nown as criminals.
Their acts are done to serve personal ends. Society may always punish
both, but all men of right ideas will understand that the motive is
different, the equipment and capacity of the men are different, and they
are only in the same class because they each violate the law and are
each responsive to emotions and to feelings that are of sufficient
strength to compel action.

XVI

THE LAW AND THE CRIMINAL

If one were ill with a specific disease and he were sent to a hospital,
every person who touched him, from the time his disease was known until
he was discharged, would use all possible effort to bring him back to
health. Physiology and psychology alike would be used to effect a cure.
Not only would he be given surroundings for regaining health and ample
physical treatment, but he would be helped by appeals in the way of
praise and encouragement, even to the extent of downright falsehood
about his condition, to aid in his recovery.

If such is done of "disease," why not of "crime"? Not only is it clear
that crime is a disease whose root is in heredity and environment, but
it is clear that with most men, at least when young, by improving
environment or adding to knowledge and experience, it is curable. Still
with the unfortunate accused of crimes or misdemeanors, from the moment
the attention of the officers is drawn to him until his final
destruction, everything is done to prevent his recovery and to aggravate
and make fatal his disease.

The young boy of the congested districts, who tries to indulge his
normal impulses for play, is driven from every vacant lot; he is
forbidden normal activity by the police; he has no place of his own; he
grows to regard all officers as his enemies instead of his friends; he
is taken into court, where the most well-meaning judge lectures him
about his duties to his parents and threatens him with the dire evils
that the future holds in store for him, unless he reforms. If he is
released, nothing is done by society to give him a better environment
where he can succeed. He is turned out with his old comrades and into
his old life, and is then supposed by strength of will to overcome these
surroundings, a thing which can be done by no person, however strong he
may be.

For the graver things, the boy or man is taken to the police station.
There he is photographed and his name and family record taken down even
before he has had a hearing or a trial. He is hand