To obtain an estimate of this cost, however, the speaker said that
$1,600 per year was the amount of money stolen by the average habitual
criminal, and it was certainly a conservative estimate; there were at
present 100,000 prisoners in confinement, of whom 40 or 50 per cent.
were habitual; but this did not represent the cost of drunkenness
which, he said, is generally crime in its most debased form, nor the
cost of crime which was never detected. Adding up all these items of
expense chargeable to crime, the speaker produced the enormous sum of
$600,000,000 per year, which, he said, exceeded the value of the cotton
or wheat crop. Any help for the future must come by regenerating the
people by Christianity.
JOSEPH F. SCOTT, SUPERINTENDENT MASSACHUSETTS REFORMATORY,
offered a resolution, the substance of which was: That this Prison
Association endorse the “Indeterminate sentence law system, and
recommend that the various States adopt it as part of their criminal
jurisprudence.”
There was considerable discussion, and it was referred to a committee
to report at the closing session.
The Committee on Place for holding the next Congress reported that they
had selected Kansas City for September, 1901, and that Philadelphia had
made a bold fight for it. It was voted by the Congress to accept the
report of the committee, and made it unanimous.
A resolution was passed, as a matter of testimonial of past duties to
Mr. Z. R. Brockway, who had resigned the charge of Elmira Reformatory,
N. Y.