Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 75.djvu/403

Rh Moreover, a large number of offenders are now sent to the juvenile reformatories who were heretofore included in the jail and penitentiary population, the number in 1890 being 14,846, while in 1904 they had grown to 32,034, an increase of 55 per cent.

These both represent decided movements in advance in the penological systems of the land, approaching more nearly a rational process in the line of treatment and certainly more in accord with the best thought in tentative methods. At least it has this advantage over the old process in that it may cure while the latter is sure to solidify irrevocably into criminal characterization.

A curious study in the variation of the criminal psychological wave that sweeps over the land, is afforded in tracing the rise and fall of the various grades of offences throughout the different geographical divisions of the United States. A wide divergence in the ratio of the same offences is thus presented with apparently slight differentiation in the social, climatic or economic conditions as manifestly operating causes.

Commencing with grand larceny, which may be considered as a representative type of crime as standing for attack upon property, and we have a wide divergence in the criminal barometer. That form of offence constitutes about 16.8 per cent, of the general bulk of offences in the United States. It finds its lowest manifestation at 12.4 per cent, in the North Atlantic Division, reaching its highest point at 27.1 per cent, in the South Central, and its medium at 15.9 per cent, in the extreme Western Division. In the report of ten years previous it found its maximum in the Western at 61.7 per cent., and its minimum (as at present) in the North Atlantic Division at 24 per cent.

Assault, which may stand for the primitive (atavistic) form of crime in attack upon the person, and we have the lowest in the North Atlantic (5.5 per cent.), and its highest in the South Atlantic at 14.9 per cent. Burglary seems to be the least frequent in the North Atlantic (3.0 per cent.) and most rife in the South Central, where it reaches 11 per cent.

Robbery, the more aggressive form of mixed offenses, contrary to general acceptation, is least rife in the Western Division (1.2 per cent.), and most prevalent in the South Central (18 per cent.), otherwise maintaining a remarkable uniformity throughout the other geographical divisions. In the report of the previous census it reached its climax (13.6 per cent.) in the Western Division. The same may be said of forgery and rape, the latter reaching its apogee in the South Central Division (1.0 per cent.), as against a lesser showing (.05 and.03 per cent., respectively), in the other divisions.

Homicide, the atavistic element in the criminal test, runs its en