CRIMINAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND JURISPRUDENCE 647
In 1889, in Brussels, the first meeting of the Criminal Law Association was held. The organization was due to Professor von Liszt, of Halle. In 1892 the membership exceeded five hundred persons, and included a number of citizens of the United States. This organization was indirectly the result of criminological agitation, and, while composed largely of jurists, its fundamental principles embody the following propositions, and membership requires adhesion to them:
1. The mission of penal law is to combat criminality regarded as a social phenomenon.
2. Penal science and penal legislation must, therefore, take into considera- tion the results of anthropological and sociological studies.
3. Punishment is one of the most efficacious means which the state can use against crime. It is not the only means and must not be isolated from the other social remedies, nor lead to the neglect of preventive measures.
4. The distinction between accidental (occasional) and habitual crimi- nals is essential m practice as well as in theory, and must be the foundation of penal law.
5. Repressive tribunals and prisons have the same end in view; and inasmuch as sentences acquire value only by mode of execution, the separa- tion consecrated by our modern laws between court and prison is irrational and harmful.
6. The length of imprisonment should depend upon the material and the moral gravity of the offense, and upon the results obtained by treatment during imprisonment.
7. So far as incorrigible or habitual criminals are concerned, the associa- tion holds that, independent of the gravity of the offense, the penal system should aim at placing them for as long as possible under conditions where they can do no injury.
The work of this association is particularly valuable, as its members are almost entirely jurists.
The fourth annual meeting of the International Congress of Psy- chology, held at Munich in the summer of 1896, is especially nota- ble by reason of its devoting one of its sections to work in pathological psychology. Many prominent psychologists are interested in this field, and papers relating to the bearing of psychology upon crim- inal law, heredity, and psycho-pathology, criminal suggestion, etc., were read and discussed. The methods of the biological school of criminal anthropology are identical with those of physiological psychology, the same instruments of measurement being used in both. Thus the tendency of psychologists to study the abnormal, in addition to the excellent work being done in the study of the normal,
