398 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



THE LAST CENSUS AND ITS BEABING ON CEIME 



By The Rev. AUGUST DRAHMS 



CHAPLAIN OF THE STATE PBISON, SAN QEENTIN, CAL. 



THE latest published report of the criminal census of the United 

 States, recently issued, gives an aggregate prison population of 

 81,772, five hundred and fifty-seven less than a like report for the 

 previous decade ending with the year 1890. 



By states the figures present an equally exceptional showing, un- 

 explainable upon the basis of any known law of criminal variation. 

 Thus, among the foremost states that have shown an actual increase 

 in the number of offenders, we have Kansas, 58.2; West Virginia, 

 50.6; Florida, 40.7, and Washington, 26.6. Twenty of the states, 

 many of them under similar civic, social, climatic and economic con- 

 ditions, register a marked falling off in the number of such def alcants, 

 notably, New York leading with an actual decrease of 1,606; followed 

 ■successively by North Carolina, 848; Illinois, 756; Arkansas, 589; 

 Tennessee, 454; Alabama, 450; Arizona, 359; Missouri, 40, and Cali- 

 fornia, 43 prisoners. 



The above showing as a whole, would seem to indicate upon the 

 surface a healthy diminution in crime within the last ten years, es- 

 pecially when we consider the fact that the general population of the 

 country has increased during the same period 29.84 per cent, and the 

 criminal status had grown steadily during every previous decade, as 

 set forth by those reports successively, that of 1880, for instance, 

 showing an increase of 78.14 per cent, over that of the previous re- 

 port; while that of 1890 gives us 40.47 per cent, over that of 1880. 



The cause assigned for this apparent falling off in crime, however, 

 is set forth in the body of the report as due to the introduction and 

 spread of the probationary system by which the more youthful, and 

 first offenders, are placed under suspended sentences dependent upon 

 good behavior under proper supervisoral care appointed by the court, 

 a wise tentative measure, not without its faults, but infinitely superior 

 to the unconditional detention of this class of offenders at the risk of a 

 still greater immurement in crime at the most impressionable period 

 of their existence. 



As to the actual number thus passing under probationary methods 

 we have no way of knowing save from the records of the courts them- 

 selves, but they must necessarily be considerable and help to swell 

 materially the general criminal record. 



