Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 21.pdf/212

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LENIENCY TOWARD CRIMINALS IF the legal profession should ever resolve to take up the serious study of criminology, the wise administration of the criminal law would be realized much sooner than would be possible were lawyers simply to drift with the tide and make no effort to attain the same standard of progress in this as in other directions. Respect for the law is ingrained in the fibre of the American people, and America should have the most enlight ened system of criminal jurisprudence in the entire world. The American of whose stopping a train in Germany District Attorney Jerome tells is not typical. This traveler wished to alight at a station at which the train did not stop, when he suddenly espied an emer gency brake. Notwithstanding the warning that any one applying the brake except in case of accident would be liable to a fine of fifty marks, he got up and stopped the train. He was promptly turned over to the police and paid his fine, and the Germans around the court house talked for two hours about the extraordinary case of the American who cold-bloodedly broke the law to stop a train. An American under similar circum stances would have been unlikely to stop a train in the United States. Not only does Mr. Jerome underrate the

respect of the American people for the law, but he underrates the ethics of the legal profession when he says that of the 15,000 lawyers in Greater New York, the great majority are much more intent upon getting money than they are upon the means by which they get it. Mr. Jerome has himself called attention to the fact that within the last two months the police reports have shown the entire absence of gambling houses in New York. He has congratulated Judge Malone of General Sessions for his prison sentences in cases where the other judges have been in the habit of imposing fines which virtually amount to a license of gambling houses and pool rooms by indirection. This is practically saying that people will re spect the law if it is enforced. Were all judges to assert the extreme vigor of the criminal law the results might be striking, but it is not to be inferred from their leniency that they are lacking in respect for the laws they administer. Leniency in imposing sen tence, and in giving the convicted man every possible chance through the pro bation system, will in many cases do more to inspire him with proper respect for the law than would an assertion of its majesty with full force. The death penalty and the maximum rigors of punishment we must have in readi ness for use at any proper time, but we must also cultivate the more