OSBORNE WANTS NO CRIMES PUNISHED

"The average viewpoint of the criminal is, or used to be, that there is no such thing as justice in the world", said Thomas Mott Osborne '84, noted prison reformer, in the course of a lecture last evening at Phillips Brooks House on "Crime and Criminals."

"One thief whom I knew rather well expressed this viewpoint in the following way. 'I get soaked for stealing a pocketbook; why doesn't a banker get punished for stealing a railroad?'

"Such a feeling of injustice is increased by the prison system which rests on retaliation, the principle of an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. It is, the absolute foundation of our criminal law. But no court of law can weigh a man's soul. You have no right to punish a criminal, but you should put him away if he is a danger to organized society.

"The only method which will stop crime consists of these three principles, certainty of arrest, promptness of trial, and a prison system which reforms the criminal. The method now in use in various prisons, to create such a prison system, was suggested originally by a criminal himself. It is the Mutual Welfare League.

"The League includes all the inmates of a prison. They organize what is practically a free community within prison walls. The effect it has on the men is amazing. The moment you get an organization, you form public opinion.