THE NEW CRIMINOLOGY

The State of Rhode Island has determined to make a trial of the modern methods of psychology in criminology. Armand Lescault, a 17 year old boy who last year murdered a policeman, is to have twenty years of personal scientific training and observation, at the end of which time he should be ready to re-enter the world as a useful citizen. The success of the experiment depends on the spirit in which it was conceived and the thoroughness with which it is to be carried out.

It is easy to rely too heavily on the scientific method in relation to an isolated case. If the experiment is successful and Lescault is able to take up life again at thirty-seven, the principle of progressive penology will have had practical vindication but the general application will have become no easier as a result. Here you have a boy, not yet mature, upon whom a great deal of time and money will have been spent under the personal observation of one of the country's leading psychologists. It will be impossible to duplicate this procedure for the benefit of every criminal.

There are three critical problems in the science of criminology. There is the problem of the prevention of crime, then the necessity of reforming the criminal once convicted, and finally the problem of his re-entry into a hostile society with which he has lost touch. The experiment about to be tried in Rhode Island is concerned only with the prison system itself. What is much more important and far harder to achieve is the spread of a sane attitude toward crime in the mind of the general public.

If psychology succeeds only in making another case out of the Rhode Island experiment there will have been little gain.