RECIDIVISM.) (%V. DE B. H.) United States.—The American practice with respect to the penal treatment of the habitual offender is not easy to summarize in a brief statement. With 49 independent jurisdictions—that of the Federal Government and those of the 48 States—each going its own way, only slightly affected by the example of its sister commonwealths and with tides of feeling swaying the annual or biennial legislative sessions, there is constant change and little uniformity in the resultant penal legislation. The recent recrudes cence of banditry and crimes of violence in large cities, together with the general though unwarranted conviction that crime in general is on the increase, has found expression in more drastic penal legislation in many States. This has naturally been directed mainly at the habitual offender who is in the foreground of the picture. The definition of the habitual offender is substantially the same as that of the English act, a convict who has had three previous convictions of felony, but the penalty is far more severe. For a generation the courts of criminal jurisdiction in most of the States have had the power, in their discretion, to commit such an offender to a State prison, the equivalent of penal servitude in England, for life. As the judges have, in fact, rarely exercised this power, several of the States, following the lead of New York, have made such a sentence mandatory. This tendency to curb the judicial discretion has been further manifested in setting a much higher minimum term of imprisonment for second and third offenders. While it is true that preventive detention is an impor tant objective of this legislation, its primary purpose is its assumed deterrent effect. Its excessive severity has already created a powerful public sentiment working for its repeal. (See