resent a great danger to
society must be deprived of their liberty for as long a time as they are
dangerous to the mass. Their liberty should be as a general rule,
conditional."

Archibald Hopkins, Esq., has been recently quoted by Gault as
follows:--"The Head of Scotland Yard, in London, said not long ago that
nine-tenths of the serious crimes there were committed by men who had
served one or more terms of imprisonment and who might be regarded as
belonging permanently to the criminal class. His judgment was that if
they could be eliminated from such a situation, violation of the law
would be diminished to less than a third of what it has been. Why cannot
this be done? Let the Courts be clothed with power, after two or more
offenses, in its discretion, to pronounce a man incorrigible, who shall
be sentenced for life, to whom no pardon shall issue. By an arrangement
between the general government and the states, a colony could be
established, say in the Island of Guam, where escape would be
impossible, and where, under military guard, convicts could be made to
earn their own living. Surely society has the right to protect itself
from these incorrigibles, who are released only to prey on it again.
They also are the class who rapidly produce their kind, and at present
society puts no obstacle in the way.

"It is exactly as if, instead of forming colonies to which all
lepers are compelled to go and remain, we permitted them, after a brief
term in the hospital, to go where they please and to marry and produce
more lepers. The incorrigible criminal is worse than the leper because
he deliberately and purposely defies society and spreads his contagion.
It can hardly be questioned that the permanent segregation of the
professional criminal class would very greatly diminish crime, nor can
it be questioned that society has the right to adopt such a measure of
protection, nor that it would not be entirely practicable." (See Journal
of American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, April, 1912,
pp. 821 f.)

The only argument, and a very weighty one it is, which can be raised
against the foregoing proposition, is whether the incorrigible criminal
is sufficiently characterized by such unmistakable features as would
enable us to recognize him when we see him, and thus justify his
permanent isolation from the community. I believe he is, and the cases
here reported are fair representatives of that class. Another problem
which p