Mr. Darrow, I have been sent to get an interview with you
on the subject of crime.
Yes, that's a pretty big subject.
What branch of the industry are you particularly interested in?
Well, what do you think
are the real cause for crime?
Well, most people think there is no cause for crime
except the pure cussedness
of the ones they call criminals.
But as a matter of fact, there's a cause for everything in this world.
And there's no way to remove the evil
without removing the cause.
There's a cause for all sorts of human conduct, just exactly as there's a cause
for all the physical action of the universe.
The real cause of crime is poverty,
ignorance,
hard luck.
And generally youth
these almost invariably
combine to produce what we call a crime.
When we look at the prisoners
and the jails,
we find that all of them practically are poor,
at least 9 /10.
And these have always been poor,
at least 9/10 began
what they call a criminal career
as mere children.
11, 12, 13.
At a time of life
when the ways of life are fixed,
9/10 of them also are ignorant.
They've never had the training
that every intelligent parent would think was necessary
to keep their child out of prison
and make him safe in the community.
All of these things
almost universal.
They combine
to put people in jail.
The story of the so-called criminal is simple.
He generally comes from a poor home.
Orphan, half orphan,
or parents who can do nothing for him.
He’s generally
less intelligent
than those who have a better chance.
Either had no chance to go to school
or else he did not care to go to school.
And our schools are not fitted
to give anyone a training
unless it's the old line of training
which only fits one for profession,
most of them
that finally get their place in jail
have no taste for books.
But they could take manual training.
They could prepare themselves for trades or occupations.
And the man on a trade or an occupation is
seldom found in prison.
And too hard time produce crime.
Boys and men will steal
when times are hard, who never would steal
if they had a chance to make a living in some other way.
What we need is a patient,
humane understanding of the problem
and their
treatment, such as physicians would give to the ill.
And if that was done, we could get rid of crime.
But we never can get rid of it by cruel
punishment and rendering boys
hopeless and helpless.
And the only the only thing in life
the commission of another crime.
Mr. Darrow, in your opinion,
what is the reason for the increase of crime in this country?
I don't know whether there's an increase
of crime or not.
That's a question
which cannot well be answered.
We do know
that there is an increase in the population of our prisons
and a very decided one.
The policy of America seems to me to build bigger
and better prisons just the same as bigger and better factories.
This increase
in the population of prisons has come about
by the intense, cruel,
unthinking hatred
that has attended every effort
to deal with the question of crime.
It’s resulted in a great increase of laws
and a lengthening of terms in prison.
Crime doesn't depend
entirely on what people do.
It depends. Likewise, on laws.
For instance, one quarter
of all the people in our federal prisons
are there for selling liquor,
which is not and should not be really a crime.
Then the fierce hatred
that has been generated against
the inmates of prisons
have made judges give longer terms
and juries find more men guilty
and have put in the penitentiary more people
entirely innocent of the act than ever before.
It has likewise
made the pardon boards give up their function
and made governors
afraid to release men in prison
until a prisoner today
can see written over the doors of the prison what Dante
saw over the gates of hell, ‘All hope abandon
ye who enter here.’
This is peculiar, America.
The way we do everything in this land,
in the last ten years, England
has closed and abandoned
one quarter of all its prisons.
It will abandon another quarter before another ten years
goes by.
England
does not grow panicky
because something happened.
It has coolness, intelligence,
and understanding.
We often hear
about the law not being enforced
and enforced in America as it is in England,
and yet we hang at least
five times as many people
as England does in proportion to our population.
And theirs.
Nearly one half of everybody
who receives a death sentence at the hands of a jury in England
is either paroled
or have their sentence reduced by the
other officials of the land.
Well, no Governor,
and few pardoning board
dares to reduce the sentence
in the United States today.
Sometime, perhaps we’ll
learn where all this cruelty is leading
the bombs law.
Is another agent in populating prisons.
This infamous, unscientific law
has been copied by many states.
This law provides that after three convictions
under the fourth
one cannot be pardoned or paroled.
It's of no value, of course, to pardon people who come right back to prison.
But the fact that one's been convicted three times
may simply show he had three poor lawyers
or three cases of hard luck.
Generally beginning with youth.
And when there's one conviction against a man it’s easy to get a second,
and almost sure a third, whether he's innocent or guilty,
sometime we may understand it.
And let us hope we will at least catch up with England.
And perhaps surpasses
an understanding of these problems which are vital to the life of the state.