Fortunately there are those in America who have already sensed the danger. Another lesson for us in our relationship with Russia should be not less apparent. If we isolate her, blockade her and refuse to have anything to do with her people, there will be mutual and growing misunderstanding. On the other hand, if we encourage the exchange of goods, send in our technical experts, provide food relief and educational help, we shall break down suspicion and misinformation and help to make the American and Russian people more tolerant of each other and consequently a little more likeminded.

The Future. It is impossible to predict the future course of the Russian revolution because it rests on a number of variables. How far the Bolsheviks will progress will depend to some extent on how actively they push education, insure justice, and permit the play of individual initiative. Will they, for instance, allow the wills of individuals and minorities who differ from them to function constructively? Their attitude in a period of civil war and foreign intervention is hardly a fair test. America's own experience with free speech during the war was not in accord with our democratic tradition.

Certain definite things about the Russian revolution, however, are predictable. In the first place, the Bolsheviks cannot permanently remain in power if they build up a wall between themselves and the mass of the people. To some extent they have done this already. If the Communist Party becomes in its turn separated from the peasants and unresponsive to them, it can only remain in power by means of an adequate machine of governmental pressure. If, however, the Bolsheviks are willing to change their theories to meet the demands of the population and the needs of the situation, they may retain the government for a period of years. The bulk of the population has so long been forced to submit to the strong pressure of a Tsar's autocracy that they are far more docile than almost any other race in Europe. These three years of rule have already demonstrated that the Bolsheviks can easily build up and maintain a strong circumstantial pressure against revolution. If, in addition, the Bolsheviks can keep open the lines of intercommunication, interstimulation and response between the Com

munist Party and the masses of the people, regardless of whether they rule in a more or less autocratic and dictatorial fashion, they may have a chance to remain in power, for in that case the majority of the people would not be so far removed but that each could mutually understand the other. There will be a certain amount of likemindedness existing between the rulers and the ruled. If this be true, it may be that the future in Russia for a long time to come will be one of slow evolution rather than dangerous and damaging revolution.

JEROME DAVIS

DARTMOUTH COLLEGE

SOME LEADING PHASES OF THE EVOLUTION

OF MODERN PENOLOGY

I. THE DEVELOPMENT OF PENOLOGY IN RECENT TIMES AS A PHASE OF GENERAL SOCIAL AND

INTELLECTUAL HISTORY

T is probably apparent to all thoughtful students of the

IT

progress of penology in modern times that its advance.

has been a product of the general growth of scientific knowledge concerning the individual and his social relationships. If it has shown a tendency to lag behind certain other phases of general intellectual progress, this has been because it is connected very closely with both ethical and metaphysical assumptions and legal concepts and processes which inevitably retard the free and natural progress of thought and procedure. A few examples of this intimate dependence of penological development upon the progress of thought and science in modern times will be sufficient to illustrate this introductory consideration.

Modern biology, for example, has made clear the characteristic animal traits which man has inherited from his ancestors and has opened the way for an understanding of the difficulties inherent in attempting to keep this primitive equipment controlled by modern laws and institutions. It has called attention to the frequent occurrence of organic defects in the criminal personality, which are an important cause of his criminal behavior, and which may, through ill-controlled heredity, lead to a transmission of these menacing defects to a multitude of descendants. It has also made plain the necessity of incarcerating the prisoner under healthful conditions, if any effective effort at reformation is to be hoped for.

Equally significant has been the growth of scientific knowledge in the field of psychology. This has utterly destroyed

'Eighth Annual Stuckenberg Lecture at Pennsylvania College, February 14, 1922.

the old notion of the criminal as a "perverse free moral agent," and has led to the analysis of the nature and significance of “criminal behavior.” It has pointed out the psychopathic trends and characteristics in the disposition or mental constitution of the typical criminal. It has, at the same time, destroyed forever the belief that the criminal class is a uniform type, and it has made clear the necessity of differentiation in the study and treatment of the offenders against the law. It has proved to the satisfaction of all scientifically minded persons the utter hopelessness of attempting to reform a certain very considerable group of low-grade psychopathic criminals, and has demonstrated the necessity of a permanent detention and segregation of this type in the interest of social protection. But it has also made it equally apparent that the majority of the remaining element in the criminal class can be restored as safe members of society when they are subjected to proper educational and therapeutic treatment, according to the principles of modern psychiatry. More than this, it has aided the courts in providing a more scientific technique for detecting and convicting the criminal. The work of Hans Gross and Hugo Munsterberg is sufficiently well-known to illustrate this field of psychological activity in its relation to criminology and criminal jurisprudence.

Nor have the natural sciences and the psychological sciences been alone in advancing penological concepts and methods. Sociology has shown that a criminal act is relative in the matter of its concrete form-what constitutes a heinous act in one society being an act of supreme virtue or real heroism in another. But it has shown that in all societies a criminal act has at least one uniform implication and significance, namely, that it is anti-social. This leads to the sociological theory of punishment and reformation. Punishment is regarded as the penalty exacted by the group for the violation of the rules prescribed for individual conduct within its limits. The basis for punishment must be social defense, and this may be achieved by securing the life-long segregation of the permanently unfit and degenerate and by the reformation of the reformable ele

Finally, the sociologist insists that reformation must

253 consist in preparing the convicted person for a normal type of socialized existence, and realizes that this can only be brought about by a system of social education during the period of incarceration and conditional release, and will only be obstructed by placing the individual in an environment widely different from that which exists in the daily life of the citizen. He realizes that any such procedure as solitary confinement or vindictive discipline will invariably result not in reformation, but in further deterioration of an already imperfectly developed personality. These are only a few of the more conspicuous aspects of the contribution of some of the phases of modern science to a more rational attitude towards crime and the treatment of the criminal.

II. CHANGIng ConceptS AND ATTITUDES RESPECTING

CRIME AND THE CRIMINAL

This is not the place to attempt an historical survey, however brief, of the evolution of present-day notions with respect to crime and the criminal, but it may be helpful to summarize the chief transformations in the attitude of society towards crime and the criminal class, as the logical introduction to the history of penal institutions and methods in modern times. In primitive society such acts as now fall under the head of criminal conduct were rather sharply divided into two general classes. Public crimes, or those which were punished by the group, consisted of such infractions of the mores as were believed to threaten the safety or prosperity of the whole group, such as violation of taboos, treason and sacrilege. These only were a matter of concern to the whole society and punished by its public agents. Private crimes, or those which involved injury or wrong to an individual, such as murder, assault or theft, were settled by the relatives of the interested parties according to the method of blood-feud. This extremely temporary, expensive and imperfect method of settling disputes and wrongs was soon superseded by the duel, or trial by battle, the ordeal, compurgation and compensation, all supervised by the elders or leaders of the group. In this way even the private crimes gradually came to be regarded as matters of common concern