Indeterminate Sentences

In a vast majority of cases the criminal who hag received more than one sentence is beyond the possibllity of reform. It is probable that nearly all crimináis are incurable, at least under the methods of the ordinary penitentiary, says Leslie's Weekly. What the system employed at the Elmira prison may do lt will require a longer time to determine. In any event, the principie of indeterminate sentences, if applied under the direction of a body of enlightened and competent men, would work no hardship along with such a measure of prison reform as the conditions warrajit. If a man is doomed to continued imprisonment, as the chronie insane are, it is his own fault or the fault of his inheritance. Those who have the disposition and the power to reform can open their own doors to freedom. The instances are many where a confirmed criminal has been released at the expiration of his term only to commit a murder. Nearly all such crimináis immediately renew their former associations and habits. With the almost positive knowledge that this will be the case, the court that determines the sentence must be conscious of affording only a brief rtmpite to society from the murderous or felonious assaults of the convicted crimináis. It is doubtful if haif-way measures of reform in this matter are of any value. As long as the change in the law means only the conditional release of exceptional convicts selected by the courts there is not likely to be the same machinery for learning the condition of the convicts that we should have if all sentences were without term. The failure of conditional release, or, if not its absolute faiiure, its ability to show any striking results, is calculated to lessen the chances of the adoption of a complete system based on a scientifle study of the subject. Aceording to one paper read during the exhibition, the penal code of Italy is intended to inflict rigorous imprisonment only on the incurably vicious. This is a reasonable distinction between chronie crimináis and those who may be regarded as reformable and is & first step toward the perpetual seclusion of the incurables. The idea should be less &hocking in the case of the criminal than in the case of the lunatic, unles-s we regard them .both as the unhappy victims of an inlioritance they cannot escape.