6C)Cj CRIMINAL ANTHROPOLOGY. 



■whether he slionld be coiulitioiially liberated or continued in solitary 

 coniinenient. To this end an opporrunity innst be ^iven both by re- 

 straining- his liberty nntil lie shall be in solitary confinenient orexteud- 

 inj? it nntil he shall be conditionally liberated. His actions and the 

 I)sycholoftic effect which tliis has npon him must determine the lutnre 

 course to be pursued with him. In doubtful cases the conditional liber- 

 ation is the most rational, as it is the most humane. It gives the 

 delin»[uent an opportunity to reclaim himself, and gives liim a guaranty 

 that his attempts at reformation will be well seconded. 



(8) After having returned to society those of whom we have nothing 

 more to fear in the way of crimiiml offenses, alter having taken all 

 necessary precautions for those who are to remain under surveillance 

 and i)ossible return, it is necessary to take steps for those individuals 

 who are by nature rebels and refractory, who reject all ordinary means 

 of reformation, who are delinquents by habitude, and are instinctive 

 criminals. For these individuals their detention, even to solitary con- 

 finement, with severe and hard labor, should be kept up ujitil they give 

 proof of their rei)entance. If this is refused then we in France and on 

 the continent can only relegate them to a penal colony in a distant 

 ocean or else to solitary confinenjent in one of our home penitentiaries. 

 The relegation of a recidivist or an incorrigible to a penal colony, soli- 

 tary confinement, or some other form of severe imnishment, or else 

 treating him as sick or insane and sending of him to a prison asylum ; 

 these are the logical corollaries of the propositions for conditional lib- 

 eration. 



The criminal, conditionally liberated, should be required to report 

 for examination whenever needed, and thus the prisoners who are under 

 condemnation of the law Avould become i^hysical subjects for the study 

 of crime in its psychologic as well as anthropologic phases, and the 

 prison become as well an asylum and a hospital, atfording a clinic for 

 the lawyer, for the doctor, the judge, and the lawmaker. 



M. Alimena called the attention of the congress to the fact that this 

 question had been discussed for a long time and in many places by 

 legishitors and jurists, and he referred to the first congress of the Inter- 

 national Union of Criminal Law* held at Brussels, in 1880, where the 

 discussion took ])lace upon the thesis jireseiited by Senator Midland 

 on the law of jiardon. He said three methods had been pro^iosed — the 

 conditional sentence, which was enforced in Belgium ; the suspension of 

 judgment, which wns ])racticed in England, America, and Australia ; 

 and finally that of blame, set forth in the German code, the Russian, 

 Sjianish, Portugese, and in some of the cantons of Switzerland and 

 provinces of Italy, 



M. Drill remarked that the system of conditional liberation required 

 the exercise of two functions — that of thejudgmentof the court passing 

 upon the guilt of the criminal, and the ulterior or subsequent treatment of 

 the criminal, and that these were functions entirely different and ought 



