At the discussion on criminals, before the State Board of Charities
and Correction, Albany, N. Y., last December, a change of treatment
was urged, that “Reformation and not punishment should be the end
sought.” Dr. Wm. P. Spratling, Medical Superintendent of Craig Colony
for Epileptics, said in part: “I would recommend the following:
_First_--Prevent insanity, epilepsy, imbecility, idiocy, and
feeble-mindedness as far as possible by making it impossible for them
to marry. _Second_--By building less expensive structures in which
defective and dependent State charges shall live. _Third_--Maintain at
less cost the cases that are chronic and incurable, and maintaining
at even greater cost those that probably can be cured. _Fourth_--By
giving those that ought to have it an education that they can use in
the institution that cares for them, or that they may use in the outer
world when they leave the institution.”
Thomas Sturgiss, of New York City, chairman of the Board of Managers
of the Elmira Reformatory, read a paper on “The Treatment of the
Criminal.” The object of the discussion was to devise some plan for
the adoption of a true system of treatment in any and all penal
institutions, and the plan determined was
“_First_--Centralization of prisons of every kind other than those of
temporary detention only, under State control.
“_Second_--That all prisons shall be taken out of politics, and that
they shall be administered by men who are making this profession a
scientific study and a life work.
“_Third_--A classification of all criminals, and a division of them
among institutions according to such analysis.
“_Fourth_--The specializing of such institutions to the end that each
may receive only that class or classes to the treatment of which its
situation, its staff, and its system are deliberately adapted.
“_Fifth_--Experience shows that such classification cannot be made by
the courts, for lack of time and absence of expert testimony. Provision
should be made for such analysis by the head of the institution to
which the prisoner is first sent, and that subsequent transfer in
accordance with such analysis should be legalized both as to the power
of the transferring officer and of the prison to which the transfer is
made.
“_Sixth_--The adoption of the principle that reformation (reformation
of character) and not punishment is the end sought by imprisonment,
with such application of the indeterminate sentence and the parole
system as the class and condition of the prisoner and the character of
the management may justify.
“The time has gone by when we seek to punish the criminal simply.
Punishment as a deterrent has failed. We now seek to reform, if we
can, and to seclude for the protection of society if we cannot.
Education and training in self-control and in the ability to do useful
wage-earning work, are the basis of reform.
“Whatever the system in any prison, it should contain, high above
everything else, the element of hope. This should never be abandoned
while life lasts, if the mental powers are normal. Omit this and
you take away the strongest inspiration to reform and substitute
despair. Include it and you give the guardian of the prisoner his
strongest weapon; and to the prisoner himself, a gleam of light in the
surrounding darkness, shining from the open door through which, if he
wills it, he may once again pass to finish his life experience under
the conditions of freedom.”
“Every prison from a jail up should be in some measure a reformatory,
an institution where the inmates received instruction in industrial
pursuits, in wage-earning labor, in letters, and moral precepts.”
Secretary McLaughlin of the N. Y. State Prison Commission, stated that
the present prison population of the State in custody was 10,350 (being
a decrease in five years of 2,311) of these 1,197 were women of which
342 were in the workhouse, Blackwell’s Island.
Among the State improvements suggested were:
1. In order to furnish the convicts with employment under the present
Constitution, further legislative restriction should cease and officers
and institutions should comply with the law in good faith.
2. The state should furnish the prisons with new and modern buildings,
especially at Sing Sing and Auburn.
3. The hope to see the lock-step and the prison stripes suppressed
among the prisoners of the higher grades in every prison.
4. When prisoners, whose education has been utterly neglected are
received, there should be compulsory education in the common English
branches.
5. An efficient parole law should be adopted applicable to the State’s
prisons. Such a law is recommended by the Commission and by the
Superintendent and wardens of prisons.
6. The State should watch over a man after his discharge from prison,
aid him in finding employment, and in the meantime, render him
assistance if necessary.
7. It has been wisely suggested that even life prisoners should be
under some system of parole. Probably by special enactment. There are
177 life convicts, many are not habitual criminals, but convicted of
murder in the second degree, while in heat of passion or under the
influence of liquor. Some have already served 20 to 40 years.