Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Correction and Prevention
It is true that no American state has established a law which may be properly called an indeterminate sentence law. But it may fairly be claimed that many states have made great and rapid advance in introducing reformatory methods, and that the merely vindictive and retributive notion of punishment has been rejected by the most enlightened minds of the nation. In the treatment of the insane, of neglected children, and of delinquent youth, the re educative purpose is dominant. In dealing with inebriates and others of imperfect mentality and will, the idea of cure and re - education is in?uential. The suspension of sentence and probation applied to adults gains friends and advocates. It remains only to Show that a vast number of offenders are defectives in some degree to secure the extension of the same methods to them.
The discussions of facts and experiences found in these four volumes reveal a weak place in the administration of criminal law, not peculiar to the United States. We have no organization for the thorough and consecutive study of offenders. The trial by summary process is swift, superficial and bears on a few minor points. The trial in case of serious crime is usually only too prolonged, but has no scientific method of finding out the life history of the accused. The court papers sent to the warden of the prison give him scant informa tion on which to base his plans of education and reformation. In deed, the assumption of the court and law is, perhaps in a majority of cases, actually contrary to facts, - the assumption that the sane man did the criminal act of his own free will. Much time is spent to little real purpose in proving or disproving intent. Some of the most progressive judges have learned a lesson from the experience of the juvenile court where the procedure is free from these unproved and false assumptions, and where a frank, patient and sometimes expert study is made Of the nature, habits, life history and surround ings of the accused.
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