causes
is no proof that the country is deteriorating morally. It will be
regarded by many persons as a proof that the country has improved, for
it is now demanding a higher standard of conduct from the ordinary
citizen than it demanded twenty years ago.[3]

[3] Before the passing of the Elementary Education Act, no one
was tried for not sending his child to school; it was not a legal
offence; in 1888-9 no less than 80,519 persons were tried under
this Act, in England and Wales.

On the other hand, a decrease in the official statistics of crime may
be a proof that the moral sentiments of a nation are degenerating. It
may be a proof that the laws are ceasing to be an effective protection
to the citizen, and that society is falling a victim to the forces of
anarchy and crime. It is, therefore, impossible by looking only at the
bare figures contained in criminal statistics, to say whether a
community is growing better or worse. Before any conclusions can be
formed on these matters, either one way or the other, we must go
behind the figures, and look at them in the light of the social,
political and industrial developments taking place in the society to
which these figures refer.

In this connection, it may not be amiss to point out that the present
tendency of legislation is bound to produce more crime. All law is by
its nature coercive, but so long as the coercion is confined within a
limited area, or can only come into operation at rare intervals, it
produces comparatively little effect on the whole volume of crime.
When, however, a law is passed affecting every member of the community
every day of his life, such a law is certain to increase the
population of our gaols. A marked characteristic of the present time
is that legislative assemblies are becoming more and more inclined to
pass such laws; so long as this is the case it is vain to hope for a
decrease in the annual amount of crime. Whether these new coercive
laws are beneficial or the reverse is a matter which it does not at
this moment concern me to discuss; what I am anxious to point out is,
that the more they are multiplied, the greater will be the number of
persons annually committed to prison. In initiating legislation of a
far-reaching coercive character, politicians should remember far more
than they do at present that the effect of these Acts of Parliament
will be to fill the gaols, and to put the prison taint upon a greater
number of t