SOME OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 43 



for the restoration of the criminal, certain it is 

 that the average man is controlled largely by 

 his brain centers. If these are normal and prop- 

 erly trained his will may be said to be free to 

 determine his conduct ; but if these are abnormal, 

 either through heredity or otherwise, he cannot 

 justly be considered a free moral agent. All 

 criminologists consider the habitual criminal as 

 psychologically abnormal, and therefore only 

 partly responsible. Dr. Thompson said: "Ha- 

 bitual criminals are without moral sense. Out 

 of five hundred murderers that I have known, 

 only three of them ever expressed any remorse." 

 The number of criminals who are wholly, or 



even largely, irresponsible form but a very small- 



i 1 cc j rv ti Few Criminals 



per cent of our legal offenders. Occasionally are Blameless. 



there is one whose thirst for blood or mania for 

 wrongdoing is so strong that he is positively in- 

 capable of self restraint, yet, such a one is rare. 

 Fully 92 per cent of our convicts according to 

 their own testimony were partly or wholly to 

 blame for their conduct. In the United States 

 there is one criminal for every 560 of the popu- 

 lation. Now, if but 8 per cent of our criminals 

 are wholly irresponsible, and there is but one 

 criminal to every 560 of the population, it fol- 

 lows that there is but one person out of every 

 i, 800 who is wholly irresponsible. Taking this 

 as a basis of reckoning, considering the fact that, 

 most offenders are largely responsible, also that 

 society must be protected from the abnormal man, 

 whether he is entirely responsible, partly so, or 

 wholly irresponsible, it is certainly best and near- 



