results in most cases from diseased conditions either in the individual or in the community.  Some individuals commit crime merely because it seems to them the easiest way to make a living or to gain some other end; but even such individuals are morally diseased.  Much crime is due to temporary mental disturbance, as from the use of intoxicants or other drugs.  Sometimes it is the act of persons who are actually insane or feeble-minded.  Very often it is committed under pressure of poverty.

In view of these facts, while the deliberate violator of law should doubtless be punished, it is even more important that the causes of crime should be removed, and that the criminal should, in as many cases as possible, be restored to a useful and an honest manner of life.  The proper treatment of dependents and defectives, and the removal of causes of dependency and defectiveness, are essential steps toward the lessening of crime.

THE LOCAL JAIL

The county jail and the town “lock-up” are the usual local institutions where persons suspected of having violated the law are detained while awaiting trial in the courts, and also where those convicted of petty misdemeanors are imprisoned for punishment.  The jail and the “lock-up” are as notorious as the almshouse for unwholesome conditions and mismanagement, though conditions have greatly improved under the influence of an awakened public opinion.  They have often, been unsanitary in the extreme.  Prisoners have often been treated more like cattle than like human beings.  Young and old are thrown together, the hardened criminal with the youthful “first offender,” and with those merely suspected of crime, many of whom will be proved to be innocent.  The result is demoralizing.  Our jails have sometimes been said to be “schools of vice and crime.”

NEEDED REFORM OF THE JAIL

Two reforms, at least, are needed in local jails.  First, they should be made as wholesome as possible, both physically and morally.  They should be perfectly sanitary, and the food should at least be clean and nourishing.  Arrangements should be made to keep the different classes of inmates separate, especially the hardened and vicious criminals from youthful transgressors and suspects.  In the second place, the local jail should be merely a place of detention for those awaiting trial or, after trial, transfer to other institutions.  Those found guilty by the courts should be transferred as quickly as possible to institutions where they may receive treatment fitted to their needs.

FITTING THE TREATMENT TO THE OFFENDER