be released until by understanding or education, or age, or the proper form of treatment, it is fairly evident that he will not offend again.  When the time comes, if it is the day of his incarceration, he should be released.  The smallest reflection ought to teach that for many crimes, especially for many property crimes, it is hopeless to release a prisoner in an environment where he cannot survive.  An environment adjusted to his heredity must be found by the state.

All indignities should be taken away from prison life.  Instead the prisoner should be taught that his act was the necessary result of cause and effect and that, given his heredity and environment, he could have done no other way.  He should by teaching and experience be shown where he made his mistakes, and he should be given an environment where he can live consistently with the good of those around him.

Various reforms have been urged in the treatment of criminals and in criminal procedure in the courts.  Most of these impress me as possessing no fundamental value.  It is often said that the accused should be given an immediate trial; that this and subsequent proceedings should not be hindered by delay; that the uncertainties of punishment furnish the criminal with the hope of escape and therefore do not give the community the benefit of the terror that comes with the certainty of punishment that could prevent crime.  I can see no basis in logic or experience for this suggestion.  It is based on the theory that punishment is not only a deterrent to crime, but the main deterrent.  It comes from the idea that the criminal is distinct from the rest of mankind, that vengeance should be sure and speedy and that then crime would be prevented.  If this were true and the only consideration to prevent crime, then the old torture chamber and the ancient prison with all its hopelessness and horror should be restored.  Logic, humanity and experience would protest against this.  If there is to be any permanent improvement in man and any better social order, it must come mainly from the education and humanizing of man.  I am quite certain that the more the question of crime and its treatment is studied the less faith men have in punishment.

England and Continental Europe are often pointed to as examples of sure and speedy justice.  The fact that there are more convictions and fewer acquittals in England in proportion to the number of trials does not prove that the English system is better than ours.  It may and probably does mean that ours is better.  Here the accused has more chance.  There the expense, the formality, the power of the court all conspire to destroy every opportunity of escape, regardless of innocence or guilt.  Even the fact that there are fewer crimes committed in England does not prove that the system is best or that it prevents crime.  An old country with its life of caste lacks the freedom and equality that naturally produce defiance of rules