PRINCIPLES OF REFORM IN PENAL LAW 259 



hardly felt at all except by habitual criminals, and then mainly 

 in determining them to avoid crimes which are easily detected. 

 Upon offenses of sudden impulse, and upon the whole class of 

 crimes which are first steps in a downward career, the threat of 

 punishment has practically no influence. 



But the avowed purpose of every criminal code is to appor- 

 tion penalties according to the demerit of offenses. If the 

 attempt to do this is a failure the entire system must be re- 

 jected as valueless. Now there is no superstition in the range 

 of human thought more empty and unfounded than the belief 

 that any penal code does or can assign punishments in any 

 fair measure proportioned to the desert of offenses. The most 

 superficial comparison of the codes of different states and 

 coimtries will show, not only that no rational principle controls 

 the actual assignment of penalties, but that no such principle 

 can be found. Wio can measure the comparative merit of 

 offenders by the names of particular acts which have been 

 proved against them? The attempt to do so in legislation 

 results in the most surprising inconsistencies. For example, 

 as maximum penalties, Virginia inflicts six months' imprison- 

 ment for incest, and eight years for bigamy, but Colorado 

 assigns twenty years for incest and two years for bigamy. 

 The guilt of forgery is to that of larceny as four to one in 

 Kansas, and as one to four in Connecticut. The actual aver- 

 age sentence inflicted in Maine for perjury is one year, but in 

 Florida it is ten years. The average sentence for robbeiy in 

 California is one year, in Alabama it is twenty two years. The 

 man who in New York carries ether in his pocket, without 

 proof that his intent is innocent, has precisely the same punish- 

 ment denounced against him by law as the man who is guilty 

 of incest or the man who attempts by poison to kill another; 

 a penalty twice as great as is provided for the forger of stamps, 

 the bigamist, the blackmailer, or the seducer under promise 

 of marriage. These illustrations might be multiplied. There 

 is not a page of any penal code in Christendom which does not 

 suggest difficulties and embarrassments in the adjustment of 

 punishments to crimes which are entirely insuperable. No 

 rational purpose can be served by such a system. It is but the 

 inertia of tradition and habit which preserves it. 



