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Show Anyone Can Make One Mistake . LAST week the question of Utah prison paroled pa-roled convicts returning to the ways of dime was brought rather voluminously to the atten-, atten-, tion of Salt Lake City. I During the week the cases of four paroled convicts, arrested on new ertmlnal charges or convicted of further crimes, were In the news. In every case the criminal's record covered more than one previous case of conviction or arrest In two cases the criminals had been twice paroled. In one case he had been paroled FOUR TIMES. One of the parolees was convicted of murder mur-der committed while robbing an aged man of $20. This man had been convicted of burglary and paroled after serving six months. His record Included four other arrests on suspicion of various crimes. Another parolee, booked for Investigation of burglary, had been twice paroled after convictions con-victions of grand larceny and armed robbery.' Another parolee, held for Investigation In series of burglaries, was twice convicted of ' burglary and twice paroled. The fourth, charged with armed robbery, was three times convicted of burglary and once Of robbery, and each time paroled. . Perhaps chance has a lot to do with piling rp that damning record against the Utah parole pa-role system In Just one week. But chance or not, that s the 10014 and it's pretty bad. The theory of probation and parole, as an attempt by society to rehabilitate and reform an erring Individual and help him to go straight I sound. The last thing society wants to do Is to force the Incipient criminal Into a continuing life of crime by too harsh treatment treat-ment Anyone can make one mistake. And society, so-ciety, for Its own good, certainly should give the man or youth who slips once, a chance to straighten out But once Is enough, except in very rare eases. Rather seldom Is a criminal caught convicted con-victed and sent to prison In his first essay at crime. Usually there la a record of Juvenile delinquency, arrests on suspicion, or he has gotten away with a number of crimes undetected, unde-tected, before he Is sent to prison. Parole then should be a matter of giving criminal one chance HIS LAST to make good. And he should know Ifs his last chance! The fact should be Impressed on him forcibly not only by admonition at the time of his parole pa-role but by the RECORD of refusal to grant parole to two-time criminals. - The one-time paroled criminal should then , be helped In every possible way by society to make good. He should be given every chance to reform. But If he falls, then society should wash Its hands of him. He should be compelled to serve out his full sentence In prison and It after that he still continues his career of crime, then he ought to be put away for a long period of years perhaps for life where he can do no further injury to society. That this view of parole la not at variance with careful analysis of the crime problem made by experts In that field is Borne out by the following quotation from a recent address given before the American Prison Congress by Judge Joseph N. Ulman, member of an American Amer-ican Law Institute committee which seeks solution for the problem of criminal Jurisprudence, Jurispru-dence, particularly as K deals with the young offender. "We stand for the principle," said Judge Ulman, "that the- primary business of the criminal law la not to punish the criminal but to protect society against him and his kind. And we believe that the best of all ways to do this Is to rid him of his criminal Impulses and habits If this can possibly be done. On the other hand. If he Is not susceptible of rehabilitative rehabili-tative treatment then we believe he must be segregated permanently from society; in some cases that his elimination by death is the only sensible way to deal with him." ' That Is a sound statement By all means let's rehabilitate Incipient criminals. But let's do It by concentrating our efforts and our sympathies sym-pathies on the first offenders, where there Is real hope of redemption, and not by Indiscriminately Indis-criminately paroling second and third and fourth offenders who have given society ample proof that they are unworthy of consideration. |