Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/771

Rh public and not at all in order to "get even," or "square accounts" with the criminal, they should not only be keenly realized by that public, but they should seem to be severer than they really are. Just how severe they should be, depends in the first place on the position of the offense in the scale of crimes. There must be a proper gradation of penalties so that the psychological pressure over the entire series of offenses may be uniform. Consequently penal provisions tend to form a system, wherein each part has necessary relations to every other part.

But the penal system as a whole is limited in severity by the social situation. While pains must be harsh enough to terrorize most of the evil disposed, they must not outrun the approval of society. They must not be so harsh as to forfeit the endorsement of current morality and religion, or to outrage instinctive feelings of fair play or humanity. Excessive rigor will arouse feelings of hatred or revenge which overcome fear.

While it is all-important that a knowledge of punishments leak out and percolate that stratum of society which is to be held in awe by them, it should not be thrust upon the law-abiding, lest the growth of humane sentiments be checked upon the one hand or, on the other, the punishments under the influence of public opinion be made too lax. It is a mark not of degeneracy, but of moral progress when the mass of the people become unable to regard without horror and pity the salutary pains necessary to restrain certain classes. It is likely that the problem of the repressing crime without demoralizing the public, can be solved only by committing the penal system to the hands of official experts watched by non-official specialists. Punishments might be withdrawn from the public gaze, except when necessary to enlist the sympathy of the people in the task of humanizing them.

In order to avoid demoralizing those who inflict them, corporal punishment must proceed in a decorous way without display of wrath or other personal feeling. Sheriffs and wardens must feel themselves to be, and must be looked upon as functionaries, not foes. Hence, developed law insists on procedure