Page:A hundred years hence - the expectations of an optimist (IA hundredyearshenc00russrich).pdf/246

 In applying statistics to an examination of the question whether and to what extent improvements in the general standard of education have in the past diminished crime, and consequently how far crime is likely to be still further diminished in the future, we must be careful to keep in sight two considerations—first, that an increased vigilance and elaboration on the part of authority may easily make it appear that crime has failed to diminish under educational influences, when it is only the detection and punishment of crime that have been rendered more perfect; and second, that if one kind of education have not had all the salutary effects expected of it, it does not follow that a different kind will not have all this expected efficacy and more. Manifestly, legislation against crimes formerly outside the reach of the law—that creation of "new offences" which one hears rather foolishly objected to—will increase statistics of crime, if we compute crime in terms of prison-admissions; and the fact that such increase, due entirely to legislation, has taken place concurrently with some other reform, such as the improvement of education, obviously does not entitle us to connect the increase with the reform. The latter may even be operating in exactly the opposite manner, despite the statistics. A number of new offences were created, for instance, by what is called in England the Criminal Law