(_b_) Punishment by imprisonment costs the State millions of money every year, and yet does no good. It is not possible, everywhere and always, to separate the young prisoners from the adults, although it is absolutely essential that this should be done. A society, such as that of the prison, in which the worst are the most respected, and in which the innocent are despised and corrupted, is not suitable for young persons. If the juvenile offender is kept in isolation, his mental health will suffer; moreover, his loneliness impels him to seek the society of the other prisoners, and the greatest possible care will not succeed in preventing such association. It is maintained by some that imprisonment exercises a deterrent influence upon children, and that a coercive reformatory education does not. But the reverse of this is true. Not even the longest term of imprisonment which can be inflicted for juvenile crime will be found to exercise a deterrent influence; and it is the custom of the courts, in the case of juvenile offenders, to inflict, not the maximum, but the minimum sentence permissible by the law. The child is not afraid of the prison, because it is better treated there than outside; in prison it receives shelter, food, clothing, and warmth without having to pay anything, without having to work hard, and without being ill-treated. But the child is afraid of a coercive reformatory education: in prison the child is apathetic, its life being meaningless and without aim; but the working discipline associated with a coercive reformatory education is regarded by the child as a much more serious matter, being new and strange, needing continuous attention, constant diligence, and hard work. For many proletarian parents, to commit their child to prison is an alleviation; the parents then have one trouble the less, and the family income goes a little farther. Imprisonment brands a child. When it has served its time, employment is often extremely hard to obtain, for most employers very naturally dread that such a child will commit another criminal offence while in their employ. The child, finding it impossible to earn an honest living, is forced into the paths of habitual crime. Young people, much more readily than adults, accustom themselves to new conditions of life. In view of this fact, there is great danger that the youthful offender will become altogether indifferent to imprisonment; that the punishment will induce a condition of immunity to its effects. A child which has been once in prison is likely to become a recidivist, if only for the reason that it will now have lost the dread of prison which it had in the days before its first offence was committed. We learn from statistics that the majority of youthful offenders are sentenced to short terms of imprisonment. They regard these with the greatest indifference, and are not in the least afraid of them. Such short terms of imprisonment do not protect society; and the possibility