper inebriates, although quite frequently wealthy, or having wealthy friends. They go from one asylum to another, like tramps, and bring odium on all, disobey the rules, are sources of infection and annoyance to the management, and are often taken as types of all others. Without facilities for classification, or means to enforce long residence or total abstinence, we are throwing away time and opportunity in all efforts to help or reform this class of inebriate criminals. There would be more hope for criminals in the present system of punishment in jails and penitentiaries, if the sentences were made for years instead of months. The English prison reports indicate a number recovered from inebriety among those of this class sentenced for a period of years. The danger of the present system is that short sentences intensify and fix their con- dition, isolating and building up a dangerous class, from which recovery is rare. This is owing to the imperfect system of classifi- cation, by which all are treated alike and without regard to marked differences of intellect, development and character. We repeat, the inebriate criminal must be classified and treated by distinct methods. He must be separated from the ordinary