All communities and states are in reality ashamed of jails and penal institutions of whatever kind. Instinctively they seem to understand that these are a reflection on the state. More and more the best judgment and best conscience of men are turned toward the improvement of prisons, the introduction of sanitary appliances, the bettering of jail conditions, the modification of punishment, the treatment of convicts as men. All of this directly disproves the theory that the terrible example of punishment tends to prevent crime. All these improvements of prison conditions show that society is unconsciously ashamed of its treatment of so-called criminals; that the excuse of prevention of crime is really known to be humbug and hypocrisy, and that the real motive that causes the punishment of crime is malice and hatred and nothing else. The tendency to abrogate capital punishment, to improve prisons, to modify sentences, to pardon convicts is all in one direction. It can lead to but one inevitable result, the abolition of all judgment of man by man, the complete destruction of all prisons and the treatment of all men as if each human being was the child of the one loving Father and a part and parcel of the same infinite and mysterious life. CHAPTER VII CAUSE OF CRIME If the punishment of so-called crimes tended in any way to prevent violent acts, this tendency would be manifest in some conclusive way. Whether brotherhood love and non-resistance would lessen crime may be a matter of debate, but that punishment does not lessen it, seems to be as well established as any fact that cannot be absolutely proved. The death penalty was for years drastically enforced for the crime of smuggling, but its enforcement in no way tended to prevent the practice which flourished in spite of executions without number,—the common consciousness would not accept this punishment as just and finally rulers were forced to modify the punishment in self-defence. The punishment of death for larceny did not prevent the crime. Nearly every religion has made its way in the face of the severest penal statutes. Its converts have all been criminals and they have accepted and taught their faith at the risk of life. Every organization of working men has grown up in violation of human laws, and the jails, prisons and scaffolds have been busily engaged in suppressing this species of crime; but in spite of the fact that judges still imprison and execute for this crime, these associations are now almost as firmly established as any institution of the world. All new political ideas, democracy, socialism, nihilism have met the same fact and have made their way regardless of scaffolds and jails. Even in the common crimes, like burglary and larceny, prisons have had no effect. From the dawn of civilization an endless procession of weak and helpless victims, handcuffed, despised and outlawed, have been marching up to prison doors and still the procession comes and goes.