Читать книгу The New York Tombs Inside and Out!. Scenes and Reminiscences Coming Down to the Present. A Story Stranger Than Fiction, with an Historic Account of America's Most Famous Prison онлайн

56 страница из 82

At the present time the main object of a criminal court is to find out if a defendant is guilty or innocent. If guilty, the sentence of the Court is measured by the character of the crime and not by the conditions that led to it. Before the wrongdoer can be reformed our criminal laws must be readjusted to the conditions of the times. Many of those who come into our courts for sentence, if not hardened criminals themselves, are the offspring of criminal parents or are mentally defective, weak-minded or insane, epileptics or otherwise diseased.

Crime gnaws at the life of the nation, destroys its vitality and wastes its wealth. We can stand changes of government or changes of policy, hard times, prosperity and adversity, but no nation can long survive the awful demoralization of crime.

But what an anomalous life the criminal lives! After having many chances and opportunities placed in his way to live right, he refuses the good and chooses the evil. He will not reform nor do better. He has become a misanthrope; he hates himself and everybody else.