CRIME: ITS CAUSE AND TREATMENT by Clarence Darrow

Crime: Its Cause And Treatment brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters whose lives are ruined by a catastrophe with which at least they had nothing to do. If a doctor were called in to treat a case of typhoid fever, he would probably find out where the patient got his milk supply and his drinking water, and would have the well cleaned out to stop the spread of typhoid fever through infection. A lawyer called to treat the same kind of a case, legally speaking, would give the patient thirty days in jail, thinking that this treatment would effect a cure. If at the end of ten days the patient were cured, he would nevertheless be kept in prison until his time was out. If at the end of thirty days the disease was more infectious than ever, the patient would be discharged and sent upon his way to spread contagion in his path.

The transgression of organised society in the treatment of crime would not be so great if students and scientists had not long since found the cause of crime. It would be hard to name a single man among all the men of Europe and America who have given their time and thought to the solution of this problem, who has not come to the conclusion that crime has a natural origin, and that the criminal for the most part is the victim of heredity and environment. These students have pointed the way for the treatment of the disease, and yet organised government, that spends its millions on prosecutions, reformatories, jails, penitentiaries, and the like, has scarcely raised its hand or spent a dollar to remove the cause of a disease that brings misery and despair to millions and threatens the destruction of all social organisation. To the teaching of the student and the recommendations of the humane the mob answers back: “Give us more victims, bigger jails, stronger prisons, more scaffolds!”

Not only has the constant multiplication of penal laws helped without avail to fill jails, but the failure to repeal laws that are outgrown does its part. As already stated, there are many anti-social and annoying things that can be done without violating the law.

This, no doubt, is responsible for some of the general statutes, like that aimed at the confidence game that catches a victim when the crime is not clearly defined, as in “robbery,” “burglary,” “larceny,” and the like. Still, it has been the general opinion of those who have studied crime and influenced the passage of penal laws that criminal statutes should be clear and explicit, so that all would know what 76