390 HUMAN BIOLOGY 



through attention to all the comphcating factors of causa- 

 tion which will have to be met, even in individual cases. 

 Science, up to the present, has been concerned mostly with 

 theorizing about criminals and the causations of criminality, 

 and almost nowhere has entered into the effort for control 

 of the crime situation. 



It is true that in the Germanic countries and in Italy 

 the training for jurists to administer the criminal law has 

 included acquaintance with what of science has been 

 developed under the head of criminology, and this is a 

 step in advance of anything that goes on in this country. 

 Here, even in most law schools there is no training in 

 criminology. Elected, or in a few places appointed, to 

 positions where they have to deal with delinquents or 

 criminals, we have judges who are, almost all of them, 

 totally unacquainted with the principles of any science 

 that makes for the understartding of human nature. I 

 have never even heard of a conference of jurists and scientists 

 in this country on the important subject of how best to 

 deal with criminals. Regularly in Germany, judges, psycholo- 

 gists, and psychiatrists gathered for such conferences 

 which were found to be most valuable. Nowadays we should 

 also include sociologists. 



The only time when any science of human nature comes 

 in close contact with the bench in regard to criminal affairs 

 is when the question of mental disease that bears upon 

 responsibility is to the front. With the introduction of 

 alienists in criminal cases, testifying from an ex parte stand- 

 point, a not inconsiderable and very understandable distrust 

 of mental science on the part of the legal profession has 

 grown up. Yet when specific attempts have been made to 

 better the situation, the legal profession has often stood in 

 the way, as in the celebrated Leopold-Loeb case. In this 

 instance, the psychiatrists who studied at great length 

 the young offenders and the causes of their terrible deed 

 were willing to put every bit of information, including their 

 knowledge of many other crimes committed by the accused, 

 into the hands of the experts retained by the state. The 

 latter were willing, and indeed made a st;rong effort to go 

 on with the case on the basis of such a consultation, one of 



