TRANSACTIONS OF THE SKCTIONS. 1U5 



its extension : the people emigrate who are willing to work, sanitation asks and 

 supports it, political economy requires it, philanthropy suggests it, the money-market 

 favours it, tlie rate of discoxmt being but 2 per cent. "When capital and money 

 is a drug at 1 per cent., how can we better employ it than in the increased and 

 improved cidtivation of the soil, with the invaluable satisfaction of giving healthy 

 employment to tens of tliousands of the people, and permanently increasing the 

 value of our property both individually and nationally ? 



The Economy of Penalties. 

 By the Eev. John S. Burt, Chaplain of Broadmoor Asylum. 



The problem which economy is called upon to solve, stated in its simplest terras, 

 is either to achieve a given result with the least possible expenditure of force, or 

 with a gi\en amomit of force to achieve the greatest possible result. 



But the problem is seldom presented in a f<3rm so simple; either the greatest 

 attainable residt is not known, or the available force is not determined, while vari- 

 ations in the force used invohe compUcations with other forces, and therefore also 

 complicated residts. Accordingly the problem generally assumes this idterior form : 

 when the cost of the force used is deducted from the value of the result, to deter- 

 mine the point at which the excess of value is greatest. 



This is the form which the problem ultimately assumes in the economy of 

 penalties. 



I. 



The result to he attained at in the use of penalties is by no means determined. 

 _ The general opinion is that penalties ought to be aimed at the complete repres- 

 sion of crime. This opinion was countenanced by Archbishop Whately and by • 

 Mr. Beutham ; but this opinion is inexact and misleading. 



Lawlessness in a popidation is restrained powerfully by other moral forces ante- 

 cedent in their action to penalties. Penalties are a supplemental force ; they are 

 thrown in as " make- weights." 



But the incentives to crime which overpower those other antecedent forces 

 coimteract also the action of this supplemental force. It is a matter of imiversal 

 experience that the complete suppression of crime is impossible. 



]3etween what is effected by those antecedent forces and what camiot be effected 

 by this supplemental force there hes an undetermined amount of preventible crime. 

 The prevention of more or less of this preventible crime is the residt which ought 

 to be aimed at by penalties. 



The amoimt of preventible crime, and the point at which the crime-rate is affected 

 by an increase or a decrease of penalties, is to be found by a study of what may be 

 called C07nparative criminality. There are great fluctuations in the rate of" the 

 commitments to prison among the population generally aiul in different localities. 

 But these fluctuations do not foUow inversely an increase or a decrease in the use 

 of penalties ; on the contrary, for more than half a century the amount of crime in 

 its graver forms, and the severity of pimishments for them, have gone on decreasing 

 concurrently. This is evidence that heretofore penalties have been used in excess 

 of their proper deterring power. 



Of the cost of penalties. 



In an economy of penalties there are three subsidiar}- economies — namely, an 

 economy of pain, an economy of labour, and financial economy. 



In this paper the economy of pain is alone treated of. Until the exact point is 

 found at which the amount of crime varies inversely with the increase or decrease 

 of punishment, the problem is to keep crime at a given level with the least possible 

 expenditure of pain. 



The infliction^ of pain in excess of what is necessary is cruelty. States canni^t 

 lessen the happiness of thousands of the popidation ty severe penalties without 

 incurring heavy costs to the nation. There is a lessening of loyalty, and there is 

 often a revulsion of feeling produced against the Government. There are more 

 than 150,000 commitments to the prisons of England and Wales every year. 



