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 handled by officers who may do the best they can, but who by training and experience and for lack of time and facilities are not fitted for their important positions. I say this in spite of the fact that my experience has taught me that policemen, as a rule, are kindly and human. From the police station the offender is lodged in jail. Here is huddled together a great mass of human wreckage, a large part of it being the product of imperfect heredities acted upon by impossible environments. However short the time he stays, and however wide his experience, the first offender learns things he never knew before, and takes another degree in the life that an evil destiny has prepared for him. In the jail he is fed much like the animals in the zoo. In many prisons the jailer is making what money he can by the amount he can save on each prisoner he feeds above the rate the law allows of twenty-five or fifty cents a day. In a short time the prisoner's misery and grief turn to bitterness and hate; hatred of jailer, of officers, of society, of existing things, of the fate that overshadows his life. There is only one thing that offers him opportunity and that is a life of crime. He is indicted and prosecuted. The prosecuting attorney is equipped with money and provided with ample detectives and assistants to make it impossible for the prisoner to escape. Everyone believes him guilty from the time of his arrest. The black marks of his life have been recorded at schools, in police stations and examining courts. The good marks are not there and would not be competent evidence if they were. Theoretically the State's Attorney is as much bound to protect him as to prosecute him, but the State's Attorney has the psychology that leads to a belief of guilt, and when he forms that belief his duty follows, which is to land the victim in prison. It is not only his duty to land him in jail, but the office of the State's Attorney is usually a stepping-stone to something else, and he must make a record and be talked about. The public is interested only in sending bad folks to jail.