has to do with the convict, as to his training physically, morally,
intellectually, and spiritually, and embraces in its application
every agency that has to do with his development as a laborer, his
advancement as a student and a thinker, his uplifting morally and
spiritually, and his complete and perfect rounding out as a man.
It does not refer alone to the agency of the dark cell, the strap, the
taking of good time, the bath, the ball and chain, and similar devices;
and in a properly conducted, well-ordered, and painstaking institution,
these agencies are far and away the smallest, least used and least
effective of all those which make and promote this thing called
“discipline.”
In a rightfully planned and properly manned prison, the officers
maintain much the same attitude toward the heterogeneous population
there gathered--most of whom are children in mental attainments,
children in moral culture, children in industrial bent--that a parent
occupies toward his child. The motive, the hope, the desire, the
object, the plans, and the efforts should be much the same, changed and
modified only as the conditions necessarily demand a modification of
plans.
The thoughtful and intelligent parent ponders and studies about the
future of his child. He knows that he must fit and prepare him for the
solemn duties of life, and upon the preparation or lack of preparation
he gives him, the discipline or the lack of discipline the child
undergoes, will depend that child’s future welfare or misery.
If the parent is wise he carefully arranges for the child’s physical
well-being, he plans for his mental cultivation and discipline, and
provides systematically for proper environments and training for his
moral and spiritual growth and strength. Nothing is left to chance,
little to precept, much to example, and the use of the rod or other
correctional methods or devices, is an obvious confession of a failure
on the part of the parent to take all the necessary care and precaution
in training or drilling the child. No child ever needed physical
correction at the hand of its parent, that the parent was not also
some to blame in neglecting precautions that would have obviated this
necessity.
Rev. Samuel J. Barrows, to whom prison people are under so many lasting
obligations for his invaluable contributions to prison literature, said
no truer thing than when in his admirable address at Kansas City, in
1901, on “Jesus as a Penologist,” he said:
“The ideal discipline is that which educates and strengthens the will
without breaking it, and which develops a man without crushing him.”
LABOR AS DISCIPLINE
The first and prime requisite to discipline is a proper labor system
that calls for a reasonable amount of satisfactory, productive,
remunerative labor from every convict fit to labor. It is altogether
the greatest problem that confronts any prison, and is most vital.
Idleness in prison is grossly wasteful, utterly uneconomical, terribly
demoralizing, and prevents almost entirely all plans for a regimen that
looks to discipline. For those in health there should be no wasted
hours at any time or any place in prison.
A score of idle or partly idle convicts can do more mischief, subvert
more discipline, destroy more regularity and system than a regiment of
men kept at proper, legitimate employment. So the key to discipline is
a labor system that embraces in its scope every person in prison.
To devise a system of labor for an institution that will keep everyone
sufficiently employed and underwork none (for strange to say, in
practice, the prison that overtaxes convicts probably does not exist),
is the hardest problem, requiring the most labor, care, and attention
that could possibly be imagined, and means that the warden who
accomplishes it and continues it will be the most severely taxed of
all. It is not the convict that is likely to do an honest, just day’s
work, but the management who undertake to see that this most vital and
salutary agent of discipline is always in full force and effect.
THE CONTRACT SYSTEM
I have no sympathy with those who inveigh against contract labor in
prisons. A contract system in which the State receives the proper
compensation for the labor of convicts, and the convict receives a just
compensation for surplus work, a system which eliminates the abuses
formerly found in contracts, a system in which the government, control,
and treatment of the men is in the hands of the prison officials only,
and the amount and the kind of labor is adjusted by the warden only,
may be the best practicable economic system.
The abuses formerly chargeable to the contract system, and possibly
chargeable now in sections, are not necessary, and existed and exist
only because prison officials permitted them or fostered them; and
instead of abolishing the system, men should have been substituted who
would prepare a proper contract, obtain the right compensation, secure
rational treatment for the convicts, and get just conditions generally,
and have the invaluable experience of expert manufacturers to teach the
men deft and skillful labor at something they know becomes a factor in
the world beyond the walls.
Shall the meat packing and producing business be destroyed because
great abuses have recently been unearthed, or shall it be reformed and
corrected?
Shall the oil industry be wiped out because an undue share of the
benefits are absorbed by a few, or shall the conditions be changed, the
wrongs be righted?
Just think of the consistency of the people who rail at the contract
system in prisons, but view with complacency the spectacle, in the
East Side of New York, of almost countless thousands of children
of four years of age, and sometimes younger, working in basements
fourteen hours a day, making paper bags at four cents per thousand; or
three-and-a-half-year-old children making artificial flowers on Mott
Street, at eight cents per gross! Twenty-three thousand licensed, not
to speak of the unknown thousands of unlicensed, tenement houses (home)
factories in the city of New York, of the State of New York, which
sternly forbids any form of contract labor in prison!
Far be it from me to criticise the State account system, ideal,
utopian; but the superintendent who can combine the business qualities
necessary to run successfully and economically the factories with the
executive qualifications requisite for the other duties of prison
governments, is certainly a prodigy, and cannot often be found.
THE REFORMATORY
Neither have I anything to say against the reformatory system of manual
training, so called, which builds only to destroy again, except to
regret that the only way the State provides manual training for its
young men is through the passport and credentials of crime.
THE HABIT OF LABOR
It is not so necessary that a convict shall know a trade, in these
days of machinery and constant and continual changes in the methods
of manufacture, as it is that he shall have developed in him habits
of industry and the willingness to work at what he can do. The great
trouble with the average convict is, that he not only does not know
a trade, but that he has not been drilled in any kind of labor,
and prefers to obtain his substance from the labor of others, by
surreptitious, unlawful and unjust means. The _habit_ of labor is what
he needs more than the specific kind of work.
As Superintendent Brockway said many years ago: “Only motivelessness is
the seat of incorrigibility. To discover or create a want is to find
a motive. Given a motive, you may direct a habit. To form a habit is
to create character. Habit is the school of conscience. Conscience and
habit reinforce one another.”
Let us have the _habit_ of labor rather than the expensive training in
trades, which in countless thousands of great industrial establishments
will be of no additional value.
LITERARY DISCIPLINE
Next to education in labor, I place as the most important factor in
prison discipline the development of the mind through the medium of the
various agencies that may be employed for that purpose, not forgetting
that labor develops the mind as well as the muscle.
An overwhelming majority of the inmates of any prison are densely and
grossly ignorant, and mentally deficient. The polished, scholarly,
shrewd criminal is a creature of fiction, not of fact, the exception,
not the rule. The average convict is a living example of Horace Mann’s
aphorism, that “ignorance in this country is a crime.”
THE PRISON SCHOOL
The convict’s mental discipline can be accomplished in many ways,
one of which should be the prison school. The work here will often
have to be of the most elementary character. This work should not be
merely perfunctory, but should have the most careful attention and
consideration. The eagerness with which even comparatively old men
undertake to master the simplest primer is one of the pathetic but
encouraging aspects of prison-school life.
As the school will probably have to be an evening school of but few
hours’ duration, the course of study will necessarily have to be
comparatively brief, in order that all inmates needing its help may
have their turn.
But the brief term in school should be supplemented by a course of
reading and study in the cells, or elsewhere, which should have the
same attention, the same systematic oversight and encouragement that
the work in the school had. This serves a twofold purpose: first, to
drill and discipline the minds, furnish them with concrete information;
and second, to fulfill a vital necessity in proper prison discipline,
the continual occupation of the subject in his waking hours, with
labor, study or proper recreation.
The writer recalls reading recently with some curiosity and interest a
stricture written some nineteen years ago on the methods of the Elmira
Reformatory referring to the study in the cells of “The Prologue of
the Canterbury Tales,” “The Tragedy of Hamlet,” Emerson’s “May Day,”
Browning’s “Paracelsus,” and similar literature, and the critic stated
that if the convicts are to remain in prison for life, there can be no
objection to such reading, but otherwise, the time thus occupied is
worse than wasted.
But there is where the critic is wofully mistaken. No man can read
even such classics as are here named without being substantially and
materially benefited and strengthened, and better able to cope with
the practical bread-and-butter part of life. This statement may seem
far-fetched, but it is true.
But he does not need to be confined to such books. In this intensely
practical age, books are as practical as other things. In the
institution over which I preside, scores of men are taking courses
in the correspondence schools, doing well, and neglecting no prison
requirements. Let the library be stocked with practical handbooks
that tell men how to do things, such as to mix concrete, lay brick,
build houses, construct telephone lines, run machinery, and similar
enterprises.
Prison libraries are generally the result of heterogeneous and
indiscriminate donations, the aftermath of the spring house-cleanings
of the philanthropically inclined. Such donations should be accepted in
the spirit in which given, graciously, thankfully, then where proper,
classified, catalogued and used. But this source should not be depended
on entirely, or even largely, to supply the library. The books should
be selected with as much care and fidelity as they are selected for a
university or a public library, for they are to accomplish the same
purpose.
THE DAILY AND WEEKLY NEWSPAPER
The writer never shared in the fear of the daily or weekly newspaper in
the prison. He acknowledges their necessity to himself, and feels that
what is helpful to him ought not seriously to injure his men. In this
day, the yellow journals, so called, are mighty agencies for reform,
and they and their associate muck rakers, the magazines, are uncovering
frauds and wrongs in high places, and driving powerful wrongdoers to
cover; and when their work is completed, the smaller criminals will not
have the baleful example of some people in high places to justify them
in their evil ways. The taste for a blood-and-thunder paper, magazine
or book, is infinitely preferable to none at all. The taste will pall
eventually on such pabulum and call for better.
Every prison is a community of itself and to itself. The things that
elevate people outside, should be found inside the walls. There should
be neatness and cleanliness and sanitary conditions everywhere. The
lawns should be green, neat and carefully kept. Every prison should
have a greenhouse, and flowers should abound in profusion, for
civilizing, ennobling and disciplinary powers of nature at her fairest
cannot be over-estimated.
The reading courses should be supplemented by instructive lectures and
literary entertainments, for such times as are practicable. Theatricals
should be permitted and encouraged at intervals. Such relaxation is a
great lubricant. Quartettes, octettes and choirs should be organized,
and all the men possible taught vocal music under a competent
instructor. Orchestras and brass bands should be maintained from the
inmates, and music should be a feature of very proper occasion.
To the timid soul who fears that all these pains will pamper the
convict and make him love the prison and do something to be returned,
let me say that the greatest punishment is in being immured behind
great walls beyond which he cannot go, and any deprivation of the
elements of reform and enlightened discipline is a mere bagatelle
compared to the main fact of imprisonment. As Chaplain Tribou forcibly
says: “Men are not sent to prison to be punished, they are punished by
being sent to prison.”
Let the great aim be to show the men the many legitimate avenues of
improvement, enlightenment, enjoyment and amusements that are open to
those who never transgress the law.
Convicts are not to be classed as a peculiar species of genus homo, but
are to be regarded as _individuals_, amenable to the same influences,
the same treatment, the same hopes as other men. Charles Reade, in
his famous book “It Is Never Too Late to Mend,” tells of two little
children who come to see a thief just arrested. “Farmer Fielding,” says
the little girl, courtesying, a mode of reverence which was instantly
copied by the boy, “we are come to see the thief; they say you have
caught one.” “Oh dear!” and her bright little countenance was overcast,
“I couldn’t have told it from a man.”
Prison sentiment is a powerful auxiliary in discipline, and the
consciousness among the men that “a square deal” from the management
can be depended upon for the cause of enlightenment, refinement, cheer
and relaxation, is worth more than a regiment of soldiers.
RELIGION AS A FACTOR
Religion ought to be a mighty factor in correct prison discipline. If
_good_ men need religion to help them and sustain them, certainly _bad_
men need it far more. This department of discipline should be presided
over and directed by a strong, level-headed, pious God-fearing man, who
may have at once the confidence of the warden and his subordinates, and
the inmates as well, a very difficult undertaking.
A chaplain who mistakes his mission and attends to matters not within
his province, can tear up and destroy the discipline of a prison more
quickly and effectively than anyone else in it. But his opportunities
for good are as great as, or greater than, for evil, and if he can
discern between those who desire real spiritual consolation and those
who are after the loaves and fishes, between spiritual pardon and
official clemency, and devote himself unreservedly to the one and
resolutely eschew the other, no man can overestimate his value.
The warden and the chaplain should go hand in hand, each sustaining the
other. They need to have a perfect understanding, neither mistrusting
the other. And with such an understanding, let the chaplain have entire
charge of his church and other spiritual services, and resolutely
exclude the self-constituted evangelist, the chance visitor, and forbid
absolutely the spectacular and highly emotional harangues of people
utterly unacquainted with the population with which they seek to deal.
In nothing should there be more rigid censorship and more careful
espionage than in the chapel and other religious services.
To quote from an address made by me before the National Prison
Association in Louisville in 1903: “The influence of sightseers
and idle visitors to prisons, always bad, reaches the acme of its
perniciousness in the chapel service, if unrestrained and unguided
by prison officials of experience and firmness, who alone are in a
position to know that sickly sentimentalism is the worst possible
pabulum to offer men already too eager to justify their evil deeds.”
THE DISCIPLINE OF OFFICERS
The question at once comes up, how are all these elements of discipline
to be arranged for in a prison. Who are to provide and arrange for them?
This is altogether the most difficult question to answer. The most
careful and exacting discipline is not for the _convict_, but for the
_officials_ of a prison.
If convicts are to be gradually educated and turned from crime into
virtue, out of slothfulness and viciousness into habits of industry,
thrift, sobriety, regularity and evenness of life, it must be through
the agency of officers, themselves disciplined, educated and schooled
in self-control. “No man is fit to command who has not first learned to
obey.”
No man can hope to have zeal, skill and care, the patience and
fidelity to bring up men from the depths of ignorance to the level of
intelligence, who has not himself gone over a part of the road. “Such
officers are not found.” “They must be taught and trained.”
Superintendent Brockway has said: “The warden of a prison receives
into his charge with the bodily presence of the prisoners, their very
soul life, and is clothed with the authority and the duty to develop
that life for fullness and perfection. He who enters upon the work
of soul culture, touches the life and forces of a mysterious realm.
His attitude should be profoundly reverent, for he invades a sacred
precinct.”
This being the case, nothing but high grade, intelligent, educated men,
should be permitted to have charge of this soul life. It is absurd to
hope that any other can administer the discipline necessary to build up
men whom society has failed or neglected to cultivate.
Every employé of a prison should be a man of good appearance, no
physical blemishes, a man of high character, and should possess at
least a good English education and be a student.
In many States, only those who have certain views upon the tariff and
finance, or who are supposed to have, are permitted to have positions
as officers in the prisons. But even there, a schedule of requirements
within that limit may be arranged for, and rigidly adhered to. There
ought to be an age limit, height, and other physical requirements, and
an educational test. A mere recommendation from a politician, however
high, is usually not worth the paper upon which it is written, chiefly
because the aforesaid politician has only the most vague idea of the
actual requirements of the prison official, and is under the impression
that anybody who can occupy space will do.
There ought to be a school for the preparation of persons for
institutional work. Such a school should be a national one and would be
immensely profitable in the increased reformatory results in prisons,
the saving of many insane from helpless insanity, and the reclaiming of
many dependents.
With crime costing $300,000,000 a year, and every criminal saved worth
a least $1,600 a year to the nation, the necessity for such a school
for training specialists is very great.
DRILLING OF NEW OFFICERS
The evolution of a new guard is one of the interesting, but soul-trying
experiences of every prison warden. Perhaps the warden, before
assigning the new man to duty, talks to him, admonishing him as to
his procedure, and aiming to tell him of the pitfalls that experience
has pointed out. But he talks “to ears that hear not.” He closes his
first interview by handing the new man a book of rules for his perusal.
But they are given “to eyes that see not.” That book of rules is the
result of the experience, the mistakes, the observations, the failures
and the successes of generations of prison officials, and can no more
be fathomed by a new guard at once, than can the Constitution of the
United States, upon first reading, be comprehended by one of Upton
Sinclair’s Lithuanians on his journey to the Chicago stockyards.
Under the present system, that guard must learn largely by mortifying
experiences, the commission of serious mistakes, alike costly to the
institution and its wards.
While there are no general schools for the preparation of officers for
institutional work (the School of Philanthropy of New York possibly
excepted), yet there may be organized in every prison a school for the
education and development of officers, and this should be done. Let
there be a definite course of reading and study arranged for officers
by the superintendent, and have frequent examinations and discussions
bearing on prison problems.
Fortunately our literature is rich in books worthy the most careful
study and research. There is Prof. Henderson’s admirable text book
on “Dependents, Defectives and Delinquents;” Dr. E. C. Wines on “The
State of Prisons and Child Saving Institutions,” the many valuable
contributions of Rev. S. J. Barrows, Superintendent Brockway, Joseph F.
Scott, Frank L. Randall, Revs. August Drahms, F. H. Wines, A. McDonald,
Beccaria and Howard, Lombroso and Dugdale, Eugene Smith and Charlton T.
Lewis and scores of others.
Charles Reade’s great muck-rake book “It Is Never Too Late to Mend,”
which drove the separate and silent system out of England, deserves the
most careful study and thought. Victor Hugo’s valued “Les Miserables”
cannot be read too carefully or critically. Dickens’ “American Notes”
gives a most graphic account of the separate system, and his “Pickwick
Papers” portray most powerfully the debtor’s jail.
Every report of the National Prison Association and the Conference
of Charities and Correction, replete as they are with invaluable
discussions of vital topics, should be read by every prison official,
as well also as the different annual or biennial reports issued by the
different institutions throughout the country, which contain points of
inestimable value on conducting prisons.
In one of the offices of the model prisons of this country is a great
round table capable of accommodating thirty or forty people. Around
this table at intervals officers are seated to listen to lectures
and hear and participate in discussions upon approved methods of
accomplishing the best work. This might well be emulated in every
similar institution.
There should be a fund set aside in every institution to defray the
expenses of a number of officials, annually to visit other institutions
for the purpose of observing how the work is done elsewhere, and thus
by actual contact to obtain the most approved methods. And this ought
not to be confined to the heads of departments alone, but should be
open to even the humblest official in his turn. In addition to its
practical value, it makes him realize that his work is a profession not
to be despised or made light of, and that the curing of moral ailments,
the helping of those who cannot help themselves, is a grand and a
glorious calling, exceeded in its value to the world by no other.
THE OFFICERS’ SOCIAL ENVIRONMENTS
When the day’s work is done officers should ordinarily leave the
institution and its incidents behind them. They should participate
actively and zealously in the outside social and religious matters of
the community in which they are located. This balances them and gives
them tone, and prevents pessimism, which may otherwise control them.