Our State has been in the business of punishing criminals for more than a hundred years, during which time millions of dollars have been wasted. Let us try classification, then endeavor to cure criminals or restrain them till they are fit to associate with the law-abiding people of the Nation. This is real prison reform. I think that such a Board of Criminal Experts as suggested here would have fewer indictments, but more convictions. And we would need fewer jails and Courts of Justice. We would save the taxpayers millions of dollars yearly, but immeasurably more important than all these, we would come nearer to doing justice to all men, and the rights of the people would be more justly safeguarded than they are to-day. (Since I first recommended the abolition of the Grand Jury in an article of mine that appeared in the New York Press of March, 1906, and later in Van Norden’s Magazine, to whom I give due credit, other reformers have spoken on the same subject, but have made no mention of the one who first called attention to the matter, which is manifestly unfair.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XIII SCHOOLS OF CRIME Crime, like many of the diseases that afflict the human body, is both infectious and contagious, and criminal principles can be taught to old and young as easy as the alphabet or any of the profoundest sciences. As the larger part of our population dwell in cities and these cities are recruited from the immigrants that come to our shores, it is reasonable to believe that many of them, if not criminals already, come with criminal instincts, so that the rising generation who are the offspring of crooks are sure to be criminal. According to the present statistics, the United States leads the world in criminality. Hitherto, Italy and Russia were the leaders, but now the United States surpasses all others. It seems that for every million of inhabitants the United States furnished 115 _known_ relapsed criminals, Italy 105, Russia 90, England 27, France 19, Germany 18. Not only do we make criminals ourselves, but we import them through our defective immigration laws. Congress could partly remedy this evil against a free people by closing our immigration doors for the next twenty years. But our political party leaders, who rule the people, are afraid to do this, hence our rapid growth in crime, partly through immigration.