Habitual offender

“ But once branded with the prison bars and stripes, they seldom find it possible to turn against the tide in which they find themselves: so they become habitual offenders. They are the easiest criminals to detect. ”

“ We have lost the personal interest we ought to have in our [Pg 94] neighbours; we have gone out from among them; we have cast on officials duties we ought to undertake ourselves as citizens, and the result is an increase in the number of offences. In themselves these offences are small matters, but the offenders in many cases find themselves in prison for the first time as a result; and it is the first time that counts. Every time a man is sent to prison for a small offence committed he has been given a push towards the life of a habitual offender ”

“ It is estimated that habitual criminals of both types mentioned constitute from 40 per cent to 50 per cent of our prison population. (3) The single offender. The single offender is a normal person who commits only a single crime through some sudden stress or temptation, but lives ever after a law-abiding life. The two types of the single offender are the criminal by passion and the accidental criminal. The criminal by passion is a moral, and oftentimes a conscientious, person who commits a crime through some sudden stress of passion, under great provocation. ”

“ In the alloting of punishment the age, former social status or mental qualities of the offender are rarely taken into account. There are no excuses, no explanations. Take the gravest crime of all—cowardice. ”

“ An innocent man, charged with a heinous offence, and against whom evidence of guilt has been given, is much more likely to be overwhelmed by his situation, and embarrassed, when called upon for explanation, than the offender, who is hardened in guilt ”

“ The various punishments which are inflicted upon our law breakers are fines, imprisonment, flogging, and death.
Fines produce a very useful means of dealing with persons whose offences show a tendency to crime rather than to actual criminality. In many cases the self-respect of the offender has not been sacrificed, and while under arrest the sense of shame is deeply aroused. ”

“ Punishment by the blow or the immediate sentence will be futile. The offender must know he has trespassed in a realm beyond your administration and rule; he has done more than commit an offense against you. ”

“ Any person who offends against the penal laws of the community in which he lives may be sent to prison; whether he be called an offender or a criminal will depend on consideration of points that are technical. Generally speaking, persons convicted of offences against the person or against property are classed as criminals, while those who have transgressed against public order—as in breaches of the peace, etc.—are classed as offenders. ”

“ The modern tendency is to inflict much lesser punishment upon an offender, to grade the punishment having regard to such matters as the damage done, the past history of the offender, and the prospect of reform. ”

“ I have often spoken of our penal law as wrong in its principle, taking it for granted that the ignorant and miserable men who commit crime do it always from wickedness, and not from the pressure of circumstances which have brutalized the man; wrong in its aim, which is to take vengeance on the offender, and not to do him a good in return for the evil he has done ”

“ Is there any spirit of revenge in the magistrates or officers of justice when they punish criminals? Why do such, ordinarily I mean, concern themselves in inflicting punishments, but because it is their duty? and why may not a private man deliver an offender into the hands of justice, from the same laudable motive? ”

“ Now and then a victim is necessary, and the offence is denounced; but before the offender is put in prison, it is made out to be a mistake on the part of the police-officer, who is excused on the score of excess of zeal. These things continually happen, and the evil is irreparable. ”

“ Am I the keeper of another man's conscience?' No one can hesitate to say that such a man voluntarily aids in the perpetration of the offence, and, morally speaking, is almost, if not quite, as guilty as the principal offender. ”

“ The characterization of felonies, which are defined by certain offense-related elements, as serious crimes regardless of the nature of the offender captures our intuitive sense that a crime is not made less serious by factors extrinsic to it, but only by circumstances surrounding the offense itself. ”

“ XXX. The second way, by which delays in criminal prosecutions afford occasions for delinquents to escape with impunity, is not so palpable, nor so obvious as the first, but in general is more successful, and oftener takes effect. I will explain what I mean. When a notorious crime is newly committed, all minds are sharpened against the offender, and filled with horror at the outrage. Even the most mild call out for punishment, and the injured person, invokes heaven and earth for it. The public in general seem filled with resentment, and breathe nothing but severity. ”

“ Where the words are not in themselves actionable, because the offence imputed involves neither moral turpitude nor subjects the offender to an infamous punishment, special damage must be alleged and proved in order to maintain the action. ”

“ It would be absurd, after an offence has already been committed, to increase the sum of misery in the world, by inflicting pain upon the offender, unless that pain were afterwards to be productive of happiness to society, either by preventing the criminal from repeating his offence, or by deterring others from similar enormities. ”

“ In fact, whereas this right has hitherto been regulated by law only in view of the legal and material gravity of the offence, it should in future be made to depend on the perversity of the offender; for society has a much greater interest in defending itself against the author of a slight offence if he is a born criminal or a criminal lunatic, than in defending itself against the author of a more serious crime, if he is an occasional criminal or a criminal of passion. ”

“ Naturally enough, then, woman, with her delicately balanced nervous organization, is the first and chief offender—if you insist on calling such a person an offender under your antiquated methods of dealing with such cases. ”

“ I say NO—that if there be blood guiltiness let the offender be punished in accordance with our criminal code; if there be none then is he blameless, and to deprive a person of his property because of a harmless act is a crime. ”

“ It also punishes the solicitation or incitement of others to commit crime, as a separate offence if the incitement fails, as the offence of being accessory before the fact or abettor if the offence is committed as a result of the incitement; and it punishes persons who, after a more serious crime—felony—has been committed, do any act to shield the offender from justice. ”

“ Not a warning, not a hint—not a prayer even—addressed to the offender. They have not the sense of justice to see or they have not the courage to denounce the perpetrators of evil, but direct all their efforts to hushing the complaints of the victims. ”

“ And this dictum we find to be, that each individual shall take the evils and benefits of his own conduct—that the offender must suffer, as far as is possible, all pains entailed by his offence; and must not be allowed to visit part of them on the unoffending. Unless the criminal maintains himself, he indirectly commits an additional crime. Instead of repairing the breach he has made in the conditions to complete social life, he widens this breach. ”

“ When a man has resolved upon a particular offense, the next object is, to induce him to do no more mischief than what is necessary for his purpose: therefore
The punishment should be adjusted in such manner to each particular offence, that for every part of the mischief there may be a motive to restrain the offender frown giving birth to it. ”

“ Rather, an offender's background and character unrelated to his crime should be considered by the sentencer because of society's deeply felt view that punishment should reflect both the seriousness of a crime and the nature of the offender. ”

“ For example, a man who chastises the foul slanderer of a young woman's character may have technically committed an assault of high degree, yet if he does so in the proper spirit, in a suitable place, and [Pg 4] makes the offender smart sufficiently, he deserves the thanks and congratulations of all decent men and honest women. Yet, indubitably, he has committed a crime, although, thanks to our still lingering spirit of chivalry, he would never be stamped by any jury as a criminal. ”

“ And such person or persons, so offending, may be tried and convicted without the principal offender being first tried, provided such principal offender has fled from justice, or cannot be found to be put on his trial. ”

“ Such penalties, moreover, owe their efficiency not to the degree of pain or inconvenience that they impose upon the offender, but mainly upon their calling his attention, distinctly, after every offense, to the fact that he has done wrong. Slight as this is, it will prove to be sufficient if it always comes—if no case of disobedience or of willful wrong-doing of any kind is allowed to pass unnoticed, or is not followed by the infliction of the proper penalty. It is in all cases the certainty, and not the severity, of punishment which constitutes its power. ”

“ At present the offence more than the offender determines the sentence; and there is a greater likelihood of a person who has committed a petty offence being put on probation, than there would be if in the eye of the law the offence he had committed were regarded more seriously. ”

“ Wait until you are unexcited yourself, and until the vexation of the offender is also past, and then, when there is danger of a similar offence, forewarn, and point out the evils already done for want of proper care in this respect. ”

“ Every principal in the second degree and every accessory before or after the fact to any such felony as aforesaid, shall be guilty of felony, and punishable as the principal in the first degree ;—And every person who aids, abets, counsels or procures the commission of any such misdemeanor as aforesaid, shall be guilty of a misdemennor and punishable as a principal offender ”

“ There can be no general rule based merely on the name or kind of crime committed which is going to tell us which offender is really the worst. A misdemeanor may be very much more heinous than a felony. The adulterator of drugs or the employer of illegal child labor may well be regarded as vastly more reprehensible than the tramp who steals part of the family wash. So far as that goes there are an [Pg 7] alarming multitude of acts and omissions not forbidden by statute or classed as crimes which are to all intents and purposes fully as criminal as those designated as such by law. ”

“ Among so many chances of escaping, the needy and hardened offender overlooks the multitude that suffer ; he boldly engages in some desperate attempt, to relieve his wants or supply his vices ; and, if unexpectedly the hand of justice overtakes him, he deems himself peculiarly unfortunate, in falling at last a sacrifice to those laws, which long impunity has taught him to contemn. ”

“ It is also a matter of common notoriety and byword that in offenses which result in a large accession of property to the offender he does not ordinarily incur the extreme penalty or the extreme obloquy with which his offenses would be visited on the ground of the naive moral code alone. ”

“ It looks only to the offender himself, and is regardless of his innocent posterity. It really operates, as a posthumous punishment upon them; and compels them to bear, not only the disgrace naturally attendant upon such flagitious crimes; but takes from them the common rights and privileges enjoyed by all other citizens, where they are wholly innocent, and however remote they may be in the lineage from the first offender. ”

“ Does a woman offend? Punish her! Does a man offend? Punish him! Does a group offend? Punish them! ‘What for?’ someone suddenly asks. ‘To make them stop doing it!’ ‘But they have done it.’ ‘To make them not do it again, then.’ ‘But they do it again and worse.’ ‘To prevent other people’s doing it, then.’ But it does not prevent them—the crime keeps on. ”

“ The worse the character or disposition of the offender the more severe should be his punishment. Badness of disposition is constituted either by the strength of the impulses to crime, or by the weakness of the impulses towards law-abiding conduct. One man may be worse than another because of the greater strength and prevalence within him of such anti-social passions as anger, covetousness, or malice; or his badness may lie in a deficiency of those social impulses and instincts which are the springs of right conduct in normally constituted men. ”

“ He knows that he is playing for his life, and plays the game out with his wits about him. Impress, therefore, upon this class of offenders that the crime with which they stand charged is so heinous in the eyes of their fellow-creatures that every effort will be made to bring them to punishment, if their guilt is established, and you at once deprive them of one strong incentive to crime in this particular form—namely, the strong probability of impunity. ”

“ I know how tenaciously one will cling to the outward forms of respectability and of virtue. I know how horribly unscrupulous a criminal at bay, with the chance of setting the dogs of the law on the wrong scent, could be. To relax in my vigilance would be fatal to my innocent client, whose late mistress, the real thief, would forge other proofs of the guilt of the guiltless.
Why did I reason to myself thus? Does not innocence tremble, and lose its self-possession under the remotest suspicion of an offence? ”

“ The degrading influence of prison life and contact with vulgar criminals, or the abuse of alcohol, to which better natures frequently have recourse in order to stifle the pangs of conscience, may cause criminaloids who have committed their initial offences [Pg 111] with repugnance and hesitation, to develop later into habitual criminals,—that is, individuals who regard systematic violation of the law in the light of an ordinary trade or occupation and commit their offences with indifference. ”