CHAPTER XVII

POLICE STATISTICS AND PENOLOGY

Attention has already been directed to the excessive zeal of the opponents of the "New Police"; but no mention has been made of those enthusiasts who looked for an instant millennium to follow upon the adoption of the measures they advocated. Yet there were many such who formed extravagant hopes too high for realization. It is seldom easy for the observer to arrive at a just estimate of the value of a new institution until his standpoint is far enough removed from the stress of the moment to secure him from the current partisanship which every novelty arouses. We, however, who have crossed the threshold of the twentieth century, can disregard the extreme views of both parties, and heedless of the outpourings of admirers and detractors alike, can gauge the issue by the light of ascertained results, supported by facts and figures. Judged by this standard, and viewed from the standpoint of to-day, the police reforms inaugurated between 1829 and 1856 will be found to justify all reasonably conceived expectations, disappointing as they no doubt appeared to over-sanguine extremists at the time.

Since the ideal standard of excellence aimed at by every properly constituted police force is the complete prevention of crime, and as there can be no record of offences prevented, it is obviously impossible to arrive at an entirely satisfactory conclusion as to the efficiency of police by means of any arithmetical process. At the same time it will be allowed that if, whilst population increases, recorded offences are a stationary, or better still if they are a diminishing quantity, there is at least strong presumptive evidence that the result is largely due to the efficiency of the established police. Unfortunately there is no infallible method of discovering the amount of criminality existing in the country at any given time; but, of all available statistics, the best for our purpose are certainly those, which give the annual total of commitments for indictable offences from 1834 until the present day. Before 1834 the records are not altogether trustworthy; but the Parliamentary Committee which sat in 1828, stated that in the ten years between 1811 and 1821, during which the average increase of population was about nineteen per cent., the average increase of commitments for the same period was no less than forty-eight per cent. There can therefore be no doubt that prior to the establishment of the new police the increase of crime was outstripping the increase of population; but taking only those figures which are generally acknowledged to be correct, we get the following interesting table.

+---------------+-------------+--------------+-------------------+ | Census Years. | Population. | Number of | Proportion. | | | | Commitments. | | |---------------+-------------+--------------+-------------------| | 1841 | 15,914,148 | 27,760 | 174·6 per 100,000 | | 1851 | 17,927,609 | 27,960 | 156·2 " " | | 1861 | 20,066,224 | 18,326 | 91·3 " " | | 1871 | 22,712,266 | 16,269 | 71·6 " " | | 1881 | 25,974,239 | 14,704 | 56·6 " " | | 1891 | 29,002,525 | 11,605 | 40·0 " " | +---------------+-------------+--------------+-------------------+

Such is the remarkable result obtained by taking the whole number of indictable offences sent for trial at Assizes and Quarter Sessions in each Census-year since 1834, nor is there any reason to suppose that the process of amelioration has slackened to any appreciable extent during the last decade. When the Census returns for 1901 are published it will probably be found that the population of England and Wales now totals to about thirty-two millions; and assuming that the amount of crime committed during the current year is not abnormal, the number of commitments will work out at a little more than thirty for every hundred thousand inhabitants. That is to say, during the last sixty years, serious offences have decreased nearly sixty per cent. in actual volume, and some eighty per cent. if considered relatively to population--or in other words, between two-thirds and five-sixths of the type of crime, which sixty years ago brought men to trial, is now prevented. These figures, of course, deal with detected crime only: if it were possible to include all grave offences, irrespective of whether their authors were discovered or not, the results would be even more striking, because owing to the increased activity on the part of the police, and to the greater readiness to prosecute on the part of the public, comparatively few serious crimes now remain mysteries for any length of time. Calculations based on the number of offences disposed of by Courts of Summary Jurisdiction are valueless if the object in view is to estimate the prevalence of crime, because not only are new minor offences continually being created (thus rendering such returns too intricate for purposes of ready comparison) but the inclusion of trivial breaches of the Licensing Acts, Education Acts, Vaccination Acts &c. reduces the plane of the enquiry from one which deals only with crimes to one which is mainly concerned with misdemeanours.

If we confine our attention, therefore, to the Commitment Returns, the most noteworthy feature which strikes us, is the drop between 1851 and 1861--the decade in which the Obligatory Act gave the _coup-de-grâce_ to the parochial system, and for the first time covered the whole of England and Wales with a network of stipendiary police. At first sight it would appear that here was cause and effect, that is, that the signal improvement indicated by these statistics was primarily due to the Act of 1856; it is more likely, however, that the result must, in the main, be placed to the credit of the police reforms of the previous decade, for reasons which will presently appear.

In view of these eminently satisfactory figures, it may well be asked how it came about that those persons, who most firmly believed that security was only to be attained through police instrumentality, were so grievously disappointed at the imaginary failure of their pet scheme. In order to find the answer to this question it will be necessary to probe a little deeper into the statistics, and to do so by the light of contemporary events. In the first place it is to be remarked that a closer inspection of the Commitment Returns reveals the fact that a reaction took place between 1860 and 1863, the figures for those years reading as follows:

1860 15,999 1861 18,326 1862 20,001 1863 20,818

This result was due, no doubt, to the combined effects of two distinct causes, one of which produced an actual growth of crime, whilst the other accounted for what was but an apparent increase of delinquency. If it is true that crime was more common than before, it is no less true that offences were more commonly detected, the apparent increase being the necessary result of the efficient action of the newly organized Constabularies, which, naturally enough, did not take full effect until the whole machine was in proper working order. Before preventive police can develop its maximum deterrent energy, it has to prove its title to respect by its success in the detection of crime; criminals do not search the Statutes at Large, nor judge of the efficiency of a policeman from government statistics.[223] They take him as they find him, and learn to fear him only after they have acquired a practical familiarity with his activity, either by personal contact, or vicariously, through the misfortunes of acquaintances. The significance of the heavy Calendars in the early sixties, therefore, is largely discounted by the fact, that the accumulations of former years had to be dispersed, before entire responsibility for the amount of crime prevailing could be laid at the door of the new régime. With regard to the second reason for the despondency above referred to, it must be remembered that offences against property so outnumber other offences, that they entirely dominate all criminal statistics; whilst the public alarm occasioned by a single case of robbery involving personal injury to an individual, is infinitely greater than that caused by a whole series of depredations on property if unaccompanied by violence. In the quinquennial period (1857-1861), the number of persons for trial at Assizes and Quarter Sessions, charged with murder, attempted murder, manslaughter, felonious wounding, malicious wounding and assault, amounted to 1451; whilst in the next quinquennial period (1862-1867), the number of commitments for these offences had risen to 1712; and herein lay the _raison d'etre_ for the widespread alarm which, in 1862 and 1863 especially, may be said to have amounted to panic. Not only were such crimes more frequent than had formerly been the case, but they began to be marked by a degree of violence[224] which argued that a peculiarly desperate class of criminal was abroad; and such indeed was the actual state of affairs, occasioned by the temporary breakdown of the penal system and consequent upon the discontinuance of the practice of shipping the most dangerous criminals across the seas.

Before the abolition of transportation, the career of the criminal was generally brief unless he confined his attention to petty depredations, or unless he was particularly skilful in avoiding capture; a felon once caught was given little chance of repeating his offence. If he escaped the gallows he was as a rule removed from the scene of his temptations, never to return; and the labours of the police were far less arduous as long as distant colonies were content to absorb the dregs of our population, and as long as the press-gang claimed a large proportion of our vagabonds and neer-do-weels. Impressment, however, practically ceased in 1835; and Australasia soon grew weary of the refuse which we were yearly depositing on her shores. Between 1840 and 1845 as many as seventeen thousand convicts were sent to Van Diemen's Land alone, and in one year more than four thousand felons were transported to Australia: the result was that the supply exceeded the demand, and the colonists, though not blind to the advantages of a moderate supply of free labour, began to protest warmly against the wholesale importation of such eminently undesirable neighbours. A large public meeting was held at Sydney in 1850, at which it was unanimously decided to petition Her Majesty to procure the immediate discontinuance of transportation; the British Government at once consented, and after 1852 no more convicts were sent to New South Wales, Tasmania, or South Australia.[225] Morally bound, as it was, to comply with the request of the Colonists, the government found itself impaled on the horns of a dilemma: about nine thousand persons actually under sentence of transportation lay awaiting disposal in the Hulks, and the number was steadily increasing. It was impossible to set them at liberty; there was no room in the English prisons; and there was nowhere to send them to except Western Australia, which, though still willing to annually receive a certain proportion, was unable to digest such an accumulation. The demoralization which infected the ordinary gaols was as nothing compared to that which pervaded the Hulks,--filthy derelict vessels crowded with unclean and abandoned mortals who were allowed absolutely free intercourse with each other, and who were subjected to no supervision beyond that exercised by a sentry or two with loaded muskets.

In this emergency extra prison accommodation was hurriedly provided. Portsmouth prison was opened in 1852; Dartmoor (originally designed for the detention of French prisoners-of-war, but long disused) was converted into a convict establishment in 1855, and a new prison at Chatham was made ready in the year following. In this way the immediate necessity was partially relieved; but for the complete solution of the difficulty, a radical reform of the whole penal system had to be devised. Convicts who had been sentenced to transportation could not in common fairness be detained in English prisons for the whole period of their sentences, and there was no law which authorized any remission. Prisoners felt that they had a grievance, and mutinous outbreaks occurred at Dartmoor, Portland and Chatham.[226] Under these circumstances a "Penal Servitude Act"[227] was introduced, which provided that henceforward penal servitude was to be substituted for transportation as the punishment for all offences too serious to be met by simple imprisonment, yet not of sufficient enormity to deserve a sentence of fourteen years; at the same time it was notified that those persons, then in confinement, who had been condemned to transportation were to be released with a free pardon after the expiration of from half to two-thirds of their original sentence. In 1857 another act was passed, authorizing the Secretary of State conditionally to discharge convicts undergoing penal servitude in England, before they had served their full term. This system, popularly known as the Ticket-of-leave system, was sound in theory, and whenever properly administered has proved both beneficial to prisoners and harmless to society. But when first inaugurated it produced the most disastrous consequences. Under present conditions a convict can only earn remission by good behaviour and constant industry, generally leaving the prison a better man than when he entered it, even if he is not entirely reformed; whilst under the old conditions, incarceration corrupted the novice in crime, and still further hardened the habitual offender. The last hulk was closed in 1857, and a few years afterwards the effect of the unavoidable policy of turning loose unreformed gaol-birds was fully experienced, and the sequel made apparent in the criminal statistics of the period.

According to the intention of its authors, adequate police supervision over those who had been conditionally liberated on license was an essential feature of the Ticket-of leave system, but this was not the interpretation adopted by the Home Office, for on behalf of that Department, evidence was given before the Select Committee of 1856 to the effect that "it was thought far better to give no directions whatever to the police on the subject, but to leave them (_i.e._ the license-holders) precisely in the situation of men who had served out the whole period of their sentence." On every ticket-of-leave issued, the following conditions were endorsed:--"Notice--(1)--The power of revoking or altering the license of a convict will most certainly be exercised in case of his misconduct. (2)--If, therefore, he wishes to retain the privilege, which by his good behaviour under penal discipline he has obtained, he must prove by his subsequent conduct that he is really worthy of Her Majesty's clemency. (3)--To produce a forfeiture of the license, it is by no means necessary that the holder should be convicted of any new offence. If he associates with notoriously bad characters, leads an idle or dissolute life, or has no visible means of obtaining an honest livelihood, &c.--it will be assumed that he is about to relapse into crime, and he will be at once apprehended, and recommitted to prison under his original sentence."

These conditions, admirable in themselves, were not enforced and so were practically useless. Ticket-of-leave men almost invariably destroyed their licenses (which they were not compelled to keep), and if apprehended for a fresh offence, or on suspicion, stoutly denied that they had previously been convicted; nor was it easy for the authorities to prove the contrary in the absence of any proper system for the registration of convicts. The helplessness of the police in the matter may be measured by the fact that constables were instructed on no account to interfere with ticket-of-leave men, "nor when seen in public houses are they to be pointed out to the landlord, and required to leave, as in other cases of convicted thieves and suspected characters." It was of course only just that convicts released on license should not have their comings and goings continually dogged by constables; but to elevate them into a privileged class, and to place them on a higher plane than "suspected characters" who had never been convicted, was, in the words of Sir Richard Mayne, "to give them opportunities to commit crime which they might not otherwise have." The police were not to blame for this state of things, for they only carried out the instructions of the Home Office, which, again, did not feel justified in interfering with liberated convicts unless authorized to do so by Act of Parliament. To shew how entirely the police authorities dissociated themselves from any responsibility for the supervision of licensees, it may be mentioned that, in his evidence before the Select Committee of 1856, the Chief Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis made the following confession. "It may appear strange for me to say so, but until a few months ago I never saw a ticket-of-leave, and did not know what was endorsed upon it:--it was no business of mine."[228]

Fortunately this state of affairs was not allowed to continue indefinitely. Various reforms, extending over a series of years, were successively taken in hand with the object of making penal servitude reformatory as well as retributive, of ensuring that convicts released on ticket-of-leave should remain under police supervision until the expiration of their sentences, of arresting the criminal career of juvenile law-breakers by means of reformatories and industrial schools; and of protecting society, as far as possible, from the repeated ravages of incorrigible offenders, by instituting a system for the thorough identification and registration of criminals. The history of these reforms must be briefly sketched.

Of all the abuses which used to disgrace our penal establishments, the most disastrous in its results, was the promiscuous herding together of male with female, adult with juvenile, habitual with casual offenders, under conditions calculated to lower the tone of the whole prison community to the level of the most degraded inmate. The evils inseparable from unchecked association of felons in confinement were recognised even in the eighteenth century; and Bentham, Howard, and other reformers persistently urged the adoption of the "separate" system for all English prisons. Ultimately the Government was induced to make the experiment, and in 1821 Millbank Penitentiary was opened for the reception of prisoners. A long delay followed, and not until 1840 was the first stone of the next model prison laid at Pentonville. Both Millbank and Pentonville were constructed on the "radiating" principle which admits of the constant exercise of perfect supervision over all the prisoners, who are, however, confined in separate compartments. The expense of the new establishments, as well as a popular prejudice against solitary confinement due to its too rigorous enforcement in Pennsylvania, retarded progress, and although a few gaols of a modern type were here and there constructed, the large majority of those convicts who were not transported, were allowed to corrupt each other in the old-fashioned local prisons. This policy of inaction continued until 1865, when the "Prison Act" was passed, which requires that every male prisoner shall be accommodated with a separate cell, and which insists on uniformity of treatment for all persons (except first-class misdemeanants and debtors) undergoing a sentence of two years' imprisonment or less.

We have already seen how the gradual discontinuance of transportation (1838-1867) and the abolition of the hulks (1857) caused "Public Works Prisons" to be established at Dartmoor, Chatham, etc. At these places, (where prisoners undergoing penal servitude are incarcerated) the plan of silent associated labour by day, with separate confinement by night, was adopted; and although no relaxation of discipline was allowed, the reform of the criminal, rather than his punishment, was aimed at. Under the modern system the convict spends the first nine months of his penal servitude at Pentonville, or in some other local prison, and during this period is kept to solitary hard labour of an irksome and unproductive description; he is then moved to one or other of the "Public Works Prisons," where his life at once becomes less monotonous. As long as his conduct merits advancement, he is passed through various stages, each more tolerable than the last; most of his work is now done in the open air and in the company of his fellows; and hope lightens his labour, for by constant industry and by an exact observance of the prison rules, he is allowed to earn a partial remission of his sentence, amounting to about a quarter[229] of the whole term. Our penal system may not yet be perfect; but during the late reign prison life underwent a marvellous metamorphosis. Pest-houses have been transformed into sanatoriums where the patients have to submit to a healthy discipline beneficial to the mind as well as to the body; formerly gaol-fever, dirt, and bad food ruined the constitution, whilst evil communications corrupted the mind; now convicts leave their prison physically robust and often morally convalescent. This amelioration of the conditions to which prisoners are subjected has been accompanied, _pari passu_, by a steady decrease in the number of convicts in confinement. When Queen Victoria came to the throne, 43,000[230] of her subjects were convicts, at the present time they number less than 6000,[231] and this in spite of the fact that during the interval the population of these islands has just about doubled itself.

Whilst the reform of the adult and hardened convict is of very high import, the welfare of society is even more profoundly influenced by the result of its efforts directed towards the prevention of crime in the first instance; and the value of prevention (which by common consent is at all times higher than that of the best possible cure) may be said to bear an inverse ratio to the age of the individuals who are saved from committing themselves to a career of crime. The surest method of permanently reducing the number of criminals lies in the comprehensive employment of agencies especially devoted to the prevention of juvenile delinquency. Anti-social habits formed in childhood are in after years only eradicated with the greatest difficulty, the criminal child too often being the father of the criminal man. During the latter half of the eighteenth, and early in the nineteenth century, the manufacture of juvenile criminals went on apace. Bow Street Runners on the look-out for blood-money were careful not to interfere with a promising youngster until he had actually committed a felony; parish constables would not trouble to pursue a culprit upon whose conviction only half expenses were allowed; and the reluctance of the general public to prosecute was especially pronounced when the offender was of tender years. Meanwhile scoundrels of the Fagin type, trading on the impunity enjoyed by child-thieves, grew rich on the plunder collected by their pupils, who, sooner or later, received the finishing touches to their criminal education in the public gaols at the public expense. The extent of the evils which resulted are incalculable; but competent experts were of opinion that nearly sixty per cent. of habitual offenders had been initiated into their dishonest career before they were fifteen years of age.[232]

Private philanthropy interested itself on behalf of the children long before the Government made any move in the matter. In the eighteenth century a Marine Society for sending lads to sea, and an agricultural school for teaching farming, had been formed at Portsmouth and Redhill respectively, with the object of befriending boys who otherwise were in danger of lapsing into crime; but for many years these were the only agencies of the sort. The Ragged School movement, so warmly espoused by Lord Shaftesbury, took practical shape soon after the Queen's accession, in schools in Westminster, at Old Pye Street, and at Field Lane. The first industrial feeding-school was opened at Aberdeen in 1841; and it proved so successful that the idea was taken up throughout Scotland. Before long Manchester and other English towns followed the example set by the granite city. Excellent as were many of the schools established by private benevolence, they all laboured under two very formidable disadvantages:--they could not compel unwilling parents to send their children to be reformed, or to contribute anything towards their maintenance, and they could not legally detain their pupils any longer than they cared to stay.

The first public institution for the detention of juvenile criminals was opened at Parkhurst in 1838. Though called a reformatory, it was in effect a gaol, and hardly differed at all from other prisons except with regard to the age of its inmates. The exertions of Lord Shaftesbury and of Mr Adderley (Lord Norton) who strove to convince the nation of the fatal consequences of its apathy, were soon to be rewarded. A Select Committee of the House of Lords which sat in 1847, was followed by the Juvenile Offenders Act of the same year; in 1851 and following years conferences, largely attended by people interested in the reformatory question, were held at Birmingham, with the object of discovering some better method of dealing with youthful criminals than that in vogue, and the whole subject was investigated at some length by Parliamentary Committees appointed in 1853 and 1854. The result of these deliberations took shape in the latter year when the "Reformatory School Act"[233] was passed, giving magistrates the option of committing offenders under sixteen years of age to reformatories, for a term not exceeding five years, in lieu of sentencing them to imprisonment, penal servitude, or transportation. The expense of the new reformatories was met, partly by Treasury contributions, partly by grants from the local authorities, and partly by compulsory subscriptions of not more than five shillings a week exacted from the parents or guardians of the offending children. The Act of 1854 was amended and improved by subsequent Acts passed in 1855 and 1856, but these early enactments[234] were open to the objection that they only applied to juveniles who had already been convicted of a serious offence, and left untouched a large class of children which, for one cause or another, always stands on the brink of criminality;--for no juvenile was eligible for admission into a reformatory unless he had previously been committed to prison for fourteen days.

This omission was repaired by the "Certified Industrial School Act" passed in 1857,[235] and amended in 1861,[236] which provided that certain young persons, who had not been in gaol, might be sent to industrial schools under a magistrate's warrant, to be detained therein until they should attain the age of sixteen. The class of children to whom this Act applied were described as follows:--"Any child apparently under the age of fourteen years, found begging or receiving alms ... any child ... found wandering, and not having any home or settled place of abode, or any visible means of subsistence ... or being an orphan, or whose only surviving parent is in prison ... or who frequents the company of reputed thieves ... or whose mother has twice been convicted of crime ... or whose parents represent that they are unable to control him, ... or any child apparently under the age of twelve years who, having committed an offence punishable by imprisonment or some less punishment, ought nevertheless, in the opinion of the Justices, regard being had to his age, and to the circumstances of the case, to be sent to an Industrial School, &c."

In 1854 only twenty-nine children were sent to reformatories. Since that date, the numbers so committed gradually increased until 1881, in which year the maximum (6738) was reached. The decrease which has recently taken place may be chiefly attributed to the fact that magistrates now generally prefer the industrial to the reformatory school whenever possible, a method of dealing with youthful offenders the wisdom of which has been vindicated by an accompanying diminution in the tale of juvenile crime.

The essential differences between Reformatories and Industrial Schools are, that no stigma attaches to any boy on account of his having been educated at the latter, and that whilst the discipline enforced at the former institutions is sufficiently severe for them to be considered as places of punishment, Industrial Schools are intended only to take the place of that parental control and training which the child cannot obtain at home. The principle of giving another chance to unfortunates who are rather sinned against than sinning lies at the root of the Industrial School movement; and there is no development of preventive police more in sympathy with the wisdom of the age than this. In recent years the same principle has, with excellent effect, been extended to embrace adult as well as juvenile offenders. The Summary Jurisdiction Act of 1879[237] (_i.e._ so much of it as permits the infliction of a fine instead of imprisonment) and the Probation of First Offenders Act of 1887,[238] are both, it may be noted, conceived in the same wise and merciful spirit. The latter measure especially, which was introduced by Sir Howard Vincent, has been instrumental in reclaiming to an honest life hundreds of prisoners "guilty of a first offence not the product of a criminal mind."[239] The latest Home Office returns go to prove that, in the large majority of instances in which this humane policy has been applied, confidence has not been misplaced; for of the whole number of first offenders conditionally released upon recognizances,[240] to come up for judgment when called upon, only about ten per cent. have shown themselves unworthy of the leniency extended to them by relapsing into crime.

The tendency of recent penal legislation has been to discriminate as closely as possible between the casual and the habitual offender, reducing to the lowest limit, consistent with safety, the penalties exacted against the former, whilst placing every legitimate obstruction in the path of the latter, by making his punishments cumulative as long as he continues to offend, and by maintaining a vigilant supervision over his conduct whilst he is at large. This is one of the most important duties that modern police have to perform, and it is one which demands great tact combined with persistence from individual peace officers, as well as complete co-operation between all the allied police organizations throughout the country. Under the parochial system both these necessary qualifications were conspicuously absent, and if transportation had suddenly come to an end before the police reforms described in previous chapters had been taken in hand, the unchecked excesses of habitual criminals might have endangered the very foundations of English society.

It will be remembered that when the ticket-of-leave system was first introduced, considerable alarm was occasioned on account of the increase of crime; which, not altogether without reason, was generally attributed to the license-holders, who, unreformed by penal discipline, and consequently unfitted for unqualified liberty, were suddenly released in large numbers, without any adequate precautions being taken to control them. We have seen how the reorganization of the entire prison system gradually eliminated the causes which tended to make the ex-prisoner even more dangerous to society on the day of his discharge than he had been before conviction, and we have seen how by the introduction of an improved plan of giving marks for industry (which, however, were subject to forfeiture for ill-conduct), only those convicts were released before the expiration of their full sentence who had earned partial remission by virtue of consistent good behaviour. We now come to a consideration of the measures subsequently adopted for the proper supervision of these ticket-of-leave men.

The conditions endorsed on every license have already been given, but as the police were expressly ordered to take no notice of liberated convicts, unless they were actually engaged in criminal pursuits, but little practical value attached to the wording of the ticket. In 1864 some important changes were introduced by the 4th Section of the Penal Servitude Act of that year, which requires that:--

I.--The holder shall preserve his license, and produce it when called upon to do so by a Magistrate or police officer.

II.--He shall abstain from any violation of the law.

III.--He shall not habitually associate with notoriously bad characters, such as reputed thieves and prostitutes.

IV.--He shall not lead an idle and dissolute life, nor be without visible means of obtaining an honest livelihood.[241]

The penalties for the non-observance of these requirements were as follows--(_a_) Any ticket-of-leave man, convicted of an indictable offence, _ipso-facto_ forfeited his license, and this in addition to any punishment to which he might be sentenced upon indictment; (_b_) Any ticket-of-leave man proved to have transgressed the conditions of his license by an act not of itself punishable either upon indictment or upon summary conviction, nevertheless rendered himself liable to be summarily punished by imprisonment not exceeding three months. In 1871 the "Prevention of Crimes Act,"[242] amending "The Habitual Criminals Act" of 1869, extended the principle of keeping notoriously bad characters under observation, by enacting that persons twice convicted of certain crimes may be subjected to police supervision for not more than seven years after the expiration of the sentence imposed, provided that a previous conviction for an offence in the same category is proved at the time of the second conviction. Such persons are commonly called 'supervisees,' and they come under the same conditions as license-holders. These conditions have since been modified by Acts of Parliament passed in 1869 and 1891, and they may now be summarized as follows. Both ticket-of-leave men and supervisees are required to report themselves within forty-eight hours after their arrival in any police district to the Chief-Officer of Police in that district, to report themselves once a month afterwards,[243] and to notify any change of address to the same authority; they are also expected to satisfy the police that they are earning their living by honest means.

A constable is justified in arresting without warrant any license-holder or supervisee whom he reasonably suspects of having committed an offence, or of having failed to comply with the above-mentioned conditions; and if it be found, after investigation by a competent magistrate, that such an offence has been committed or default made, the license-holder thereupon becomes liable to the forfeiture of his license, and the supervisee to imprisonment with or without hard labour for a period not exceeding one year, unless he can prove to the satisfaction of the proper authority "that being on a journey he tarried no longer ... than was reasonably necessary, or that he did his best to act in conformity with the law."[244]

In order that police supervision may be safe and effectual, it is of course necessary that the identification of habitual criminals should be certain and the registration of convicts complete. The present system would have been fraught with the gravest dangers to public liberty had it been attempted at the time when there was no possibility of any more reliable record than that founded upon the memories of policemen and prison-warders; but since the introduction of photography, and especially since the recent adoption of the system of anthropometry which is associated with the names of M. Alphonse Bertillon and Mr Francis Galton, the chance of any miscarriage of justice, due to mistakes in identification, has been reduced to a minimum. Photography was first adapted to police purposes in 1854, when the governor of Bristol Gaol began to make daguerreotype pictures of the prisoners who passed through his hands; and gradually what was at first but the experimental hobby of an amateur developed into the officially recognised system. The "Prevention of Crimes" Act (1871) had directed that registers of all persons convicted of crime in England should be kept at Scotland Yard, but it was soon found by experience that a less voluminous record would be of greater practical value. Accordingly it was decided in 1877 that, in future, the registers (the compilation of which was at this time transferred from Scotland Yard to the Home Office) should contain only the descriptions of habitual criminals, officially so called. In 1880 a new department was opened at the Head-Quarters of the Metropolitan Police, called the Convict Supervision Office, which was largely occupied with the classification of offenders by means of books containing the photographs of habituals. These albums, together with a register of distinctive marks, including a record of tattooed symbols and initials so universal amongst criminals, formed a regular rogues' gallery, and were instrumental in proving the identity of many inveterate delinquents who might otherwise have improperly participated in the leniency intended only for first offenders.

Some of the more energetic police forces in the provinces, also, prepared local registers; and something like a general scheme for tracing the antecedents of criminals was evolved by means of circular "Route Forms" (as descriptions of offenders whose identity was uncertain were technically called) which were forwarded in rotation from one police district to another, wherever the required information was likely to be forthcoming. The results obtained, however, hardly justified the expenditure of time and energy incurred in the process; accordingly in 1893 a Parliamentary Committee was appointed "to enquire into the best means available for identifying habitual criminals," and it was on the recommendation of this expert committee that the perfect anthropometric system of identification now employed was based.

Very briefly stated, the system is as follows. All persons convicted of crime against whom a previous criminal conviction has been proved, or who are subject to police supervision, are carefully measured before they are liberated, and the results tabulated on what are called card-registers. The parts of the body selected for measurement are those which in an adult are the least liable to alteration; the length and breadth of the head, and the length of the foot, for instance, being reliable indicia by means of which thousands of individuals may readily be classified.

Whilst M. Bertillon's system of anthropometry is especially well adapted for purposes of classification, Mr Galton's finger-print method is preferable for purposes of identification. The minute lines which may be noticed on the skin covering the under side of the top joint of the human finger or thumb invariably display a well defined series of curved ridges, which, though never quite alike in different subjects, always approximate to one of four types, that is to say, they assume the form of an arch, a whorl, a right loop, or a left loop. The sum of the combinations which can be formed of these types and their modifications on the ten digits being a practically inexhaustible quantity, every human being carries on his finger-tips an infallible record of his personal identity. Accordingly the criminal is required to make signature by pressing with his thumb, fore, and middle fingers of both hands (previously smeared with printer's ink) on the reverse side of the card-register; whilst to make assurance trebly sure, the exact location and measurement of any distinctive marks that may be found are noted, and his photograph, both full-face and in profile, is added. When completed, the card-registers are filed in cabinets on an ingenious plan which enables the searcher to lay his hand on any particular "dossier" in the space of a very few minutes.[245]

The immense importance of having a comprehensive and accessible record of this nature can hardly be over-rated, for without its help it would be impossible to combat (with any chance of success) what is unquestionably the most dangerous development of contemporary criminality. It has recently been pointed out by Dr Anderson, of the Criminal Investigation Department, that despite the marked decrease of crime which we congratulate ourselves has been one of the most noteworthy features of the Victorian era, "the professional criminal is developing and becoming a serious public danger."[246] Since the abolition of transportation the company of criminals who are criminal by deliberate choice has been steadily increasing, and every mitigation of the penal code, every alleviation of prison existence, has helped to bring recruits to the profession. Frequent sentences of imprisonment will never deter the delinquent who is well acquainted with the inside of a gaol, as long as he can count on brief spells of exciting and luxurious liberty between whiles; moreover the tax on the police is excessive, for the habitual criminal may be trapped again and again, only to be released time after time to devise new and more elaborate attacks on a long-suffering society.[247]

A way will have to be discovered to eliminate this unexpected product of our penal system, and to this end various suggestions have been made. Some advocate life sentences for persistent offenders; others would make the restitution of the plunder, or at any rate a confession implicating the receiver of the stolen property, the only condition of release in cases of theft; but although authorities differ as to the exact course which ought to be pursued, all agree that the character of the criminal rather than the enormity of his offence should chiefly determine the question of the punishment administered. Whatever may be the nature of the plan of campaign eventually decided upon for the suppression of professional delinquency, the preliminary stage of the operations is necessarily the same, and consists in the preparation of a record containing an accurate and concise account of the antecedents and previous convictions of all habitual criminals.

There was a time when "abjuration of the realm" was considered a complete expiation for crime however heinous; but as the outer world became more civilised, and foreign parts more accessible, voluntary expatriation ceased to be the recognised alternative to punishment. The first result of the introduction of railways in this country (as far as the relation of crime to police is concerned) was to benefit the fraternity of thieves whose trade is essentially one that thrives best under nomadic conditions; subsequently, with the development of modern conveniences for travel, the police were again placed at a disadvantage, this time by the facility with which criminals, who are generally able to obtain at least a few hours' start, could find a safe refuge from their pursuers in some haven oversea--the modern equivalent for the mediæval sanctuary. There has ever been, and always will be, a ding-dong contest between the lawbreaker and the policeman, wherein the fortunes of the day favour first one side and then the other; for if the advantage that attaches to the opening gambit belongs to the criminal, his adversary is soon ready with an answer. The telegraph[248] beats the steamship, and the international system of police which now mutually provides for the surrender of fugitive offenders has restored the balance. The first extradition treaty in which Great Britain was interested was concluded with the United States of America in 1842, and the Extradition Acts of 1870 and 1873 now regulate the conduct of the English Government in its dealings with foreign powers in all that concerns this important department of police.[249]

In 1879, a reform long agitated for was inaugurated by the tardy appointment of a Public Prosecutor, who became responsible that the cause of justice is not injured through the non-prosecution of persons guilty of serious offences. The intervention of the Director of Public Prosecutions is seldom deemed necessary, but circumstances occasionally arise in which lack of funds, local sympathy with the criminal, or an attempt to compound a felony, may demand his active interference.[250] The "Prosecution of Offences Act"[251] directs that Chief Officers of Police shall notify to the Director, that is to say to the Solicitor for the Treasury, such particulars of certain specified crimes committed within their districts as are described in the regulations[252] issued for the guidance of all concerned.