Produced by Larry B. Harrison, Craig Kirkwood, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.) Transcriber’s Notes: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at the end. * * * * * VOLUME IV, No. 4. APRIL, 1914 THE DELINQUENT (FORMERLY THE REVIEW) A MONTHLY PERIODICAL, PUBLISHED BY THE NATIONAL PRISONERS’ AID ASSOCIATION AT 135 EAST 15th STREET, NEW YORK CITY. THIS COPY TEN CENTS. ONE DOLLAR A YEAR T. F. Garver, President. Wm. M. R. French, Vice-President. O. F. Lewis, Secretary, Treasurer and Editor The Delinquent. Edward Fielding, Chairman Ex. Committee. F. Emory Lyon, Member Ex. Committee. W. G. McLaren, Member Ex. Committee. A. H. Votaw, Member Ex. Committee. E. A. Fredenhagen, Member Ex. Committee. Joseph P. Byers, Member Ex. Committee. R. B. McCord, Member Ex. Committee. Entered as second-class mail matter at New York. WHAT IS A CRIMINAL? BY A MAN IN PRISON [The American Magazine recently offered prizes for the best replies. Here is one of the winning answers.] What is a criminal? To-night I pace the narrow confines of my steel-barred cell and ask myself for the hundredth time--What is a criminal? Is he, as Lombroso claims, a moral degenerate? Is he the mental imbecile that metaphysicians in learned verbiage assert? Is he the hardened, desperate malefactor, the sinking, murderous beast that penologists would have us believe? Is he the victim of adverse circumstances, unsavory environment, and changing social conditions? Or does he wage war on organized society for adventure’s sake? Why is he a criminal? Garbed in the vestment of dishonor and disgrace, I myself am what the world terms a criminal. Should I not know the meaning of the appellation far better than the casual observer? For many years my life has been the life of an habitue of the underworld. Criminals, so called, have been my associates and my friends. I have known them in the moments of their success, I have known them in the hours of their failure. Failure that spells oblivion, the oblivion of cold gray walls and heart-breaking, monotonous, man-killing routine. I have seen how recklessly they can live, and I have also seen how gamely they can die. I have known them intimately, and well, and never have I been able to discover any difference between them and their more fortunate brethren. They entertain in their hearts the same ideas, the same hopes, and the same ambitions as do average men.