of the most efficient curbs upon
the criminally disposed will consist in increasing the probability of
punishment.

[33] Cf. _Tarde Philosophie Penale_, p. 467.

In proportion as the probability of being punished is augmented, the
severity of punishment can be safely diminished. This is one of the
paramount advantages to be derived from a highly efficient police
system. The barbarity of punishments in the Middle Ages is always
attributed by historians to the barbarous ideas of those rude times.
But this is only partially true; one important consideration is
overlooked. In the Middle Ages it was extremely difficult to catch the
criminal; in fact, it is only within the present century that an
organised system for effecting the capture of criminals has come into
existence. The result of the nebulous police system of past times was
that very few offenders were brought to justice at all, and society,
in order to prevent lawlessness from completely getting the upper
hand, was obliged to make a terrible example of all offenders coming
within its grasp. As soon, however, as it became less difficult to
arrest and convict lawless persons, the old severities of the criminal
code immediately began to fall into abeyance. Sentences were
shortened, punishments were mitigated, the death penalty was abolished
for almost all crimes except murder. But even now, the moment society
sees any form of crime showing a tendency to evade the vigilance of
the law, a cry is immediately raised for sterner measures of
repression against the perpetrators of that particular form of crime.
The Flogging Bill recently passed by Parliament is a case in point.
These instances afford a fairly accurate insight into the action of
society with regard to the punishment of crime. It punishes severely
when the criminal is seldom caught; it punishes more lightly when he
is often caught; and its punishments will become more mitigated still,
as soon as the probability of capture is made more complete. A
comparatively light sentence is in most cases a very effective
deterrent, when it is made almost a certainty, and all alterations in
the future in criminal administration should be in the direction of
making punishment more certain rather than more severe. Such efforts
are sure to be rewarded by a decrease in the amount of crime.

CHAPTER VII.

THE CRIMINAL IN BODY AND MIND.

Has the criminal any bodily and mental characteristics which
differentiate