The object, therefore, of this chapter is chiefly[70] negative, being none other than to raise such mistrust of mere11 custom, and so strong a sense of doubt, by the contradictions apparent in existing laws and theories, that the difficulties of their solution may tempt12 to some investigation13 of the principles on which they rest.
That Penology is still only in its experimental stage as a science, in spite of the progress it has made in recent times, is clear from the changes that are so constantly being made in every department of our penal14 system. We no longer mutilate nor kill our criminals, as our ancestors did in the plenitude of their wisdom; we have ceased to transport them, and our only study now is to teach them useful trades and laborious15 industry. Yet whether we shall better bring them to love labour by compulsory16 idleness or by compulsory work, whether short imprisonment17 or long is the most effective discipline, whether seclusion18 or association is least likely to demoralise them, these and similar questions have their answers in a quicksand of uncertainty19. This only may experience be said to have yet definitely proved, that very little relation exists in any country between the given quantity of crime and the quantity or severity of punishment directed to its prevention. It has taken thousands of years to establish this truth, and even yet it is but partially20 recognised over the world.
It would appear at first sight that there could be[71] little to say about crimes and punishments, so obvious and self-evident seem the relations that exist between them. Many people still believe in an innate21 sense of justice in mankind, sufficient always to prevent wide aberrations22 from equity23. Is it, they might ask, conceivable that men should ever lose sight of the distinction between the punishment of guilt24 and the punishment of innocence25?—that they should ever punish one equally with the other? Yet there is no country in the world which in its past or present history has not involved the relations of a criminal in the punishment inflicted26 on him; and in savage28 countries generally it is still common to satisfy justice with vengeance29 on some blood-relation of a malefactor30 who escapes from the punishment due to his crime.
It would also seem to demand no great insight to perceive that a voluntary intention must be a universal attribute of a criminal action. No one would think of punishing a man who in his sleep killed another, although, if the injury to society be the measure of punishment, his crime is equivalent to intentional31 homicide. Yet at Athens an involuntary murderer was banished32 until he could, give satisfaction to the relatives of the deceased; and in China, though the penal code generally separates intentional from accidental crimes, anyone who kills a near relation by accident or commits certain kinds[72] of arson33 by accident undergoes different degrees of banishment34 and a fixed35 number of bamboo strokes.[40]
Even inanimate objects or animals it has been thought through many ages reasonable to punish. In Athens an axe36 or stone that killed anyone by accident was cast beyond the border; and the English law was only repealed37 in the present reign38 which made a cartwheel, a tree, or a beast, that killed a man, forfeit39 to the State for the benefit of the poor. The Jewish law condemned40 an ox that gored41 anyone to death to be stoned, just as it condemned the human murderer. And in the middle ages pigs, horses, or oxen were not only tried judicially42 like men, with counsel on either side and witnesses, but they were hung on gallows44 like men, for the better deterrence45 of their kind in future.[41]
These customs had doubtless their defenders46, and left the world not without a struggle. It must have cost some one, whosoever first questioned the wisdom of hanging animals or murdering a criminal’s relations, as much ridicule47 as it cost Beccaria to question the efficacy of torture or the right of capital punishment. But the boldness of thought in that unknown reformer was probably lost sight of in the arrogance48 of his[73] profanity, and he doubtless paid with his own neck for his folly49 in defending the pig’s.
It may be said that all such absurdities50 are past; that the Jews, the Athenians, the Chinese, the Europeans of the middle ages can scarcely be cited as reasonable beings; that they had no rational theory of punishment, and that their errors have been long since discarded. But at least their example suggests that even in our own system there may be inconsistencies and blemishes51 which custom and authority hide from our eyes.
Penal laws are the expression of the moral sentiments of mankind, and either are as variable as the other. In Holland it was once a capital offence to kill a stork52, and in England to cut down a man’s cherry-tree. For a Roman lady to drink wine was as heinous53 a sin as adultery, for either of which she incurred54 the extreme sentence of the law. In Athens idleness was for a long time punishable; though to a Spartan56 an Athenian fined for idleness seemed to be punished for keeping up his dignity. In Mexico drunkenness was a graver crime than slander57; for whilst the slanderer58 lost his ears or lips, the drunken man or woman was clubbed or stoned to death.
But if penal laws thus express the wide variability of human morality, they also contribute to make actions moral or immoral59 according to the penalties by which they enforce or prevent them. For not[74] only does whatever is immoral tend to become penal, but anything can be made immoral by being first made penal; and hence indifferent actions often remain immoral long after they have ceased to be actually punishable. Thus the Jews made Sabbath-breaking equally immoral with homicide or adultery, by affixing61 to each of them the same capital penalty; and the former offence, though it no longer forms part of any criminal code, has still as much moral force against it as many an offence directly punishable by the law.
But perhaps the best illustrations of the tendency of actions to retain the infamy62, attached to them by a past condition of fanatical punishments, are the cases of suicide and child-killing. Could a Greek of the classical period, or a cultivated historian like Plutarch reappear on earth, nothing would strike him more vividly63 than the modern conception or recent treatment of these crimes. According to Plutarch, Lycurgus, the great Spartan lawgiver, met his death by voluntary starvation, from the persuasion64 that even the deaths of lawgivers should be of use to mankind, and serve them with an example of virtue65 and greatness; and Seneca held that it was the part of a wise man not to live as long as he could but as long as he ought. With what astonishment66, then, would not Plutarch or Seneca read of recent European punishments for suicide—of Lady Hales[75] losing the estate she was jointly67 possessed68 of with her husband, the Judge, because he drowned himself; of the stake and the cross-roads; of the English law which still regards suicide as murder, and condemns69 one of two men who in a mutual70 attempt at self-destruction survives the other to the punishment of the ordinary murderer! Is it possible, he would ask, that an action which was once regarded as among the noblest a man could perform, has really come to be looked upon with any other feeling than one of pity or a sad respect?
The case of infanticide suggests similar thoughts. When we remember that both Plato and Aristotle commended as a valuable social custom that which we treat as a crime; when we recall the fact that the life of a Spartan infant depended on a committee of elders, who decided71 whether it should live or perish, we shall better appreciate the distance we have travelled, or, as some would say, the progress we have made, if we take up some English daily paper and read of some high-minded English judge sentencing, at least formally, some wretched woman to death, because, in order to save her child from starvation or herself from shame, she has released it from existence. Yet the feeling, of which such a sentence is the expression, is often extolled72 as one of the highest triumphs of civilisation73; and the laws, as if there were no difference between adult and infant[76] life, glory in protecting the weakness of a child by their merciless disregard for the weakness of its mother.
But at least, it will be thought, we have by this time arrived at some principles about punishment which correspond with the eternal truths of equity. Is not Equality, for instance, one of the primary essentials of punishment? Does it not stand as a penal axiom with almost the sanction of a moral law that all men should suffer equally for equal crimes? Yet, if by equality be meant the same punishment, the same kind of labour, the same term of servitude, the same pecuniary74 fine—and this is the only thing it can mean—what more obvious than that the same punishment for rich and poor, for young and old, for strong and weak, for men and women, for educated and uneducated, will bring to the constitution of a penal code the utmost inequality the imagination can conceive? Beccaria insists that the law can do no more than assign the same extrinsic75 punishment to the same crime; that is, the same punishment, regardless of all other external considerations; and he calls for the infliction76 of the same punishment on the nobleman as on the commoner. Let it be so; but the same punishment is no longer an equal one; and hence from this very demand for equality springs the demand for its very opposite, for what Bentham calls the equability of punishment; that is, consideration[77] for the different circumstances of individual criminals. So that the same nominal77 punishment not being the same real one, equality of punishment appears to be a chimera78, and the law, which punishes, say, a distinguished79 officer less severely80 than it punishes a costermonger for the same crime, errs81 perhaps really less from actual equality than if it condemned both to precisely82 the same punishment.
Again, Proportion between crime and punishment seems to be another natural demand of equity. Yet it is evident that it is only approximately possible, and will vary in every age and country according to the prevalent notions of morality. Is imprisonment for a year, or imprisonment for life, or for how long, a fair and proportionate punishment for perjury83? Who shall decide? Shall we submit it to the opinion of the judges? But has not Romilly left on record the story of the two men tried by two different judges for stealing some chickens, who were sentenced respectively one to imprisonment for two months, and the other to transportation? Shall we then give up all attempt at proportion and apply the same deterrent84 as equally efficacious against slight or grave offences? Draco, when asked why he made death the punishment for most offences that were possible, is said to have replied, ‘Small ones deserve it, and I can find no greater for the gravest.’ The same reasoning was for a long time that of our own law; and in Japan,[78] where every wrong act was one of disobedience to the Emperor, and accordingly of equal value, the same penalty of death for gambling85, theft, or murder, obviated86 all difficulties with regard to a proportion which is easier to imagine than it is to define.
Analogy between crime and punishment is another idea which, except in the case of death for death, has been relegated88 from the practice of most criminal laws. Yet the principle has in its favour the authority of Moses, the authority of the whole world and of all time, that punishment should, if possible, resemble the crime it punishes in kind; so that a man who blinds another should be blinded himself, he who disfigures another be disfigured himself. Thus in the old-world mythology89, Theseus and Hercules inflict27 on the evil powers they conquer the same cruelties their victims were famous for; Termenus having his skull90 broken because with his own skull he broke the heads of others; and Busiris, who sacrificed others, being himself sacrificed in his turn. Both Montesquieu and Beccaria also advocate analogy in punishment, and so does Bentham to some degree; there being, indeed, few greater contrasts between the theories of the great English jurist and modern English practice than that the former should not have deprecated some suffering by burning as a penalty analogous91 to the crime of arson, and that he should have advised the transfixing of a forger’s hand or of a calumniator’s tongue[79] by an iron instrument before the public gaze as good and efficient punishments for forgery92 and slander.
These are some of the difficulties of the subject, which teach us the necessity of constant open-mindedness with regard to all ideas or practices connected with criminal law. But, would we further examine our established notions, we should consider a statement from Hobbes which goes to the very root of the theory of punishment.
‘In revenges or punishments,’ says Hobbes, ‘men ought not to look at the greatness of the evil past, but the greatness of the good to follow, whereby we are forbidden to inflict punishment with any other design than for the correction of the offender93 and the admonition of others.’ And over and over again the same thing has been said, till it has come to be a commonplace in the philosophy of law, that the object of punishment is to reform and deter4. As was once said by a great legal authority, ‘We do not hang you because you stole a horse, but that horses may not be stolen.’[42] Punishment by this theory is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
Yet, supposing it were proved to-morrow that punishment fails entirely94 of the ends imputed95 to it; that, for example, the greater number of crimes are[80] committed by criminals who have been punished already; that for one chance of a man’s reformation during his punishment there are a hundred in favour of his deterioration96; and that the deterrent influence of his punishment is altogether removed by his own descriptions of it; shall we suppose for a moment that society would cease to punish, on the ground that punishment attained97 none of its professed98 ends? Would it say to the horse-stealer, ‘Keep your horse, for nothing we can do to you can make you any better, nor deter others from trying to get horses in the same way?’
Or to take a stronger case. A deserter from the ranks escapes to his home, breaks into it at night, robs an infirm father of all the savings99 he has provided for his old age, and in a struggle for their possession so injures him that he dies. Must the law disclaim100 all indignation, all resentment101, in the punishment it inflicts102, and say to such a ruffian that it only deals hard with him in order to warn others by his example, and with the pious103 hope of making a good man of him in the future? If resentment is ever just, is it wrong to give it public expression? If it is natural and right in private life, why should it be a matter of shame in public life? If there is such a thing as just anger for a single man, does it become unjust when distributed among a million?
As a matter of fact the law affords a very clear[81] proof, that its real purpose is to administer retributive justice and that punishment has no end beyond itself, by its careful apportionment of punishment to crime, by its invariable adjustment between the evil a man has done and the evil it deals out to him in return. For what purpose punish offences according to a certain scale, for what purpose stay to measure their gravity, if merely the prevention of crime is the object of punishment? Why punish a slight theft with a few months’ imprisonment and a burglary with as many years? The slight theft, as easier to commit, as more tempting105 accordingly, should surely have a harder penalty affixed106 to it than a crime which, as it is more difficult, is also less probable and less in need of strong counter-inducements to restrain it. That the law never reasons in this way is because it weighs offences according to their different degrees of criminality, or, in other words, because it feels that the fair retaliation107 for the burglary is not a fair retaliation for the theft.
If, moreover, the prevention of crime is the chief object of punishment, why wait till the crime is committed? Why not punish before, as a certain Turk in Barbary is said to have done, who, whenever he bought a fresh Christian108 slave, had him forthwith suspended by his heels and bastinadoed, that the severe sense of his punishment might prevent him from committing in future the faults that should[82] merit it?[43] Why should we ever let a man out of prison who has once entered one? Is he not then a hundred times more likely to violate the law than he was before; and is he ever more dangerous to society than when he has once suffered for the public example, and been released from the discipline that was intended to reform him? It is still true, as Goldsmith said long ago, that we send a man to prison for one crime and let him loose again ready to commit a thousand. And so it is, that of the 74,000 souls who make up our criminal classes, whilst about 34,000 of them fill our prisons and reformatories, there is still an army of 40,000 at large in our midst, whom we class as known thieves, receivers of stolen goods, and suspected persons.[44]
A child’s simple philosophy of punishment therefore is after all the correct one, when it tells you without hesitation110 that the reason a man is punished for a bad action is simply ‘because he deserves it.’ The notion of desert in punishment is based entirely on feelings of the justice of resentment. So that the[83] primary aim of legal punishment is precisely the same as may be shown historically to have been its origin, namely, the regulation by society of the wrongs of individuals. In all early laws and societies distinct traces may be seen of the transition of the vendetta111, or right of private revenge, from the control of the person or family injured by a crime to that of the community at large. The latter at first decided only the question of guilt, whilst leaving its punishment to the pleasure of the individuals directly concerned by it. Even to this day in Turkey sentences of death for murder run as follows: So-and-so is condemned to death at the demand of the victim’s heirs; and such sentences are sometimes directed to be carried out in their presence.[45] By degrees the community obtained control of the punishment as well, and thus private might became public right, and the resentment of individual injuries the Retributive Justice of the State.
The recognition of this regulation of resentment as the main object of punishment affords the best test for measuring its just amount. For that amount will be found to be just which is necessary; that is to say, which just suffices for the object it aims at—the satisfaction of general or private resentment. It must be so much, and no more, as will prevent individuals from preferring to take the law into their own hands[84] and seeking to redress112 their own injuries. This degree can only be gathered from experience, nor is it any real objection to it, that it must obviously be somewhat arbitrary and variable. Both Wladimir I., the first Christian Czar of Russia, and Wladimir II. tried the experiment of abolishing capital punishment for murder; but the increase of murders by the vendetta compelled them to fall back upon the old modes of punishment.[46] Some centuries later the Empress Elizabeth successfully tried the same experiment, without the revival114 of the vendetta, the state of society having so far altered that the relations of a murdered man no longer insisted on the death of his murderer. But had Elizabeth abolished all legal punishment for murder—had she, that is, allowed no public vendetta of any kind—undoubtedly115 the vendetta would have become private again.
By the same rule, in the case of theft, the value of the thing stolen, with some equivalent for the trouble of its recovery, taken from the offender or made a lien116 on his earnings117, appears to be all that justice can demand. Sir Samuel Romilly, himself second to none as a lawyer, wrote seventy years ago: ‘If the restitution118 of the property stolen, and only a few weeks’ or even but a few days’ imprisonment were the unavoidable consequence of theft, no theft would ever be committed.’ Yet the following sentences are taken[85] at random119 from authentic120 English sources: three months’ imprisonment for stealing a pipe, six months for stealing a penny, a twelvemonth for stealing an umbrella, five years’ penal servitude for stealing some stamps from a letter, seven years for stealing twopence. In such cases the principle of vindictiveness121 exceeds the limits of necessity, and therefore of justice; whilst the law loses all its dignity as the expression of unimpassioned resentment.
Is it possible, then, so beforehand to apportion104 punishments to crimes that when a crime is committed it shall be but necessary to refer to a code and at once detect its appropriate punishment? Or must the law be general in its language, and leave a wide margin123 to the discretion124 of the judge? Beccaria would have the judicial43 function confined solely125 to the ascertainment126 of the fact of a crime, its punishment preordained by the law. On the other hand it is said, that it is impossible to anticipate every case that may arise; that no two cases are ever alike; that it is better to leave the nice adjustment of penalties to the wisdom and impartiality127 of a judge, and only limit his discretion by rules of a most expansive description.
The Chinese penal code of 1647 is probably the nearest approach to Beccaria’s conception, and nothing is more marvellous than the precision with which it apportions128 punishments to every shade of crime, leaving no conceivable offence, of commission or[86] omission129, without its exact number of bamboo strokes, its exact pecuniary penalty, or its exact term or distance of banishment. It is impossible in this code to conceive any discretion or room for doubt left to the judicial officers beyond the discovery of the fact of an alleged130 crime. But what is practicable in one country is practicable in another; so that the charge so often urged against thus eliminating judicial discretion, that it is fair in theory but impossible in practice, finds itself at direct issue with the facts of actual life.
But although the laws of every country thus recognise in different degrees the retributive nature of punishment, by their constant attention to its apportionment to crime, there is another corollary of the desirability of a just proportion between the two, which has never been, nor is ever likely to be, accepted: namely, that from the point of view of the public interest, which in theory is the only legal view, it is no mitigation of a crime that it is a first offence, nor any aggravation131 of one that it is the second.
For since the observance of some regular proportion between crime and punishment, whatever that proportion may be, constitutes the first principle of an[87] equitable132 code; and since the most important thing in public morality is a fixed penal estimate for every class of crime; it is above all things desirable that the law should always adhere to such proportion and estimate, by concerning itself solely with the crime and not with the criminal. The injury to the public is precisely the same whether a criminal has broken the law for the first time or for the thousandth and first; and to punish a man more severely for his second offence than for his first, because he has been punished before, is to cast aside all regard for that due proportion between crime and punishment which is after all the chief ingredient of retributive justice, and to inflict a penalty often altogether incommensurate with the injury inflicted on the public.
For instance, the injury to the public is no greater the hundredth time a man steals a rabbit than it is the first. The public may be interested in the prevention of poaching, but it is not interested in the person of the poacher, nor in the number of times he may have broken the law. The law claims to be impersonal—to treat offences as they affect the State, not as they affect individuals; to act mechanically, coldly, and dispassionately. It has, therefore, simply to deal with the amount of injury done by each specific offence, and to affix60 to it its specific penalty, regardless of all matters of moral antecedents. The repetition of an offence may make its immorality133 the greater, but its[88] criminality remains134 the same, and this only is within the province of the law.
It is the specific crime, not the fact that it is a second or third felony, which is injurious. Neither a community nor an individual suffer more from the commission of a crime by a man who commits it for the second time than from its commission by a man who has never committed it before. If two brothers are each robbed of a pound apiece on two several occasions, the one who is robbed each time by the same criminal suffers no more than the one who is robbed each time by different criminals. Still less is the public more injured in one case than in the other. Therefore the former brother is entitled for his second loss to no more restitution than the other, nor has any more claim on society for the infliction of a severer punishment on his behalf than that inflicted for the second loss of his brother.
A few stories may be taken as illustrative of thousands to indicate the mischief135 and travesty136 of justice which arises from the neglect of this principle, and from the custom of making a legal inquiry into moral antecedents.
A farm labourer, with a wife and four children, and earning eleven shillings a week, was imprisoned137 in the county gaol138 for two months for the theft of a pound of butter. Soon after his release sickness entered his home, and to supply his children’s wants[89] he again yielded to temptation and stole twelve duck’s eggs. For this he was sentenced to seven years’ penal servitude; or rather not for this theft, but because he had already incurred a severe punishment for a theft of some butter. The sentence was most perfectly139 lawful140, but was it not perfectly unjust?
Almost any number of the ‘Times’ will illustrate141 the same thing. Take the account of the Middlesex Sessions of February 24, 1880. There we find the case of a man and woman sentenced to seven and five years’ penal servitude respectively. What enormities had they committed? The man had stolen three-halfpence from somebody; and the woman, who was a laundress, had stolen two skirts, of the value of six shillings, from a vendor142 of sheep’s trotters. The man had incurred previously143 seven years’ penal servitude for a robbery with violence, and the woman had three times in her life been sentenced to imprisonment. But is it just that, because a man has been severely punished once, no rule nor measure shall be observed with him if he incur55 punishment again? And might not a vendor of sheep’s trotters have been satisfied, without a laundress becoming a burden to the State?
It will be said, of course, that the practice of giving increased sentences where there have been previous convictions prevails all over the world and in all[90] states of civilisation. But in that very fact lies the strength of the argument against it. By the Roman law a third case of theft, however slight, exposed a man to death.[48] By the laws of St. Louis the man who stole a thing of trifling144 value lost an ear the first time, a foot the second, and was hung the third. By the criminal code of Sardinia in the fifteenth century, asses109 were condemned to lose one ear the first time they trespassed145 on a field not their master’s, and their second ear for a second offence. But enough of such instances. The practice is undoubtedly universal; but so at one time were ordeals146 and tortures. May not, then, the practice be, like them, part and parcel of a crude state of law, such as was unavoidable in its emergence147 to better things, but such as it is worth some effort to escape from?
There are, however, certain limitations even to the supposed universality of the custom. For the Roman jurists did not consider a re-conviction as a circumstance in itself which justified148 aggravation of punishment; and all that can be gathered from some fragments in the Pandects and Code is, that some particular cases of repeated crimes were punished more severely than a first offence. But they were crimes of the same kind; and a man whose first crime[91] was a theft and whose second was an assault would not have incurred an aggravated149 penalty. It is the same to-day in the Austrian, Tuscan, and a few other codes: a second crime is only punished more severely as a second crime when it is of the same kind as the first, so that it would not suffice to prove simply a previous conviction for felony irrespective of the particular sort. There is also another limitation that has sometimes been recognised, for in the Roman law the rule of an increased penalty fell to the ground, if three years elapsed without offence between the punishment for one crime and the commission of a second.[49]
If it be said that a second conviction makes it necessary for society to protect itself by stronger measures against a member who thus defies its power, it may be asked whether this is not an application of exactly the same reasoning to the crimes of individuals, which as applied150 to the crimes of all men generally led our ancestors so far astray in the distribution of their punishments. Nothing could have been more plausible151 than their reasoning: ‘The punishment in vogue152 does not diminish the crime, therefore increase the punishment.’ But nothing could have[92] been less satisfactory than the result, for with the increase of punishment that of crime went hand in hand. The same reasoning is equally plausible in the case of individuals, with the same perplexing question resulting in the end: ‘How comes it that, in spite of the threatened greater punishment, the majority of criminals are yet old offenders153?’
It is unhappily no mere theory, that the majority of crimes are committed precisely by those who risk most in committing them; by those, that is, who commit them with the aggravated penalty full in view. By the existing law (of which both the Criminal Code- and the Penal Servitude-Commissioners154 have proposed the mitigation) anyone convicted of felony after a previous conviction for felony is liable to penal servitude for life, or to imprisonment with hard labour for four years, with one or more whippings. The minimum punishment for a second conviction of felony is seven years. Yet, with the knowledge of such increased punishments before their eyes, with the full consciousness of their liabilities as old offenders, official statistics show that of both the male and female convicts in the English convict prisons considerably155 more than half have incurred previous convictions.[50] Of the male convicts in 1878, 79 per cent.,[93] and of the female 89 per cent., were cases of reciduous crime. May it not, then, be argued from such a failure of the system to an error in the principle on which it rests? For is it not evident that the aggravated penalty does as little to deter as the original punishment does to reform?
But undoubtedly punishment, although in its origin and present intention vindictive122, must exercise a certain preventive force against crime, and this preventive force can scarcely be estimated, for that which is prevented is, of course, not seen. But the efficiency of punishment as a deterrent is proportioned to its certainty, and there is a large element of uncertainty that can never be eliminated. For every malefactor there are two hopes: first, that he may escape detection or apprehension156; secondly157, that he may escape conviction. That his hopes of impunity158 are not without reason greater than his fears of punishment the following facts attest159.
In a period of ten years, from 1867 to 1876, the total number of principal indictable offences committed in the metropolis160 against property—and these constitute the great majority of crimes—were 117,345. But the apprehensions161 for these offences were only 26,426, the convictions only 19,242. In other words,[94] the chances against apprehension for such crimes as burglary or larceny162 are four to one in favour of the criminal, whilst the chances against his conviction and punishment are fully113 as high as six to one. When we thus find that only 16 per cent. of such crimes receive any punishment, the remaining 84 per cent. escaping it altogether, and that only 22 per cent. are even followed by apprehension, we shall the more admire the general efficacy of our criminal machinery163, in which prevention by punishment plays so small a part.[51]
But punishment bears much the same relation to crime in the country at large that it does in the metropolis. Let one year be taken as a fair sample of all. The total number of indictable offences of all kinds reported to the police in 1877-8 was 54,065. For these offences only 24,062 persons were apprehended164. Of these latter only 16,820 were held to bail165 or committed for trial; and of these again 12,473 were convicted and punished.[52] So that, though the proportion of convictions to the number of prisoners who come to trial is about 75 per cent., the proportion of convictions, that is, of punishments, to the number of crimes committed is so low as 23 per cent. Of the 54,065 crimes reported to the police in one year 41,592 were actually committed with impunity; and[95] thus the proportion which successful crime of all sorts bears to unsuccessful is rather more than as four to one.[53] So that there is evident truth in what a good authority has said: ‘Few offences comparatively are followed by detection and punishment, and with a moderate degree of cunning an offender may generally go on for a long time with but feeble checks, if not complete impunity.’[54]
Against this general uncertainty of punishment, which no severity in the law can affect or make up for, the only certainty of punishment dependent on the law is in the event of conviction. But even this certainty is of a very qualified166 nature, for it depends on sentiments of due proportion between a crime and its penalty, which in no two men are the same. Every increase of severity in punishment diminishes its certainty, since it holds out to a criminal fresh hopes of impunity from the clemency167 of his judges, prosecutors168, or jury.
But there is a still further uncertainty of punishment, for it is as well known in the criminal world as elsewhere that the sentence pronounced in court is not the real sentence, and that neither penal servitude for[96] five years nor penal servitude for life mean necessarily anything of the sort. The humanity of modern legislation insists on a remission of punishment, dependent on a convict’s life in the public works prisons, in order that the element of hope may brighten his lot and perchance reform his character. This remission was at first dependent simply on his conduct, which was perhaps too generously called good where it was hard for it to be bad; now it depends on his industry and amount of work done. Yet the element of hope might be otherwise assured than by lessening169 the certainty of punishment, say, by associating industry or good conduct with such little privileges of diet, letter-writing, or receiving of visits, as still shed some rays of pleasure over the monotony of felon-life. It should not be forgotten, that the Commission of 1863, which so strongly advocated the remissibility of parts of penal sentences, did so in despite of one of its principal members, against no less an authority than the Lord Chief Justice, then Sir Alexander Cockburn.[55] The very fact of the remissibility of a sentence is an admission of its excessive severity; for to say that a sentence is never carried out is to say that it need never have been inflicted.
The question, therefore, arises, Does crime depend to any appreciable170 extent on imprisonment at all, or on the length or shortness of sentences?
The right to ask such a question derives171 itself from recent experience. In 1853 the country decided to shorten terms of penal servitude as compared with those of the then expiring system of transportation, for which they were to be substituted. Four years later it was resolved to equalise terms of penal servitude with those formerly173 given of transportation, though transportation for seven years was still to have its equivalent in three of penal servitude. Then came the garrotting year, 1862, in consequence of which the minimum term of penal servitude was raised to five years, whilst no sentence of penal servitude, after a previous conviction of felony, was to be for less than seven years. Now again the tide has turned in favour of shorter sentences, and it is officially proposed to relinquish174 the latter minimum of servitude as too severe, and as leading in practice to sentences of simple imprisonment, which on the other hand are declared to be too slight.
In such a zigzag175 path has our penal legislation been feeling, and is still feeling, its way, with evident misgiving176 of that principle of repression177, as false as it is old, that an increase of crime can only be met by an increase of punishment.
There seem to be three principal reasons why, under our present system, crime still keeps its general level, irrespective of all changes in our degrees of punishment.
[98]
In the first place, our public works prisons, however excellent for their material results, are so many schools of crime, where for the one honest trade a man learns by compulsion he acquires a knowledge of three or four that are dishonest. ‘I have become acquainted,’ says a released convict, ‘with more of what is bad and evil, together with the schemes and dodges178 of professional thieves and swindlers, during the four years I served the Queen for nothing, than I should have done in fifty years outside the prison walls.’ ‘The association rooms at Dartmoor are as bad as it is possible for anything to be … they are really class-rooms in the college of vice179, where all are alike students and professors. The present system in most instances merely completes the man’s vicious and criminal education, instead of in the slightest degree reforming him.’[56] It has been attempted in various ways to obviate87 this difficulty, by diminishing opportunities of companionship; but the real demoralisation of prison life is probably due less to the actual contact of bad men with one another than to the deadened sense of criminality which they derive172 from the feeling of numbers, just as from the same cause the danger of drowning is forgotten on the ice. Prisoners in gangs lose all shame of crime, just as men in armies forget their native horror of murder.
In the second place, a large proportion of the habitual180 criminal class is formed of weak-minded or imbecile persons, notorious for the repeated commission of petty thefts, crimes of violence and passion, and confessed to be ‘not amenable181 to the ordinary influences of self-interest or fear of punishment.’[57] It is now proposed to separate this class of prisoners from others; but is punishment operative on them at all? Is not their proper place an asylum182?
In the third place, there is the discharge from prison; and truly, if the prevention of crime be a main object of society, it is just when a man is released from prison that, from a social point of view, there would seem most reason to send him there. For even if, whilst in prison, he has learned no dishonest means of livelihood183, how shall he, when out of it, set about obtaining an honest one? If temptation was too strong for him when all doors were open to him, is it likely to be less strong when most are closed? Will it not be something like a miracle, if, with two pounds paid to him on his discharge and his railway fare paid home, he eat for any considerable time the bread of honesty, and sleep the sleep of the just?
That these causes do to a great extent defeat the preventive effect of our penal laws, is proved by the tale of our criminal statistics, which reveal the fact that most of our crime is committed by those who[100] have once been punished, and that of general crime about 77 per cent. is committed with impunity. But if so large a proportion of crimes pass unpunished altogether, it is evident that society depends much less for its general security upon its punishments than is commonly supposed. Might it not, therefore, still further relax such punishments, which are really a severe tax on the great majority of honest people for the repression of the very small proportion who constitute the dishonest part of the community?[58]
For if punishment is weak to prevent crime, it is strong to produce it, and it is scarcely open to doubt that its productive force is far greater than its preventive. Our terms of imprisonment compel more persons to enter a career of crime than they prevent from pursuing one, that being often the only resource left for those who depend on a criminal’s labour. Whether in prison or the workhouse, such dependents become a charge to society; nor does it seem reasonable, that if one man under sore temptation steals a loaf, a hundred other men who do no such thing must contribute to keep, not only the prisoner himself, but his family too, in their daily bread for so long a time as it pleases the law to detain him from earning his and their necessary subsistence.
Since, therefore, there is more to fear from a punished than from an unpunished criminal, there is the less reason to regret the general impunity of crime. There is indeed a large class of crimes for the prevention of which more would be done, by leaving them to their natural consequences, and to the strong power against them which the general interests and moral feelings of mankind will always enforce, than by actual punishment. It is particularly crimes of dishonesty which are best punished by the mere fact of their discovery. By the Norwegian law if an offender holds any official place he is punished, not by fine or imprisonment, but by the loss of his office and all the privileges connected with it.[59] And if we imagine a country without any legal penalty at all for theft or dishonesty, thieves and their tribe would soon find their proper punishment, by that process of social shifting, which would drive them to the most deleterious or dangerous occupations of life even more effectually than it so drives them at present. The less dependence184 is placed on the penal sanctions of crime, the stronger do the moral restraints from it become.
It is against crimes affecting the person that punishments are most desirable and their vindictive character most justly displayed. Personal violence calls for personal detention185 or personal chastisement;[102] and the principle of analogy in punishment is most appropriate in the case of a man who maltreats his wife or abuses his strength against any weakness greater than his own. Punishment in such cases is a demand of natural justice, whether anyone is affected186 by the example or not, and whether or not the man himself is improved by it. Not only is it the best means of enforcing that personal security which is one of the main functions of the State, but it is an expression of that sense of moral reprobation187 which is so necessary to the good order of society.
Repression by the law seems likewise the only means of preventing that large class of actions which affect the general character and tone of a country, whilst they injuriously affect no individual in particular. The protection of creatures too feeble to protect themselves justifies188, under this head, the legal punishment of cruelty to animals. It is idle to say that the law can do nothing against the average moral sense of the community, for the law is often at first the only possible lever of our moral ideas. Were it not for the law we should still bait bulls and bears, and find amusement in cock-throwing; and till the law includes hares and pigeons within the pale of protection drawn189 so tenderly round bulls and bears, no moral sense is likely to arise against the morbid190 pleasures of coursing and pigeon-shooting.
That the punishments of long custody191 by which we[103] now defend our lives and properties are out of all proportion to the real needs of social existence is indicated by such a fact as that no increase of crime used to attend the periodical release of prisoners which was for long, if it is not still, customary in Russia at the beginning of each reign. Neither in India, when on the Queen’s assumption of the title of Empress, a pardon was granted to about one-tenth of the prison population, did any increase of crime ensue, as, according to all criminal reasoning, it should have done, if the safety of society depends on the custody of the criminal class.[60] In Sweden a low rate of crime seems to be a direct consequence of a low scale of punishment. Of those condemned to travaux forcés, which may vary from a period of two months to a period for life, 64 per cent. are condemned for one year, and only 3 per cent. are condemned for seven years;[61] whilst sentences to the latter period in England form between 50 and 60 per cent. of the sentences to penal servitude.
But if the custody of the criminal class has been overrated as a preventive of crime, or regarded as the sole preventive instead of one amongst many, it does not follow that crime on that account must be left to itself. It only follows that we should trust to punishment less and to other agencies more in our war with[104] crime, and that we should seek to check the latter at its source, not in its full stream, by attending to the improvement of the general conditions of life. It is quite certain, for instance, that the spread of education, of which Beccaria wrote in terms of such despair, means the diminution192 of crime; and as the majority of crimes are committed between the ages of twenty and forty, it may be predicted that from the present year onwards the great Act of 1870 will bear increasing fruit in lowering our criminal statistics. More too may be hoped for from the electric light than from any multiplication193 of prisons.
There are a few obvious remedies by which the inducements to crime might be easily diminished. In 1808 Sir Samuel Romilly brought in a bill, to provide persons tried and acquitted194 of felony with compensation, at the discretion of the judge, for the loss they incurred by their detention and trial. This was objected to, on the ground that the payment of such compensation out of the county rates would discourage prosecutions195; and the only justice done to men falsely accused from that day to this is the authorisation given to goal-governors in 1878 to provide prisoners, who have been brought from another county for trial at the assizes and have been acquitted, with means of returning to their own homes. Something more than this is required to save a man so situated196 from falling into real crime.
One thing that might be done, which would also serve at the same time to keep a prisoner’s family from want, the main source of crime, would be the formation of a Prisoners’ Fund, for his and their benefit. For this there is a precedent197 in a quite recent Act. For the Act, which abolished the forfeiture198 of a felon’s property, enabled the Crown to appoint an administrator199 of it, for the benefit of the persons injured by the crime and the felon’s family, the property itself and its income reverting200 ultimately to the convict or to his representatives. There could, however, be no objection in justice to the forfeiture of a proportionate part of every felon’s property, such forfeiture to be dedicated201 to the formation of a fund, out of which assistance should be given, both to the families of prisoners during their custody and to the prisoners themselves on their discharge.[62] Such a fund might be still further increased by the substitution of a lien on a man’s wages or income for many minor202 offences now punished, but not prevented, by imprisonment.
By the present English law a person convicted of more offences than one may be sentenced for each offence separately, the punishment of each one in[106] succession taking effect on the expiration203 of the other. By this law (which the Criminal Code Commissioners propose to alter) imprisonment may be spread over the whole of a lifetime. On this point the Chinese law again offers a model, for it enacts204 that when two or more offences are proved against a man, they shall all be estimated together, and the punishment of all the lesser205 offences be included in that of the principal charge, not in addition to it So also if the offences are charged at different times, and the punishment of one has been already discharged, there is no further punishment for the other subsequent charges, unless they be charges of greater criminality, in which case only the difference between the punishments can be legally incurred.[63] But this of course presupposes a definite scale of crimes and punishments.
Such are some of the problems connected with penology, which best illustrate the imperfection of its hitherto attained results. Only one thing as yet seems to stand out from the mist, which is, that closely associated as crime and punishment are both in thought and speech, they are but little associated in reality. The amount of crime in a country appears to be a given quantity, dependent on quite other causes than the penal laws directed to its repression. The efficiency of the latter seems proportioned[107] to their mildness, not to their severity; such severity being always spoiled by an inevitable206 moderation in practice. The conclusion, therefore, would seem to be, that a short simple code, with every punishment attached to every offence, with every motive207 for aggravation of punishment stated, and on so moderate a scale that no discretion for its mitigation should be necessary, would be the means best calculated to give to penal laws their utmost value as preventives of crime, though experience proves that as such preventives their place is a purely208 secondary one in a really good system of legislation.
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1
treatise
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| n.专著；(专题)论文 | |
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2
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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3
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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deter
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| vt.阻止，使不敢，吓住 | |
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5
reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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consigned
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| v.把…置于（令人不快的境地）( consign的过去式和过去分词 )；把…托付给；把…托人代售；丟弃 | |
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binding
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| 有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的 | |
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posterity
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| n.后裔，子孙，后代 | |
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dominion
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| n.统治，管辖，支配权；领土，版图 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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tempt
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| vt.引诱，勾引，吸引，引起…的兴趣 | |
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investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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penal
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| adj.刑罚的；刑法上的 | |
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laborious
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| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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compulsory
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| n.强制的，必修的；规定的，义务的 | |
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imprisonment
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| n.关押，监禁，坐牢 | |
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seclusion
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| n.隐遁，隔离 | |
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uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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partially
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| adv.部分地，从某些方面讲 | |
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innate
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| adj.天生的，固有的，天赋的 | |
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aberrations
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| n.偏差( aberration的名词复数 )；差错；脱离常规；心理失常 | |
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equity
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| n.公正，公平，（无固定利息的）股票 | |
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guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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inflicted
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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inflict
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| vt.(on)把…强加给，使遭受，使承担 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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vengeance
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| n.报复，报仇，复仇 | |
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malefactor
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| n.罪犯 | |
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intentional
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| adj.故意的，有意（识）的 | |
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banished
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| v.放逐，驱逐( banish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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arson
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| n.纵火，放火 | |
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banishment
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| n.放逐，驱逐 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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repealed
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| 撤销，废除( repeal的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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forfeit
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| vt.丧失；n.罚金，罚款，没收物 | |
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condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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gored
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| v.（动物）用角撞伤，用牙刺破( gore的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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judicially
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| 依法判决地，公平地 | |
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judicial
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| adj.司法的，法庭的，审判的，明断的，公正的 | |
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gallows
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| n.绞刑架，绞台 | |
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deterrence
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| 威慑，制止； 制止物，制止因素； 挽留的事物； 核威慑 | |
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defenders
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| n.防御者( defender的名词复数 )；守卫者；保护者；辩护者 | |
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ridicule
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| v.讥讽，挖苦；n.嘲弄 | |
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arrogance
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| n.傲慢，自大 | |
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folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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absurdities
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| n.极端无理性( absurdity的名词复数 )；荒谬；谬论；荒谬的行为 | |
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blemishes
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| n.（身体的）瘢点( blemish的名词复数 )；伤疤；瑕疵；污点 | |
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stork
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| n.鹳 | |
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heinous
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| adj.可憎的，十恶不赦的 | |
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incurred
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| [医]招致的，遭受的； incur的过去式 | |
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incur
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| vt.招致，蒙受，遭遇 | |
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56
spartan
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| adj.简朴的，刻苦的；n.斯巴达；斯巴达式的人 | |
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slander
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| n./v.诽谤，污蔑 | |
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slanderer
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| 造谣中伤者 | |
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immoral
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| adj.不道德的，淫荡的，荒淫的，有伤风化的 | |
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affix
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| n.附件，附录 vt.附贴，盖(章)，签署 | |
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61
affixing
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| v.附加( affix的现在分词 )；粘贴；加以；盖（印章） | |
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infamy
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| n.声名狼藉，出丑，恶行 | |
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vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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persuasion
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| n.劝说；说服；持有某种信仰的宗派 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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jointly
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| ad.联合地，共同地 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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condemns
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| v.（通常因道义上的原因而）谴责( condemn的第三人称单数 )；宣判；宣布…不能使用；迫使…陷于不幸的境地 | |
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mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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72
extolled
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| v.赞颂，赞扬，赞美( extol的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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74
pecuniary
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| adj.金钱的；金钱上的 | |
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extrinsic
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| adj.外部的；不紧要的 | |
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76
infliction
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| n.（强加于人身的）痛苦，刑罚 | |
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nominal
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| adj.名义上的；(金额、租金)微不足道的 | |
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chimera
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| n.神话怪物；梦幻 | |
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79
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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81
errs
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| 犯错误，做错事( err的第三人称单数 ) | |
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82
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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83
perjury
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| n.伪证；伪证罪 | |
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84
deterrent
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| n.阻碍物，制止物；adj.威慑的，遏制的 | |
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85
gambling
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| n.赌博；投机 | |
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86
obviated
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| v.避免，消除（贫困、不方便等）( obviate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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obviate
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| v.除去，排除，避免，预防 | |
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relegated
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| v.使降级( relegate的过去式和过去分词 )；使降职；转移；把…归类 | |
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89
mythology
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| n.神话，神话学，神话集 | |
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90
skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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91
analogous
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| adj.相似的；类似的 | |
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92
forgery
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| n.伪造的文件等，赝品，伪造（行为） | |
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93
offender
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| n.冒犯者，违反者，犯罪者 | |
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94
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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95
imputed
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| v.把（错误等）归咎于( impute的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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96
deterioration
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| n.退化；恶化；变坏 | |
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97
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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98
professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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99
savings
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| n.存款，储蓄 | |
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100
disclaim
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| v.放弃权利，拒绝承认 | |
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101
resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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102
inflicts
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的第三人称单数 ) | |
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103
pious
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| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
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104
apportion
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| vt.（按比例或计划）分配 | |
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105
tempting
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| a.诱人的, 吸引人的 | |
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106
affixed
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| adj.[医]附着的，附着的v.附加( affix的过去式和过去分词 )；粘贴；加以；盖（印章） | |
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107
retaliation
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| n.报复，反击 | |
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108
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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109
asses
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| n. 驴，愚蠢的人，臀部 adv. (常用作后置)用于贬损或骂人 | |
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110
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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111
vendetta
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| n.世仇，宿怨 | |
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112
redress
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| n.赔偿，救济，矫正；v.纠正，匡正，革除 | |
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113
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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114
revival
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| n.复兴，复苏，（精力、活力等的）重振 | |
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115
undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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116
lien
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| n.扣押权，留置权 | |
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117
earnings
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| n.工资收人；利润，利益，所得 | |
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118
restitution
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| n.赔偿；恢复原状 | |
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119
random
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| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
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120
authentic
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| a.真的，真正的；可靠的，可信的，有根据的 | |
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121
vindictiveness
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| 恶毒；怀恨在心 | |
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122
vindictive
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| adj.有报仇心的，怀恨的，惩罚的 | |
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123
margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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124
discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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125
solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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126
ascertainment
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| n.探查，发现，确认 | |
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127
impartiality
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| n. 公平, 无私, 不偏 | |
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128
apportions
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| n.分摊，分配( apportion的名词复数 ) | |
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129
omission
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| n.省略，删节；遗漏或省略的事物，冗长 | |
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130
alleged
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| a.被指控的，嫌疑的 | |
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131
aggravation
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| n.烦恼，恼火 | |
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132
equitable
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| adj.公平的；公正的 | |
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133
immorality
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| n. 不道德, 无道义 | |
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134
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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135
mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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136
travesty
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| n.歪曲，嘲弄，滑稽化 | |
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137
imprisoned
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| 下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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138
gaol
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| n.(jail)监狱；(不加冠词)监禁；vt.使…坐牢 | |
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139
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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140
lawful
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| adj.法律许可的，守法的，合法的 | |
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141
illustrate
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| v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图 | |
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142
vendor
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| n.卖主；小贩 | |
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143
previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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144
trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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145
trespassed
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| （trespass的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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146
ordeals
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| n.严峻的考验，苦难的经历( ordeal的名词复数 ) | |
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147
emergence
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| n.浮现，显现，出现，（植物）突出体 | |
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148
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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149
aggravated
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| 使恶化( aggravate的过去式和过去分词 )； 使更严重； 激怒； 使恼火 | |
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150
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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151
plausible
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| adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的 | |
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152
Vogue
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| n.时髦，时尚；adj.流行的 | |
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153
offenders
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| n.冒犯者( offender的名词复数 )；犯规者；罪犯；妨害…的人（或事物） | |
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154
commissioners
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| n.专员( commissioner的名词复数 )；长官；委员；政府部门的长官 | |
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155
considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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156
apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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157
secondly
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| adv.第二，其次 | |
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158
impunity
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| n.(惩罚、损失、伤害等的)免除 | |
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159
attest
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| vt.证明，证实；表明 | |
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160
metropolis
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| n.首府；大城市 | |
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161
apprehensions
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| 疑惧 | |
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162
larceny
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| n.盗窃（罪） | |
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163
machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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164
apprehended
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| 逮捕，拘押( apprehend的过去式和过去分词 )； 理解 | |
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165
bail
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| v.舀（水），保释；n.保证金，保释，保释人 | |
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166
qualified
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| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
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167
clemency
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| n.温和，仁慈，宽厚 | |
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168
prosecutors
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| 检举人( prosecutor的名词复数 )； 告发人； 起诉人； 公诉人 | |
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169
lessening
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| 减轻，减少，变小 | |
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170
appreciable
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| adj.明显的，可见的，可估量的，可觉察的 | |
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171
derives
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| v.得到( derive的第三人称单数 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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172
derive
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| v.取得；导出；引申；来自；源自；出自 | |
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173
formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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174
relinquish
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| v.放弃，撤回，让与，放手 | |
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175
zigzag
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| n.曲折，之字形；adj.曲折的，锯齿形的；adv.曲折地，成锯齿形地；vt.使曲折；vi.曲折前行 | |
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176
misgiving
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| n.疑虑，担忧，害怕 | |
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177
repression
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| n.镇压，抑制，抑压 | |
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178
dodges
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| n.闪躲( dodge的名词复数 )；躲避；伎俩；妙计v.闪躲( dodge的第三人称单数 )；回避 | |
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179
vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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180
habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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181
amenable
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| adj.经得起检验的；顺从的；对负有义务的 | |
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182
asylum
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| n.避难所，庇护所，避难 | |
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183
livelihood
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| n.生计，谋生之道 | |
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184
dependence
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| n.依靠，依赖；信任，信赖；隶属 | |
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185
detention
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| n.滞留，停留；拘留，扣留；(教育)留下 | |
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186
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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187
reprobation
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| n.斥责 | |
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188
justifies
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| 证明…有理( justify的第三人称单数 )； 为…辩护； 对…作出解释； 为…辩解（或辩护） | |
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189
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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190
morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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191
custody
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| n.监护，照看，羁押，拘留 | |
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192
diminution
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| n.减少；变小 | |
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193
multiplication
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| n.增加，增多，倍增；增殖，繁殖；乘法 | |
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194
acquitted
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| 宣判…无罪( acquit的过去式和过去分词 )； 使（自己）作出某种表现 | |
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195
prosecutions
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| 起诉( prosecution的名词复数 )； 原告； 实施； 从事 | |
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196
situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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197
precedent
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| n.先例，前例；惯例；adj.在前的，在先的 | |
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198
forfeiture
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| n.（名誉等）丧失 | |
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199
administrator
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| n.经营管理者，行政官员 | |
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200
reverting
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| 恢复( revert的现在分词 )； 重提； 回到…上； 归还 | |
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201
dedicated
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| adj.一心一意的；献身的；热诚的 | |
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202
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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203
expiration
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| n.终结，期满，呼气，呼出物 | |
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204
enacts
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| 制定（法律），通过（法案）( enact的第三人称单数 ) | |
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205
lesser
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| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
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206
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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207
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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208
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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