The "indeterminate sentence" is a step toward such treatment, but it is often rendered wholly futile by being mixed with "reward of shortening term for good behavior in prison." Good behavior inside prison walls gives no proof of ability to take good care of one's self outside those walls; it may be only a proof that the moral weakling has to have an external conscience and a strict watch in order to be amenable to even simple rules.

The parole system is also liable to great misunderstanding and serious social dangers when it is used without the most scientific knowledge of the mental power of the man or woman concerned, and without utmost care in selection of work-place and living conditions of the paroled prisoner.

The essential thing in all social effort to do justice to the wayward is to find out about them and manage for them the essentials of environmental influence.

If, as many think, after careful study of large groups of wayward and criminal, more than half, almost two-thirds of those who come before the law for punishment are of less mental capacity than normal children of twelve years of age, then we must take social care of them as we would undertake to do if they were really under twelve.

And the parents of prodigal sons and daughters must help with all the might of their parental affection in inspiring and supporting a public opinion to that end.
=Rehabilitation of the Competent.=--In the third place, for the one-half to one-third of criminal and habitually vicious left after the mentally incompetent are given proper care, we must use all the rehabilitation methods that society has devised and be more ingenious than we have yet been in adding to them.