Studies of criminal responsibility and limited responsibility / by Charles Follen Folsom.

  • Folsom, Charles Follen, 1842-1907.
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Studies of criminal responsibility and limited responsibility / by Charles Follen Folsom. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    crime has become lamentably uncertain. I think that this terrible danger to society can be removed; but to quote the words of one of the first alienists now living, it is necessary in order to do it to hang some of these murderers. After having tried all sorts of treatment for crim¬ inals, the so-called “humane” and others, England has finally settled upon the “stern and deterrent sys¬ tem” approved by Chief Justice Sir Alexander Cock- burn as the best; and, according to Major Du Cane, Inspector-general of Prisons, this has already begun to have its effect in reducing the number of commitments for crime. I fully believe that the stern treatment would have upon boys of Pomeroy’s class the same effect which the return to the use of the lash on the bare back had on the garroters of London. Among the experts who have seen Pomeroy, and consider him irresponsible, there are two opinions on this point: — (1) That punishment would have no effect upon him or upon others of his class. (2) That punishment would deter them from crime, but that the same thing might also be said of a con¬ siderable proportion of the inmates of our insane asylums.