The experiments in the treatment of the criminal which are being carried
on at Elmira are probably of more wide-reaching significance than any at
present carried on elsewhere. It is worth while to consider them somewhat
in detail. I select an experience carried on during 1886 and recorded by
Dr. Wey, who had charge of it. On June 5th, 1886, Dr. Wey selected eleven
dullards between the ages of nineteen and twenty-nine. For a period of one
to two years previously these men had made no progress. “In physiognomy
they presented features indicative of criminal tendencies. Not one had
learned a trade, but all had made a precarious living as common labourers,
tramps, hostlers, and street-loafers. One was convicted for assault in the
first degree; five for burglary in the third degree; one for grand larceny
in the first degree; three for grand larceny in the second degree; one for
rape, and one for attempted rape. The environment of most of the men
previous to conviction was bad, many of them confessing to have had
intemperate parents, while one told of an insane, and another of an
epileptic mother.” All however were well nourished, and their functions,
save that of the skin (five had acne and one ichthyosis) well performed.
“An idea of their mental attainments can be formed from the fact that one
could neither read nor write; one barely do either; four understood the
successive steps necessary to work an example in long division, but never
could obtain the correct answer; while the balance came to grief upon the
shoals of rudimentary arithmetic from notation to simple division. Their
stock of information was surprisingly small, being generally limited to a
slight knowledge of the things they liked to eat and the work they
preferred to do.”
The treatment adopted included a special dietary, bathing, massage,
gymnastics, and a continuation of the usual school-work. The daily
industries of the shop, etc., were suspended.
The food was varied each day, and was sufficient in quantity without being
excessive; it was weighed out to each, and provided at a common table,
instead of, as usual, in the cells, in unrestricted quantity. The
experience at Elmira shows that better results are obtained when the
amount of food is restricted than when it is unlimited in quantity. Dr.
Wey is strongly in favour of a diet consisting chiefly of milk and bread
and butter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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