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the above-mentioned principles, resulting in a complete reform in police methods. The course is given with the help of convicts in the prison, in the proximity of which the school is located. The prisoners are introduced during the lecture, and are questioned and examined minutely in presence of the class. The deiinquent almost invariably understands that he serves as object lessons, and voluntarily helps by giving all the more important information. He does not shrink from shewing his mind and his desires to those who treat him kindly. The new officials learn above all in our school to treat the prisoners well; they see that kind treatment is the first step towards making the criminal less dangerous, towards winning his confidence, and thus being able to exercise a beneficent watch over him, which widely differs from persecution. Up to the present time we have given twelve courses, attended by 650 officials besides lawyers and graduates of the Technical Institute. A more elementary course of scientific police is given to pupils of the school of carabinieri. The police school has a laboratory, for research work and demonstrations and a criminal museum. The laboratory besides being used for school purposes, serves for investigations by the judicial police.

The penal and penitentiary functions in civilized countries are increasing and with the tendency towards transforming prisons into workhouses and reformatories, the reform of the police functions, according to the trend of things in Italy, is of importance in every country for the safety of its citizens and for humanity's sake.

THE SCHOOL OF SCIENTIFIC POLICE IN ROME.*

VICTOR VON BOROSINI.

I was asked last year to translate an article written by Professor Salvatore Ottolenghi on the School of Scientific Police at Rome. It was extremely difficult to follow the learned professor's arguments and reasoning, but evidently something absolutely new was being tried in the eternal city. It seemed that the Roman experiments deserved a more intimate study. As I had to be in the capital of Italy last summer, I made a special effort to spend my early morning hours at the school, where I met with the kindest reception, not only by the director and the staff, but also by the pupils. Moreover, through Professor Ottolenghi's kindness, I got permission to visit prisons, reformatories, police stations and other institutions in and around Rome and Naples. Being for weeks in daily contact with the teachers and students, I was able to form an opinion on the practical results of the teaching and the influence of the teachers on their pupils. It has rarely been my privilege to meet a group of students who were as enthusiastic about the theoretical and practical side of their work, and who at the same time, had such a high conception of the great responsibility of their future work as police commissioners, as the men in the school in Rome.

Professor Ottolenghi is an Italian alienist of very high standing in his science. His master was Cesare Lombroso, with whom he studied in Turin, and whose theories, though slightly modified, are the guiding principles of the school. Ottolenghi initiated a course in applied psychology, criminal anthropology and the task of the public police at the University of Sienna in 1896. He continued his work in the Tuscan city until 1901, when the authorities in Rome became interested in the possibilities of the course and promoted him to a professorship in Rome, where he continued his teaching. The police administration of Italy is placed in the hands of the secretary of the interior. The honourable Giolitti was at the head of the department at that time and the director of the bureau of public safety was Signor Leonardi.

*From the Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology,

Both men rendered most valuable assistance to the school by putting at its disposition all the resources of the capital. The lectures are given at the prison of Regina Coeli, where over 1,500 prisoners are serving time, where others are kept pending trial, and which serves as an exchange for hundreds of men and women who every year are, for disciplinary or other reasons, transferred to other prisons or labour colonies. Hence there is a wealth of material which can be used for school purposes. The secretary of the interior soon made the course obligatory for police commissioners, who, having successfully passed their civil service examination, served for one year on probation before they could be finally appointed. The institution has grown very rapidly. Every progress made in scientific police work was tried in Rome and if promising success, was incorporated in the curriculum of the school. Here Italy's service of identification is centralized. It can be said without exaggeration, that the brains of the Italian police administration lies in the school of Regina Coeli. From all over Italy lower police officers are sent for a period of several years to acquaint themselves with the different methods of taking finger prints, photographs and measurements.

Professor Ottolenghi explained at the Brussels Congress of Legal Medicine in 1910 his conception of a scientifically administered police, and it seems best to use his language freely in this place.

He contended that scientific principles had been applied in police work long before Bertillon had made public his system of ten measurements and two observations for identification. This method was undoubtedly the best for identifying persons, until the dactyloscopic method was developed by Mr. Henry of London, who was recently murdered in that city. Dactyloscopy is now substituted for the method of the French scientist. By applying scientific methods more generally, the police is going to become more efficient in preventing and fighting criminality. The sciences of anthropology, biology, and psychology inform and enlighten us on the physical and phychological characteristics of men, criminal sociology on the influence of the milieu, which is of the greatest consequence on human actions. The police commissioners need moreover a thorough legal training in order to know the extent and the limitation of their own rights and powers. The utmost circumspection should be used in suc

cessfully tracking and following up criminals from the very beginning immediately a crime has been detected. Therefore, investigations at local inquests should be made methodically in order that nothing which may throw a light on the case may be overlooked. Reports to superior officers and to the investigating or directing magistrates should be absolutely reliable and impartial statements of facts; if, as is permissible, the police commissioner advances any theories of his own, he must expressly say so. The cross-questioning of witnesses and prisoners by a man who knows human psychology, will produce better results than have been obtained hitherto. He is able to look out for quite insignificant changes in the expression of a witness, as muscular contractions and change of colour, which reveal psychological reactions. Criminal anthropology informs us of the danger of certain criminal types to society, and only this criterion ought to determine the length of a prison senience, or permanent segregation, or the kind of supervision a criminal should submit to while at liberty. Such knowledge ought not to be gained exclusively from books, therefore police commissioners must be brought into personal contact with different types and study them just as the sick are studied in clinics and hospitals by medical students and physicians.

Having identified a prisoner, people would, as a rule, be in ignorance of his personal characteristics, had Lombroso not taught us to draw an inference as to the psychological characteristics of the individual from cranial types, scars and tattoos. The criminal's card record must, if it shall be of any practical use, contain information about his former life and surroundings, as well as about his former penal record. The police, in using scientific methods, is better able to protect society, especially by segregating criminal types in time and thus preventing their propagation. Such measures of moral hygiene are already extensively used in treating some cases of minor and incorrigible criminals. The treatment of prisoners by the police has undergone a revolution. Brutal force and coercive measures have been abandoned for quite as effective but more humanitarian methods which frequently win their good will and confidence.

That is the substance of Ottolenghi's paper. Let us now review the practical working out of his theories at the school itself.

It is located not far from the Vatican, on the right side of the Tiber, and is practically a part of the prison Regina Coeli. The school is a modern building, guarded by soldiers and turnkeys, constructed expressly for its purpose. On the first floor is the office of the director, a small museum of criminology, the Bertillon and dactyloscopic records and the Rogues' gallery. The museum is an imitation of many similar institutions in European capitals. It contains little of interest excepting Professor Ivanovici's marvellous work of making disfigured heads so lifelike that an identification is possible. The case records contain a complete collection of the cards of Italian criminals and a large number of European exchange cards, as foreign police departments send their cards directly to the school of scientific police, which is the distributing agency for Italy. A modern laboratory for the microscopical and chemical examination of sperma, traces of poison and blood is here installed, which is of the greatest value to the public prosecutor, the investigating magistrates and the Roman police. In the psychological laboratory the most up-to-date apparatus is used for registering psychological phenomena, but very simple instruments. are used also, which police commissioners may have at their disposal later on.

The second story is used by the service of identification and dactyloscopy; it contains also the rooms of the staff, the library and the class room. The latter is an amphitheatre with antiquated uncomfortable seats for the pupils, which would not be tolerated in a primary school. The benches may be right for boys of 12, but they are absolutely unfit for grown-up men. It seems extraordinary that the state which used excellent discretion in fitting out the school with the best modern science has produced, should have so little consideration for the comfort of the students. This is not only the case in the classroom. The men have no place in which to gather except the staircase and the hallway; the toilet rooms are of inferior type and there are no lavatories. Unfortunately, a good deal of spitting is done, the spittoons are not much used and cleanliness is rather marked by its absence. Moreover, the classroom is over-crowded; instead of two on a bench, we find often three sitting close together. The auditorium is fitted up so that cinematographic and stereopticon performances may be given. The criminals

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