Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/736

 720 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

It was anticipated that the more rigorous treatment of debtors in prison, which was one of the results of the Prison Act of 1898, would lead to a smaller number of debtors coming to prison. This expectation, however, has not been fulfilled ; the number of debtors has increased.

In two directions English prison authorities are proceeding on rational lines. They are devoting their attention to the professional or habitual criminal, on the one side, and to the juvenile offender, on the other. The detention of habitual offenders for long periods on the basis of their known character, rather than of their last illegal act, is the only rational way of dealing with them. In spite of the many industrial schools in England, it is still a matter of surprise to note tfie large number of boys who are committed to prison for trivial offenses ; during the last ten years 192,279 juvenile offenders under twenty-one years of age have been committed to prisons where mature criminals are confined. The grati- fying fact of the increasing number of offenders upon whom sentence is sus- pended under the First Offender's Act and under the Summary Jurisdiction Act could be made still more encouraging by the introduction of a system of probation officers, and of juvenile courts. SAMUEL L. BARROWS, in International Journal of Ethics, January, 1904. E. B. W.