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Page 6
[4] _Recent Economic Changes_, p. 345.
Nearly all the chief statisticians abroad tell the same tale with
respect to the growth of crime on the Continent. Dr. Mischler of
Vienna, and Professor von Liszt of Marburg draw a deplorable picture
of the increase of crime in Germany. Professor von Liszt, in a recent
article,[5] says, that fifteen million persons have been convicted by
the German criminal courts within the last ten years; and, according
to him, the outlook for the future is sombre in the last degree. In
France, the criminal problem is just as formidable and perplexing as
it is in Germany; M. Henri Joly estimates that crime has increased in
the former country 133 per cent. within the last half century, and is
still steadily rising. Taking Victoria as a typical Australasian
colony, we find that even in the Antipodes, which are not vexed to the
same extent as Europe with social and economic difficulties, crime is
persistently raising its head, and although it does not increase quite
as rapidly as the population, it is nevertheless a more menacing
danger among the Victorian colonists than it is at home.[6]
[5] _Zeitschrift f�r die gesamte Strafrechtswissenschaft_ ix.
472, sg.
[6] See _Statistical Register for Victoria_, Part viii.
Is England an exception to the rest of the world with respect to
crime? Many people are of opinion that it is, and the idea is at
present diligently fostered on the platform and in the press that we
have at last found out the secret of dealing successfully with the
criminal population. As far as I can ascertain, this belief is based
upon the statement that the daily average of persons in prison is
constantly going down. Inasmuch, as there was a daily average of over
20,000 persons in prison in 1878, and a daily average of about 15,000
in 1888, many people immediately jump at the conclusion that crime is
diminishing. But the daily average is no criterion whatever of the
rise and fall of crime. Calculated on the principle of daily average,
twelve men sentenced to prison for one month each, will not figure so
largely in criminal statistics as one man sentenced to a term of
eighteen months. The daily average, in other words, depends upon the
length of sentence prisoners receive, and not upon the number of
persons committed to prison, or upon the number of crimes committed
during the year. Let us look then at the number of persons committed
to Local Prisons, and we shall be in a position to judge if crime is
decreasing in England or not. We shall go back twenty years and take
the quinquennial totals as they are recorded in the judicial
statistics:--
Total of the 5 years, 1868 to 1872, 774,667.
Total of the 5 years, 1873 to 1877, 866,041.
Total of the 5 years, 1884 to 1888, 898,486.
If statistics are to be allowed any weight at all, these figures
incontestably mean that the total volume of crime is on the increase
in England as well as everywhere else. It is fallacious to suppose
that the authorities here are gaining the mastery over the delinquent
population. Such a supposition is at once refuted by the statistics
which have just been tabulated, and these are the only statistics
which can be implicitly relied upon for testing the position of the
country with regard to crime.
Seeing, then, that the total amount of crime is regularly growing,
how is the decrease in the daily average of persons in prison to be
accounted for?
This decrease may be accounted for in two ways. It may be shown that
although the number of people committed to prison is on the increase,
the nature of the offences for which these people are convicted is not
so grave. Or, in the second place, it may be shown that, although the
crimes committed now are equally serious with those committed twenty
years ago, the magistrates and judges are adopting a more lenient line
of action, and are inflicting shorter sentences after a conviction.
Let us for a moment consider the proposition that crime is not so
grave now as it was twenty years ago. In order to arrive at a fairly
accurate conclusion on this matter, we have only to look at the number
of offences of a serious nature reported to the police. Comparing the
number of cases of murder, attempts to murder, manslaughter, shooting
at, stabbing and wounding, and adding to these offences the crimes of
burglary, housebreaking, robbery, and arson--comparing all these cases
reported to the police for the five years 1870-1874, with offences of
a like character reported in the five years 1884-1888, we find that
the proportion of grave offences to the population was, in many cases,
as great in the latter period as in the former.[7] This shows clearly
that crime, while it is increasing in extent, is not materially
decreasing in seriousness; and the chief reason the prison population
exhibits a smaller daily average is to be found in the fact that
judges are now pronouncing shorter sentences than was the custom
twenty years ago. We are not left in the dark upon this point; the
judges themselves frequently inform the public that they have taken to
shortening the terms of imprisonment. The extent to which sentences
have been shortened within the last twenty years can easily be
ascertained by comparing the committals to prison and the daily
average of the quinquenniad 1868-72 with the committals and the daily
average of the quinquenniad 1884-88. A comparison between these two
periods shows that the length of imprisonment has decreased twenty-six
per cent. In other words, whereas a man used to receive a sentence of
twelve months' imprisonment, he now receives a sentence of nine
months; and whereas he used to get a sentence of one month, he now
gets twenty-one days. If it he a serious offence, or if the criminal
be a habitual offender, he now receives eighteen months' imprisonment,
whereas he used to receive five years' penal servitude. As far as most
judges and stipendiary magistrates are concerned, sentences of
imprisonment have decreased in recent years more than twenty-six per
cent.; and if there was a corresponding movement on the part of
Chairmen of Quarter Sessions, the average decrease in the length of
sentences would amount to fifty per cent. But it is a notorious fact
that amateur judges are, with few exceptions, more inclined to
pronounce heavy sentences than professional men.
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