[Under this heading will appear each month numerous paragraphs of
general interest, relating to the prison field and the treatment of the
delinquent.]
_Convicts Put at Road Making._--With the coming of open weather the
question of the relation of convicts to road making is reviving in
different parts of the country.
W. M. Gammon, Rome, Ga., chairman of the Board of Commissioners Roads
and Revenue, Floyd County, writes to the Manufacturers’ Record:
“The road from Rome to Chattanooga will be a graded macadamized road,
with concrete-steel bridges over all streams and concrete culverts over
all drains. Through Floyd county it will be of the same class as that
of the government road through the Chickamauga Park to Lafayette in
Walker county, with which this road will connect.
“The road will be built with convict labor. This county has two gangs
of 50 convicts each, 60 mules, seven road graders, two traction
engines, with teams of steel cars and road rollers. The bridges and
culverts will be built by a bridge gang of trained convicts. These
convicts have become really experts in this line and will construct
the bridges at about one-half the contract price. In fact, we find
the concrete culverts with this labor about the cheapest we can
build--about $3 per cubic yard. With this gang we have built over 30
miles of this class of roads the past 18 months, 30 concrete-steel
bridges and 120 concrete culverts.
“If all the States would adopt the Georgia convict system, we would
in a few years revolutionize road building in the South and have
first-class roads from the Potomac to Mexico.
“Chattanooga county and Walker county will only have about 16 miles to
build of this road, and they propose to connect with our road and the
Government road at Lafayette.
“This county has already built two roads of this character from Rome
to the Alabama line, and with the co-operation of the Alabama counties
expect to continue them to Birmingham. This county will also complete
this summer one road to Polk county and another to Barlow, and with the
co-operation of the other counties expects to continue the roads to
Atlanta.
“We expect in the near future to have a through line from Chattanooga
to Birmingham and Atlanta, passing through Rome. We advocate putting
all convicts on the roads, and when the people understand the great
benefits to be derived from this work we will soon have a splendid
highway from Washington through Virginia, Tennessee and Georgia to the
Gulf Coast in Florida.”
The new Kansas law allowing the prisoners of county jails to work on
roads will greatly relieve congestion in the Wyandotte county jail,
save that county thousands of dollars and improve the roads.
The Commissioners of Wyandotte county are planning to have steel cages
built, each one to hold four “bunks,” to care for the prisoners while
they are working in the quarries and on the roads. In this way the men
can work eight or nine hours a day and no time will be consumed in
bringing them to and from the jail. The cages will be built on wheels,
so that they can be drawn from place to place.
_George Junior Republic During 1910_--The annual report for 1910 of the
George Junior Republic, Freeville, N. Y., looking, with its pictures
of open cottages and stretches of unwalled country, like a real estate
company’s advertisement of rural sites, or the prospectus of a summer
camp, is out. One imagines, as he reads, that he has in hand not the
annual statement of an institution for delinquents, but a breezy
report on the growth of a modern village, or a pamphlet boosting some
“Summerville--1915” movement.
On October 1, 1910, there were 137 “citizens” in the George Junior
Republic. A “citizen” is simply an inmate. During the year there had
been discharged 89 boys and girls, and just the same number had been
received. With the exception of four, concerning whom it is not stated
how they were received, the report shows that these had been taken
in either for delinquency or for improper guardianship, from poor
officers, from parents or guardians, or by their own application.
Eleven are listed as having been received for delinquency, and 15 by
their own application.
The Republic is a training school for all classes of boys and girls.
The only qualifications for membership are sound minds and bodies--no
mental defectives or cripples, deformed or sickly children are
retained--and an age of at least 14 years. The Republic is a big farm
of 350 acres, having upon it a modern village with its own system
of water, sewerage, steam heat, roadways, and cement walks. Perhaps
the two main reasons for its interest to most people are its form of
government, with legislative, judicial, and executive departments, and
the independent basis of self-support which every boy and girl within
its bounds is obliged to maintain.
It has often been said that a successful school in the George Junior
Republic was an impossibility because of the heterogeneous character
and training of the pupils. From 1896 to 1905, a school for elementary
pupils was maintained. In the latter year was opened what is known
as the Hunt Memorial School. Later a high school was added. In June,
1910, regents’ diplomas were awarded to the first class of graduates
from this high school. Four of the students entered college without
conditions. The examinations in 1910 showed a decided academic
awakening among the students. In June, 1910, the first prizes in the
Owasco Valley prize speaking contest were awarded to a boy and girl
from the Hunt Memorial School of George Junior Republic.
Existing without State aid, and with endowments which give an income of
only $1,151, the Republic faced, on September 30, 1910, a deficit of
$14,647.75.
In January, 1911, was opened a large gymnasium, the gift of friends of
the Republic.
_Some Bad Conditions in North Carolina_--That all the county convict
camps of the state be placed under a state board of supervisors is a
recommendation embodied in the annual report for 1910, just issued, of
the Board of Public Charities of North Carolina. Thirty-nine counties
maintain these camps. Reports of the county commissioners show that in
17 of these counties the prisoners in the camps are chained together at
night. Sixteen counties report that whipping, administered usually by
the superintendent or foreman, is resorted to as a form of punishment
in the camps.
The report urges also that the burden of executing the conditional
release, or parole law, be lifted from the Governor, on whom it now
rests, and placed upon the prison board of directors, who should be
made a parole board with power to release conditionally every prisoner
except those sentenced for life.
Concerning the county jails in the state, the report says:
“Generally speaking, the prisoners are not kept in as cleanly a
condition as they should be. The bedding and cells more particularly
should be especially cleansed whenever not occupied and ready for the
next comer. The great difficulty is the fact that prisoners wear their
own old clothing into the jail and thus introduce dirt and vermin which
require a continual fight from those in charge. A limited number of
suits could be provided by the county and the men required to bathe and
put these on while their own are fumigated. There is no excuse for the
filth in some of our jails.”
_English Progress_--In the Providence (R. I.) Sunday Journal, of April
9th, the London correspondent of that paper quotes Thomas Holmes,
Secretary of the Howard Association of London, as follows:
“If some of the American methods were grafted on to the English prison
administration, the effect would work remarkably for good. I found that
their probation system was worked much more effectively and thoroughly
than it is in England. Their probation officers are fitted absolutely
for the work. On this side there are no paid probation officers as
such; they are either voluntary workers or servants of some charitable
society, not state officials. At present we are only playing with
the probation idea in England. If we could get men of character and
capability, occupying fairly well-paid posts, we should have better
results than you have in America.”
Secretary Holmes went on to say that in his opinion the weakness in the
position of the American probation officers resided in the fact that
the judges made the appointments. If the probation officer was a strong
man he influenced the judge too much, and if a weak man he was apt to
become creature of the judge.
He feels strongly that England is following the lead of America,
slowly but surely, in the development of the parole system, though no
legislation has as yet been passed in this direction.
“We are getting tired of judges inflicting very long
sentences--practically life sentences,” he says. “There is a constant
agitation always going on behind the scenes to get sentence commuted.
Again and again the Home Secretary--whom I know and respect--has to
reconsider the sentences prisoners are serving. This puts him in
a delicate position. He has to consult the judges who passed the
sentences. If the Home Secretary commutes the sentence it is a snub to
the judge.
“What we want in England at each prison is a board, consisting of the
governor, chaplain, doctor, a representative of the Home Office and one
or two visiting justices. They should have the power of releasing on
parole any prisoner whose condition warranted that concession. But the
American Board of Parole is not comprehensive enough; it is too much in
the hands of one or two.”
The mercantile element in some of the American State prisons came in
for some adverse criticism, but in the matters of greater space, better
buildings, better equipped workshops, greater variety and volume of
work and more recreation and education for the prisoners, the American
State jails, said Secretary Holmes, are superior to the English. But in
the construction and appointment of the local county jails he thinks
the advantage lies with the English models.
_“Twice Born Men;” A Brief Review_--Prisoner’s aid workers will do
well to read Harold Begbie’s book, “Twice Born Men.” It is a striking
psychological study of men who have sounded the depths of human
degredation and misfortune. Its chief practical value to those who are
dealing daily with all sorts and conditions of men, will be in throwing
light on a checkered past which is often only partly revealed by the
applicants themselves.
The reader may feel that the author holds a brief for the Salvation
Army and its work. One might suppose that he was unconscious of
any other religious work being done, except for the fact that he
specifically discredits the efficacy of the ordinary prison chaplain’s
work. It is probably true that the average chaplain might not have
sufficient patience with the particular type of man with whom Mr.
Begbie deals in this book. We cannot forget, however, that this is
only one of many varieties of human experience, and the average prison
chaplain might be far more effective than any one else with the larger
number of men whom the Army might regard as “Hopelessly Good,” but who
nevertheless need the regenerating and sustaining power of religion.
Notwithstanding this seeming limitation of the book, “Twice Born Men”
is a splendid portrayal of the one more or less uniform type of the
anti-social individual. We are especially impressed with the fact that
the materials for this book were secured almost within a stone’s throw
of the aristocratic West End of London. It is almost inconceivable that
a cultured community would permit the continuance of such a festering
sore at its very heels. Fortunately few American cities have such
dangerous proximity of the more healthful districts to its insanitary
cesspools. May we not take hope from the fact that with a wider
separation between the Avenue and the congested district the American
cities are insisting upon the extermination of the latter? Their
darkness is being expelled by the substitution of social settlements
for saloons, and parks and playgrounds for penny-ante and gambling dens.
No reader of “Twice Born Men” can fail to have his faith quickened in
the possibilities of human reclamation. Wide experience may discover
not only one but many motives that will prompt the transformation of
different sorts of men. Nevertheless it gives a renewed courage to
feel that when there has been apparent failure all along the line,
and when all the resources of church and state have been ineffective
in preventing men from reaching the lowest dregs of humanity, there
remains the unusual and striking method of the Salvation Army in its
appeal to the deep-seated and imperishable instinct of religion.