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Show What We Need Is Not More Prisons for Criminals, Crimi-nals, but More Hospitals By MRS. MARY HAMILTON, New York Policewoman. What we need most of all, is an awakening on the part of officials an awakening on the part of the public as a whole to the fact that crime is a manifestation of disease, that criminals are sick people, and that most of the crimes now being perpetrated would, under a more intelligent organization of society, be partly or even entirely preventable. pre-ventable. Will we ever learn that what we need is not more prisons for criminals but more hospitals? If we were intelligent enough, first of all, to work for better social conditions and then to treat diseases in their incipient in-cipient stages rather than in their final ones, we would not have the revolting re-volting crimes that are now shocking our society crimes that are an indictment in-dictment of the very foundations of our so-called civilization. We have one hundred young women on our police force in New York city. We need a thousand. The call is to the capable young woman of today, especially to the college woman. Will she respond? Once there is the general understanding of these facts that crime is disease traceable to unfavorable social conditions, that criminals are nothing more nor less than sick people there will be as many applicants for the profession as there are now places in the schoolroom, the office and elsewhere. And the money that is now being spent in the stupid punishment of crime will be used in its intelligent prevention. |
