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The up-to-date social scientist has begun to treat crime scientifically. In answer to the question, "Why?" the criminologist has discovered that there are two chief causes of crime. First and most important there are the frightful economic and social conditions under which millions of children are pushed toward the brink of the criminal precipice. Second, there are the mental and physical defects that unbalance the individual who is suffering from them. Practically all of the crime from which society suffers can be traced to one of these two causes. The policeman’s club has no more effect on either of them than it would have on a sandpile.
The hideous criminal code, built on the power of force, has failed because the causes producing criminals were entirely beyond the reach of the code. If one-half of the people in the United States were hanged in the next year, there would still be crime. No amount of punishment of individuals will have any effect on a thing for which the individual is not responsible. It is as easy to stop the flow of a river with a dam as to stop crime with a jail.
Today we are looking for the germs of crime. Instead of dealing with the effects, we are seeking to check this social scourge at its source.
The old system of treating the criminal failed. It failed to reform the criminal, and it failed to prevent crime. It failed because it was unintelligent. It had taken no notice of causes.
Many people are today talking of war, and its prevention. The same questions that are asked in any other scientific inquiry must be asked here. There is no use in trying to prevent war, until we understand the causes of war. It will be time enough to think of preventing war when we have isolated the germs of war and studied them.
What are the germs of war? Where do they breed? On what do they thrive?
