lives can be changed in their purpose.  No specific time can be predicted in which a man by discipline can be expected to lay aside his bad habits and put on good habits, because no two human beings are alike, and it is therefore necessary that an indefinite time in each case should be allowed for the experiment of reformation.

We have now gone far enough to see that the ticket-of-leave system, the parole system as we administer it in the State prisons (I except now some of the reformatories), and the good conduct method are substantially failures, and must continue to be so until they rest upon the absolute indeterminate sentence.  They are worse than failures now, because the public mind is lulled into a false security by them, and efforts at genuine prison reform are defeated.

It is very significant that the criminal class adapted itself readily to the parole system with its sliding scale.  It was natural that this should be so, for it fits in perfectly well with their scheme of life.  This is to them a sort of business career, interrupted now and then only by occasional limited periods of seclusion.  Any device that shall shorten those periods is welcome to them.  As a matter of fact, we see in the State prisons that the men most likely to shorten their time by good behavior, and to get released on parole before the expiration of their sentence, are the men who make crime their career.  They accept this discipline as a part of their lot in life, and it does not interfere with their business any more than the occasional bankruptcy of a merchant interferes with his pursuits.

It follows, therefore, that society is not likely to get security for itself, and the criminal class is not likely to be reduced essentially or reformed, without such a radical measure as the indeterminate sentence, which, accompanied, of course, by scientific treatment, would compel the convict to change his course of life, or to stay perpetually in confinement.

Of course, the indeterminate sentence would radically change our criminal jurisprudence and our statutory provisions in regard to criminals.  It goes without saying that it is opposed by the entire criminal class, and by that very considerable portion of the population which is dependent on or affiliated with the criminal class, which seeks to evade the law and escape its penalties.  It is also opposed by a small portion of the legal profession which gets its living out of the criminal class, and it is sure to meet the objection of the sentimentalists who have peculiar notions about depriving a man of his liberty, and it also has to overcome the objections of many who are guided by precedents, and who think the indeterminate sentence would be an infringement of the judicial prerogative.

It is well to consider this latter a little further.  Our criminal code, artificial and indiscriminating as it is, is the growth of ages