THE PROBLEM OF CRIME

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Oct 5, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 39.

THE PROBLEM OF CRIME.

WITH the rising tide of criminality in Chicago and other large cities of the world, those whose duty it is to apprehend criminals and prevent their work are anxiously considering what can be done. The remedies of the law and the prison are becoming less and less adequate for the work expected of them. The flood of evil continues to rise, and officers of the law are at their wit’s end—those who are desirous of doing their duty—to devise some plan to check the increase. They do not expect to be able to stop crime. It is the steady increase of it that is causing the worry and apprehension.

William Pinkerton, chief of detectives, while discussing Chicago’s increasing criminality, declared that imprisonment had no terrors for the ordinary criminals. He said: “The Chicago thug has no fear of hanging or being shot, but he has a terror of work or publicity. The whipping-post or pillory; hard work on the street in the sight of everybody—this is the only cure for foot-pads, burglars, thieves and criminals.” He further states that the most dangerous and reckless element of the criminals is spreading rapidly, and that the helpless condition in which Chicago finds herself will soon find a reflection in other cities. He holds that the best remedy lies in the old fashioned whipping-post. Mr. Pinkerton thinks that while criminals will take the risk of being imprisoned or shot at, few would risk a chance of being whipped in the presence of others, or being locked in a pillory where they may be jeered at. And yet, were the pillory and whipping-post as common now as in years past, the criminal element would soon grow to look upon it as they now do upon the punishments which they risk in committing their offenses against law and order. The trouble is in a general, gradual deterioration in the moral fiber of the race, which can not be checked by any manner of punishment that man can devise. We return to the lash, the pillory, and the chain-gang, but we can not, by that means, cure the disease that is working in the vitals of the unregenerate soul.