The immense importance of having a comprehensive and accessible record of this nature can hardly be over-rated, for without its help it would be impossible to combat (with any chance of success) what is unquestionably the most dangerous development of contemporary criminality. It has recently been pointed out by Dr Anderson, of the Criminal Investigation Department, that despite the marked decrease of crime which we congratulate ourselves has been one of the most noteworthy features of the Victorian era, "the professional criminal is developing and becoming a serious public danger."[246] Since the abolition of transportation the company of criminals who are criminal by deliberate choice has been steadily increasing, and every mitigation of the penal code, every alleviation of prison existence, has helped to bring recruits to the profession. Frequent sentences of imprisonment will never deter the delinquent who is well acquainted with the inside of a gaol, as long as he can count on brief spells of exciting and luxurious liberty between whiles; moreover the tax on the police is excessive, for the habitual criminal may be trapped again and again, only to be released time after time to devise new and more elaborate attacks on a long-suffering society.[247] A way will have to be discovered to eliminate this unexpected product of our penal system, and to this end various suggestions have been made. Some advocate life sentences for persistent offenders; others would make the restitution of the plunder, or at any rate a confession implicating the receiver of the stolen property, the only condition of release in cases of theft; but although authorities differ as to the exact course which ought to be pursued, all agree that the character of the criminal rather than the enormity of his offence should chiefly determine the question of the punishment administered. Whatever may be the nature of the plan of campaign eventually decided upon for the suppression of professional delinquency, the preliminary stage of the operations is necessarily the same, and consists in the preparation of a record containing an accurate and concise account of the antecedents and previous convictions of all habitual criminals.