NEW SERIES No. 58
THE JOURNAL
OF
PRISON DISCIPLINE
AND
PHILANTHROPY
REPORT OF ACTING COMMITTEE
REPORT OF COMMISSION TO INVESTIGATE
PRISON SYSTEMS
MILITARY DISCIPLINE AND PUNISHMENTS, ETC.
1919
ISSUED ANNUALLY BY
THE PENNSYLVANIA PRISON SOCIETY
FORREST BUILDING, 119 SOUTH FOURTH STREET
PHILADELPHIA, PA.
PRESS OF ALLEN, LANE & SCOTT, PHILADELPHIA.
OFFICIAL VISITORS.
No person who is not an official visitor of the prison, or who has not
a written permission, according to such rules as the Inspector may
adopt as aforesaid, shall be allowed to visit the same; the official
visitors are: the Governor, the Speaker and members of the Senate; the
Speaker and members of the House of Representatives; the Secretary of
the Commonwealth; the Judges of the Supreme Court; the Attorney-General
and his Deputies; the President and Associate Judges of all the Courts
in the State; the Mayor and Recorders of the cities of Philadelphia,
Lancaster and Pittsburgh; Commissioners and Sheriffs of the several
Counties; and the “ACTING COMMITTEE OF THE PHILADELPHIA SOCIETY FOR
ALLEVIATING THE MISERIES OF PUBLIC PRISONS.” (Note: Now named “THE
PENNSYLVANIA PRISON SOCIETY.”)--_Section 7, Act of April 23, 1829._
The above was supplemented by the following Act, approved March 20,
1903:
AN ACT
To make active or visiting committees of Societies incorporated
for the purpose of visiting and instructing prisoners official
visitors of penal and reformatory institutions.
SECTION 1. Be it enacted, etc., That the active or visiting committee
of any society heretofore incorporated and now existing in the
Commonwealth for the purpose of visiting and instructing prisoners,
or persons confined in any penal or reformatory institution, and
alleviating their miseries, shall be and are hereby made official
visitors of any jail, penitentiary, or other penal or reformatory
institution in this Commonwealth, maintained at the public expense,
with the same powers, privileges and functions as are vested in the
official visitors of prisons and penitentiaries as now prescribed by
law: _Provided_, That no active or visiting committee of any such
society shall be entitled to visit such jails or penal institutions,
under this act unless notice of the names of the members of such
committee, and the terms of their appointment, is given by such society
in writing, under its corporate seal, to the warden, superintendent or
other officer in charge of such jail or other officer in charge of any
such jail or other penal institution.
APPROVED--The 20th day of March, A. D. 1903.
NEW SERIES No. 58
THE JOURNAL
OF
PRISON DISCIPLINE
AND
PHILANTHROPY
REPORT OF ACTING COMMITTEE
REPORT OF COMMISSION TO INVESTIGATE
PRISON SYSTEMS
MILITARY DISCIPLINE AND PUNISHMENTS, ETC.
1919
ISSUED ANNUALLY BY
THE PENNSYLVANIA PRISON SOCIETY
FORREST BUILDING, 119 SOUTH FOURTH STREET
PHILADELPHIA, PA.
FORM OF BEQUEST OF PERSONAL PROPERTY.
I give and bequeath to “THE PENNSYLVANIA PRISON SOCIETY” the sum
of................Dollars.
FORM OF DEVISE OF REAL ESTATE.
I give and bequeath to “THE PENNSYLVANIA PRISON SOCIETY” all that
certain piece and parcel of land. (Here enter the description.)
OFFICERS FOR THE SOCIETY FOR 1919
PRESIDENT
EDWARD M. WISTAR, Provident Building, Philadelphia.
VICE-PRESIDENT
NORRIS J. SCOTT, Moylan, Pa.
SECRETARY
ALBERT H. VOTAW, 119 S. Fourth Street, Philadelphia.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY
CHARLES P. HASTINGS, 119 S. Fourth Street, Philadelphia.
TREASURER
JOHN WAY, 409 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia.
COUNSELORS
FREDERICK L. CLARK, West End Trust Building, Philadelphia.
WILLIAM DRAPER LEWIS, Law Department, University of Pennsylvania.
GENERAL AGENT
FREDERICK J. POOLEY, 119 S. Fourth Street, Philadelphia.
ACTING COMMITTEE
FOR ONE YEAR
Harrison Walton John A. Duncan Fred Swarts Brink
Charles P. Hastings Mrs. Mary S. Grigg Dr. B. Frank Kehler
Rev. F. H. Senft William Morris Dr. J. J. Mullowney
Isaac P. Miller Mrs. Emma L. Thompson Robert B. Haines, Jr.
Charles McDole Rev. Thomas Latimer H. Wellington Wood
FOR TWO YEARS
Harry Kennedy George S. Wetherell Dr. Charles Williams
Henry C. Cassel Frank H. Longshore Charles C. Simmington
Mrs. Layyah Barakat C. Wilfred Conard Mrs. Eliza M. Cope
Rev. J. F. Ohl Rev. M. Reed Minnich Watson W. Dewees
Mary S. Wetherell Miss Emily Whelen George A. Coburn
FOR THREE YEARS
Frederick J. Pooley Miss Annie McFedries Joseph P. Byers
William Koelle Dr. John Frazer Franklin S. Edmonds
Deborah C. Leeds Dr. J. Treichler Butz Leon J. Obermayer
Mrs. Clara Hodges Allen George W. Wilkins Miss M. N. Cochran, Jr.
Miss Rebecca P. Latimer Mrs. Mary Ella deLong Miss Florence B. Kane
ACTING COMMITTEE FOR THE STATE-AT-LARGE
FOR ONE YEAR FOR TWO YEARS FOR THREE YEARS
BUCKS COUNTY ALLEGHENY COUNTY ALLEGHENY COUNTY
Mrs. Anna K. Garges Paul T. Beiswenger Rev. F. W. Beiswenger
CHESTER COUNTY MONTGOMERY COUNTY CENTRE COUNTY
Mrs. B. K. C. Marshall Capt. Nicholas Baggs Hon. J. Linn Harris
YORK COUNTY LUZERNE COUNTY
Miss Rhoda M. Starr Mrs. Anabel Wallace
STANDING COMMITTEES FOR 1919
_Visiting Committee--Eastern Penitentiary_:
MEN
Rev. J. F. Ohl Charles P. Hastings Edward M. Wistar
Rev. F. H. Senft Charles McDole Fred Swarts Brink
Harry Kennedy John A. Duncan George W. Wilkins
William Koelle Albert H. Votaw Dr. B. F. Kehler
George S. Wetherell Rev. Thomas Latimer Leon J. Obermayer
Henry C. Cassel Isaac P. Miller Chas. C. Simmington
Harrison Walton Rev. M. Reed Minnich Geo. A. Coburn
Frank H. Longshore Dr. Charles Williams H. Wellington Wood
William Morris
WOMEN
Deborah C. Leeds Miss R. P. Latimer Mrs. Mary Ella deLong
Mary S. Wetherell Miss Emily Whelen Mrs. Layyah Barakat
Mrs. Mary S. Grigg
_Visiting Committee_--_Philadelphia County Prison_--_Moyamensing_:
John A. Duncan Norris J. Scott Deborah C. Leeds
Rev. J. F. Ohl H. Wellington Wood Mrs. Clara Hodges Allen
Frederick J. Pooley Albert H. Votaw Miss R. P. Latimer
_Visiting Committee_--_Philadelphia County Prison_--_Holmesburg_:
Frederick J. Pooley William Koelle John A. Duncan
_Visiting Committee_--_House of Correction_:
William Koelle Robert B. Haines, Jr.
Fred Swarts Brink Mrs. Layyah Barakat
_Committee on Discharged Prisoners_:
Dr. Charles Williams George W. Wilkins
Miss Florence B. Kane Charles P. Hastings
_Committee on Legislation_:
Rev. J. F. Ohl Mrs. E. M. Cope Hon. J. Linn Harris
C. Wilfred Conard Joseph P. Byers
_Committee on Membership_:
Isaac P. Miller George W. Wilkins Miss M. N. Cochran, Jr.
John A. Duncan George S. Wetherell
_Committee on Police Matrons_:
Mrs. Mary S. Grigg Miss Emily Whelen Mrs. Mary Ella deLong
_Editorial Committee_:
Rev. J. F. Ohl Miss Florence B. Kane Joseph P. Byers
Rev. F. H. Senft Albert H. Votaw
_Finance Committee_:
George S. Wetherell John A. Duncan
Robert B. Haines, Jr. Fred Swarts Brink
_Auditors_:
John A. Duncan Isaac P. Miller Watson W. Dewees
THE JOURNAL OF PRISON DISCIPLINE AND PHILANTHROPY
ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-SECOND ANNUAL MEETING OF THE PENNSYLVANIA PRISON
SOCIETY.
The 132d Annual Meeting of THE PENNSYLVANIA PRISON SOCIETY was held
by appointment in Assembly Hall, Church Building, northwest corner
Fifteenth and Race Streets, Philadelphia, on the evening of January 14,
1919, President Edward M. Wistar in the Chair.
Twenty-five members were present.
The Minutes of the 131st Meeting were read and approved.
The Report of the Acting Committee for the year 1918 was read by the
Secretary. It was approved and directed to be printed. (See pages 7-14.)
The Treasurer, John Way, presented a detailed statement of the receipts
and payments for the fiscal year ending December 31, 1918, accompanied
by a schedule of the securities held for the Society by the Fiscal
Agent, The Provident Life and Trust Company. The statement had been
audited and the securities had been examined by the auditors. (See page
15.)
On behalf of the Committee on Nominations, the Secretary presented a
list of nominations for the Officers of the Society and for members of
the Acting Committee to succeed those whose terms expire on February
1. Watson W. Dewees and George S. Wetherell were appointed Tellers.
The election being duly held the persons nominated were elected to the
offices designated in the report of the Committee. (See page 3.)
A communication was read, sent by Leonard G. Yoder, Esq., Solicitor
for the Berks County Prison, calling attention to the fact that the
Act of the Assembly, approved 1917, provided that prisoners in the
county prisons could be employed at agricultural labor only during the
continuance of the war which is now interrupted by the armistice. The
net profit of the labor of prisoners thus employed in Berks County in
1918 was $800, and the Solicitor recommends that this Act should apply
permanently and requests that this Society should exert an influence
on the present Assembly for the purpose of encouraging the continuation
of this beneficial measure for the employment of prisoners. By motion,
the communication was referred to the Legislative Committee of the
Acting Committee.
Dr. George W. Kirchwey of New York delivered the Annual Address. He is
the Counsel for the Commission under appointment to investigate prisons
and to recommend such revision of our present penal system as may seem
advisable. While the report of the Commission was not yet entirely
prepared, he intimated that some scheme of Central Administration would
be proposed, not so much to take the management away from the present
Boards of Inspectors as to exercise advisory and supervisory powers and
to correlate our various correctional institutions. The conditions now
obtaining in regard to the employment of prisoners were deplorable in
this Keystone State, and it was the aim of the Commission to provide
some form of productive labor for all able-bodied prisoners. They were
prepared to recommend an extension of agricultural operations and
favored the early removal of the Eastern Penitentiary to a farm in the
eastern portion of the State. He deprecated every form of brutality in
the treatment of delinquents and evidently thought the old repressive
spirit and measures could still be found to have lodgment in some
of our prisons. He was sure that a large number of our prisoners,
possibly a majority, were mentally deficient and ought to have special
treatment adapted to their needs, which, under present circumstances
of incarceration, was impossible. If we wish to restore the men whom
we confine in our prisons, we must do more than simply restrain them
within certain limits; we must treat them as erring brothers and
sisters, not as dumb driven cattle.
To nominate to our next Annual Meeting the officers of the Society
and members of the Acting Committee whose terms expire next year, the
President appointed William Biddle, Robert Dunning Dripps, John A.
Duncan, William C. Warren and Miss Emily Whelen.
ALBERT H. VOTAW,
_Secretary_.
REPORT OF ACTING COMMITTEE FOR THE YEAR 1918.
At a meeting which was held May 8, 1787, in Philadelphia, at which
the “Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Prisons”
was organized, provision was made for the appointment of an Acting
Committee which should discharge the executive functions of the
Society. It was composed of nine persons, the President, the two
Vice-Presidents, and six additional members. The first Acting Committee
was composed of
Bishop William White, President,
Dr. Henry Helmuth, Vice-President,
Richard Wells, Vice-President.
Additional members:
Tench Coxe, John Kaighn,
Dr. George Duffield, Benjamin Wynkoop,
William Rogers, George Krebs.
From time to time, on account of additional duties, responsibilities
and opportunities for service, this Committee has been enlarged until
at the present time it is limited to sixty persons, and at the present
time is composed of fifty-six members.
In 1886 the name of the Society was changed to “The Pennsylvania Prison
Society”--a name indicating no change of purpose, but rather a wider
scope of operations.
In the year 1829, the Acting Committee, by Act of Assembly, were
appointed Official Visitors of all prisons in the Commonwealth. Our
Society was the only one having such duties until the year 1903, when,
by another Act of the Assembly, the privilege was granted to the Acting
Committee of the Catholic Society for the Visitation of Prisoners.
OFFICIAL VISITATION.
While many members of our Visiting Committees have been zealous in
their endeavor to open the door of hope to the prisoners, and to
stimulate them to higher ideals of life, the general conditions
obtaining in the prisons have also claimed attention. It is a
prescribed function of the Visiting Committee of any prison, whether
State or County, to note the “condition of the buildings ... the
discipline and management,” and to make report of their observations.
Great discretion and a full understanding of the situation are
essential in publishing the results of such comments and observations.
In the early history of our organization, there were so many abuses
prevalent in the management of prisons that by far the larger part
of the activities of the Acting Committee consisted in the effort to
remedy the evils of management. These efforts were eminently successful
in those days of emergence from medieval methods; and while we all
rejoice in the very great amelioration of conditions, it must be
confessed that penal improvement has lagged behind all other agencies
for betterment. If we compare our educational system, hospitals,
transportation methods, agricultural development--any field of human
endeavor--with our correctional institutions, we are overwhelmed by the
extreme lack of corresponding progress.
PERSONAL VISITATION.
The reports of the Visiting Committees for the year 1918 indicate that
there is no loss of interest or effort in seeking to restore men and
women to their better selves. In consequence of the quarantine caused
by the epidemic of influenza, which resulted in keeping visitors away
from four to six weeks, the statistics do not bulk as large as usual.
Number of reported visits to the Eastern Penitentiary 337
Number of reported interviews with the inmates 6,435
Number of reported interviews with the inmates of the
Philadelphia County Prison 3,631
Number of prisoners interviewed at Central Station
by Agent 15,933
Number of discharged prisoners receiving direct aid 590
On practically every Sabbath one or more of our members take part in
the religious services in the prisons.
We are convinced that many of those with whom we meet from time to time
are victims of circumstances, and also that many of them are defective
in mentality and in self control. At some time, we trust the General
Assembly will take up seriously the subject of the degenerates who need
treatment in accordance with the most approved psychiatric methods.
Some of them need institutional care for a much longer time than is
indicated by the Court sentence. Here they should be restrained until
they are deemed ready to become useful to the community.
EMPLOYMENT OF PRISONERS.
In the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the most flagrant evil of
the prisons is the lack of wholesome employments for the inmates.
Even some of our laws designed to help conditions have aggravated the
evil. For instance, the law of 1913, which, with the best intentions,
repealed other laws for employment in the State Penal Institutions,
in order that the inmates might all be employed in making articles
for State use, did not create a sure market for the articles thus
manufactured, and therefore the number of prisoners profitably employed
in the penitentiaries is not so large as under a former law when 35
per cent. of them could be kept at work in the manufacture of articles
or products to be sold in the open market. A simple remedy for this
deplorable state of affairs may be found in granting the privilege
of selling the surplus stock in the market at the prevailing price.
Organized labor found undesirable competition with the products of free
labor only when the prisoners were employed on the vicious contract
system. Under the present methods, the prisoners are to receive a fair
wage and the products are to be sold at the market price. Perhaps
we could make a beginning by listing certain industries in which
the convicts may be employed. Place no restrictions on agricultural
products, including canned goods, on the work of stone crushing and in
general the manufacture of road-making material, and also allow two or
three indoor industries, such as the manufacture of carpets and knit
goods. Thus the problem may be solved. When we consider the very small
number of persons so employed in comparison with the hordes of outside
workers, it appears very evident that the amount of real competition
would reduce to the vanishing point. No industry would be injured, the
tax-payers would be relieved from a large part of the expense, the
prisoners would earn their own maintenance, and thus the demoralizing
effects of idleness would be averted.
DISCHARGED PRISONERS.
It has sometimes been stated that for some visitors, the prisoner
loses his charm when released from confinement. He may be decidedly
interesting behind the bars, or perhaps he may be simply an object
of curiosity, or a psychological specimen to be studied, like some
abnormal freak of nature. Within the wall the visitor may show warmth,
interest, cordiality, sympathy, a certain degree of familiarity,
but on the outside the atmosphere is below zero. This is a species
of charlatanism for which we have no sympathy. It is an exceedingly
important part of our mission to set the discharged man on his feet,
and to establish his goings. If ever any man needed sympathy and
material aid, it is when the man released from confinement again
becomes a member of the community. Not all the men and women who are
released seem to require special help, but those who are in need are
very greatly dependent upon human kindness till they have regained some
sense of confidence and have again become self-supporting. If aid and
good cheer are not forthcoming at this crucial time of testing, there
is imminent danger of a relapse into former bad habits. We believe that
all of our visitors realize the importance of maintaining our interest
and kindly feeling for the prisoner at the time of his release.
SECURING EMPLOYMENT.
During the last two years there has been no difficulty in finding work
for any able-bodied man. There are some disappointments, but we are
learning not to become discouraged. Possibly we may allow ourselves to
dwell unduly on the failures, when we should recall the many instances
of reclamation. The saying “Once a crook, always a crook” has no
place either in our experience or in our philosophy. If this saying
represents a truth, we would become pessimistic regarding the human
race. Show us the man or woman who has never erred. Please note some
examples:--
The other day we met “A” on Market Street. Accompanied by his little
son, he was speeding away in his “flivver.” He stopped to give us a
greeting, and indicated that happiness and prosperity were his portion.
“B” is a spick and span policeman in a neighboring city. Though you may
say “Set a thief to catch a thief,” this particular guardian of the
public peace is discharging his duty to the community.
“C” seemed particularly pleased to meet us the other day uptown. He had
joined the church, and had attained to the dignity of usher.
“D,” who was once an accomplished burglar, having served at least two
terms in prison, has built up a manufacturing industry, and is quite
prosperous.
“E” is foreman in the jewelry department of a large department store
“somewhere in America.”
“F,” a one-armed piece of ebon jollity, is one of the handiest men
employed on a certain prosperous truck farm.
“G,” who began cooking for Blank Firm at $10 weekly wages, now reports
with a grin that he is getting $65 a month with board and lodging.
“H” is one of the most popular clerks in the office of a mammoth
establishment. That he once fell from grace is known, but it is no
longer reckoned against him.
“I” one year ago began as a solicitor and now his business has so
enlarged that he has taken a suite of rooms for his office.
We could easily exhaust the alphabet with such cases. There are
failures, but we try to discount our disappointments when we take
account of those who are “making good.” The Parole Officers have
informed us that seventy-five per cent. are becoming satisfactory
citizens. By far the larger part of those whom we willingly assist, in
a short time are beyond our ken. They take with them our hopes and our
fears--our fears, that they may again yield to the manifold temptations
on every hand; our hopes, that they have learned their lesson, and with
courage and by the help of divine grace are performing their duty to
the community.
A REVOLVING RELIEF FUND.
A few of those to whom we render assistance return a part, or all,
of the funds which we have advanced to them. We do not press them
for payment. Those who are invalids or who have families to support
are not expected to repay us. From many years of experience, we have
learned that it is not wise indiscriminately to make grants of cash
in hand. Old chums are waiting just around the corner for a treat.
Temptations of all sorts are manifold. We guarantee bills for board
and lodging, purchase tools and clothing, furnish transportation, and
provide outfits for those who are sent to the State Sanatoriums. But
there are some who should feel an obligation to return the value of the
assistance rendered. Thus we hope to create a sort of revolving fund
which may be used for cases of need, and when returned is ready for the
next man. Many of these released men have some natural pride or self
respect, and do not wish to be considered mendicants.
THE AMERICAN PRISON ASSOCIATION.
On account of the epidemic of influenza so prevalent in the autumn,
the meeting of the American Prison Association was called off. At a
meeting of the Executive Committee held recently it was concluded to
postpone till next year the sessions of this body. New York had been
selected as the place, and it has been decided to meet in the same
city, October 20-24, 1919.
THE AGENT’S WORK AT THE CENTRAL POLICE STATION.
One of the most important features of our relief work is under the
management of our Agent, Mr. Fred J. Pooley, at the Central Station,
City Hall. From the forty-two Police Stations throughout the city,
there arrive almost hourly at this Central Station van loads of human
freight which in some way or other must be quickly disposed of by the
Committing Magistrate. Most of these are petty offenders, but also
there are numerous cases of arrest on suspicion or for vagrancy, and
such as these need special care in order to prevent injustice, and to
be saved from criminal associations. Agent Pooley endeavors to have a
brief interview with these derelicts or victims of misfortune before
they are taken before the Magistrate. In ten months of last year he
thus interviewed 15,933 arrested persons, and on their behalf wrote to
their friends 1,937 letters. His experience for many years has taught
him to distinguish the ring of the true from the sound of the false, so
that when the cases come up before the Court, he is ready to interpose
a word on behalf of the accused person. Often the unfortunate man or
woman, boy or girl, is placed in the care of the agent, who sends them
to their homes or friends, or places them in some detention home until
he may verify their story or hear from their parents or relatives. No
day passes with a blank record in this work of rescue.
In the Agent’s report, an abstract of which is printed in the Annual
Journal of which this report forms a part, a number of instances are
narrated, illustrating the importance of this service.
During the time of the closing of the saloons on account of the
epidemic of influenza, the number of arrests for drunkenness and
disorderly conduct greatly decreased, thus clearly demonstrating that a
prohibitory law would have a decided tendency very greatly to diminish
crime and disorder in this city.
LEGISLATION.
We have delayed the printing of our annual report in order to include
in the JOURNAL the Report of the Commission to Investigate Prison
Systems, of which the Secretary of the Society is a member. The
Legislative Committee of the Society has endorsed the findings of the
Commission and has urgently requested the General Assembly to take
favorable action on the bills presented by the Commission. A synopsis
of these bills presents the following desirable features.
1. The enlargement of the functions of the State Board of Public
Charities so as to include the appointment from their number of a
Committee on Delinquency with supervisory power over all prisons of the
Commonwealth and with authority to condemn unsanitary conditions and
provide for betterment, and also to have especial direction over the
prison industries. Medical and psychiatric examination of convicts is
provided with power to transfer defective criminals to the institution
most suitable for their care and restoration.
2. The establishment of State Industrial Farms to which those sentenced
to the county jails may be sent.
3. An Amendment to the law of 1911 which deals with the imposition of
sentences by the Courts to the extent that convicted prisoners may be
eligible for parole when one-third of the maximum sentence has expired.
4. Abolition of the fee system in county jails, a practice universally
condemned by all who have studied the problem.
5. The removal of the Eastern Penitentiary to a farm in the eastern
part of the State. This suggestion is in line with the recommendation
of the Commission of 1915 of which the present Warden was a member. At
that time the purchase of a farm for the use of the institution was
proposed.
6. The provision that goods and articles made by the labor of prisoners
shall be used whenever practicable by public institutions of the
Commonwealth, thus insuring a market for such products.
The full report of the Commission is found in the present issue of the
JOURNAL, pages 19-46.
THE ROLL OF MEMBERS.
During the last year we have to a considerable extent enlarged the
membership of our Society. We presented the matter to a number of our
citizens, many of whom had been contributors to our work for some time,
who very cordially accepted membership. Seventy-five persons have
been added to our membership during the year 1918, and we are deeply
gratified to place on our roll the names of so many estimable citizens.
The number of members at the present time, including life members, is
252.
MORTUARY NOTICES.
During the last year four of the members of the Acting Committee have
been called away by death.
In January our dear friend, Mrs. Elizabeth M. Gormly, who has
faithfully visited for many years the prisoners in Pittsburgh, died
at an advanced age. She had been a member since 1903. She was also
connected with the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, being the State
Superintendent of Evangelistic Work among Prisoners.
In August, Mrs. Annie Fassitt, of Philadelphia, also of an advanced
age, passed from works to rewards. She had been a member from 1896,
and had given special assistance to hundreds of prisoners. She was
one of the founders of the “Door of Blessing,” and for many years
was prominent in the support and management of this effort for the
restoration of erring sisters. She was a real “Angel of Mercy.”
John Smallzell, a member since 1905, also passed away in the month of
August. His visits to Eastern Penitentiary will long be remembered.
Wherever he went, he took a message of good cheer. He was most sincere
and devout, and carried with him everywhere the influence of a devoted
Christian life.
In April, 1919, our esteemed Vice-President Joseph C. Noblit, in the
eighty-sixth year of his life, was called to his everlasting home.
He was elected a member of the Society in 1899 and was made a member
of the Acting Committee in 1900. In 1916 he was chosen as one of the
Vice-Presidents, and on occasion presided at the meetings of the Acting
Committee with dignity and a high sense of responsibility. He was a
diligent attender of the meetings and his judgment on the many matters
coming before the Committee was sound and discreet. He was a faithful
visitor to the inmates of our prisons, earnest in the endeavor to bring
to them a true gospel message and to induce them to choose the better
way of living. He knew the deep principles of experimental religion,
and was solicitous that all with whom he came in contact should know
for themselves the consolations of a devoted Christian life. “He giveth
his beloved sleep.”
On behalf of the Acting Committee,
EDWARD M. WISTAR,
_President_.
ALBERT H. VOTAW,
_Secretary_.
FINANCIAL STATEMENT.
RECEIPTS FOR THE YEAR 1918.
To Balance January 1, 1918 $1,716 94
“ Contributions 3,439 00
“ Dues from Annual Members 410 00
“ Life Membership (Edw. M. Wistar) 50 00
“ Income from Investments 2,152 60
“ Income from I. V. Williamson Charities 720 00
“ Income from Anna Blanchard Fund 220 50
“ Income from Joshua L. Baily Fund 157 62
“ Income from Henry A. Rogers Fund 25 20
“ Income from Isaac Barton (Tool Fund) 80 33
“ Interest on deposits 42 05
“ Sale of Literature 90
“ Returned by Discharged Prisoners 40 25
“ Refund Account Wardens’ Conference 129 45
---------
Total Receipts $9,184 84
PAYMENTS.
For Aid and Relief Discharged Prisoners $1,408 34
“ Journal and other Publications 650 80
“ Dues, various affiliated Associations 11 00
“ Library, Periodicals 27 35
“ Postage, Printing, Stationery 383 75
“ Office Expenses, Telephone, Incidentals 275 89
“ Traveling Expenses, Secretary and Agent 98 60
“ Rent of Office 480 00
“ Salaries of Officers 3,710 00
“ Life Membership Fee Transferred to Fiscal Agent 50 00
“ Balance, December 31, 1918 2,089 11
---------
Total Payments including balance $9,184 84
REPORT ON FUNDS HELD FOR HOME OF INDUSTRY.
Receipts on Account of Income $361 28
Payments to Home of Industry 361 28
Respectfully,
JOHN WAY, _Treasurer_.
We the undersigned members of the Audit Committee, have examined the
foregoing account of John Way, Treasurer, compared the payments with
the vouchers, and believe the same to be correct.
We have also examined securities in the hands of our agents, The
Provident Life and Trust Company of Philadelphia, and find them to
agree with the list thereto attached.
Philadelphia January 1, 1919. JOHN A. DUNCAN,
ISAAC P. MILLER,
_Auditing Committee_.
REPORT OF GENERAL AGENT FREDERICK J. POOLEY.
During the year 1918 the Agent made daily visits to the cell-room at
the Central Station at City Hall. Twenty thousand and thirty-nine
men and women prisoners were detained there for preliminary trial,
15,933 of whom the Agent visited while at the Central Station and the
remainder after they arrived at Moyamensing Prison.
Number visited at County Prisons 2,829
Number of notices and letters written on their behalf 1,888
Number discharged prisoners receiving financial aid 345
The opportunities for helpful service are very numerous. In a large
number of cases of suspicion or of a trivial character, the Agent has
been instrumental in securing the discharge of the prisoners, or in
placing them under the care of the Probation Officer, thus saving their
family from disgrace and the County from expense.
It might be of interest to mention a few cases of interest.
No. 1. A young man from the west, arrested as a suspicious character,
had been from home nine years, and was held for a hearing. The Agent
got in touch with his relatives and he was discharged and sent home.
No. 2. A young man from Pittsburgh, Pa., money all gone, while pawning
his watch was arrested; the pawnbroker thought he had stolen it, and
when your Agent received word from his mother that it was his own
watch, he was discharged and sent home.
No. 3. Two young men from St. Louis, with no money, were held as
suspicious characters in order to give the Agent a chance to get in
touch with relatives. One mother came on, and the other sent ticket,
and they both went home.
No. 4. A young man who had gone from town to town, ashamed to write
home, until he landed in our City Hall cell. A few words from the
Agent, brought tears to his eyes and he allowed a letter to be written.
The magistrate discharged him and he is now at home, and he writes: “I
am so glad you found me when you did, for your letter found my mother
and brought her to my rescue, and now _I am free_ and expect to keep in
the right path the remainder of my life.”
With the close of the year 1918, your Agent completed 20 years of
service at the Philadelphia County Prison and eight years of service
at the Central Police Station, City Hall, and in all these years your
Agent has not lost sight of the fact that it is the kind word and a
kindly grasp of the hand, at the proper moment, that may be the means
of turning an unfortunate from the wrong to the right path.
Very truly,
FREDERICK J. POOLEY,
1/15/19. _General Agent._
PAROLE STATISTICS--EASTERN PENITENTIARY.
The whole number of prisoners released on
parole, including some who have been
re-paroled, from September, 1910, to January
1, 1919 2,773
Number thus released in 1918 510
Whole number returned to the Penitentiary
since September, 1910 515
Some of those paroled have died, some have been pardoned and some have
received final discharge.
Number who should now be reporting 930
Of these, the number actually reporting 728
Number known to be in jail elsewhere 37
Number whose present address is unknown 165 930
Less than six per cent. of the entire number have vanished. It must
not be considered that all of these have committed crime. Doubtless
many of them have been in the trenches. They have broken connection
with the parole officials in order to serve Uncle Sam, who has stated
that he will not accept those who have been guilty of felony. From
outside sources, we have known that a large number of former convicts
have thus endeavored to expiate their former offenses. Much praise
has been given to ex-convicts in Canada and Great Britain from which
countries many were released in order to join the army or navy. In
fact very few of these absconders are supposed to have again committed
crime. Nearly every penal institution of the country receives notice of
these decampers accompanied by their photographs, so they are easily
identified. The few who again committed some crime have thus been
detected and either returned whence they came or held with detainers.
Probably nearly all of them desire to get entirely away from any
restraint or semblance of authority. They make a grievous mistake for
they are liable at any time to be apprehended and to be brought back
in disgrace. They live the life of hunted animals. Never for one hour
can they feel secure. We believe that a penalty should be levied upon
those who abuse the privilege of parole. They have violated their word
of honor, and should serve additional time.
There are some persons who will argue against the granting of parole
because some eight and one-half per cent. of these obtaining this
privilege have again been guilty of violations of law and order. Nearly
all these violations are of the nature of misdemeanors. Comparatively
few have been guilty of felonies. The problem involves a deep study
of human psychology. In order to determine who shall be released,
there are many elements to be considered. Mistakes are made both
within and outside the prison walls. Those on the inside often give
the applicant the benefit of their doubts when the logic of the case
seems to urge further detention. When the man is on the outside he is
often disappointed in the attitude of the community of which he really
desires to become a law-abiding citizen. The members of the community
assume a serious responsibility when they put stumbling-blocks in the
way of the man who is endeavoring to make good. “Woe to that man by
whom the offense cometh.”
But the conclusion is irresistible that an argument against release on
parole, based on the fact that about eight per cent. have again become
lawbreakers, is a stronger argument against release at expiration of
sentence.
For a much larger percentage than eight per cent. of those who are
released because their terms have expired and therefore can not longer
be detained, become recidivists. Often one-half of the prisoners at a
penal institution have served previously, and yet a comparatively small
percentage are parole violators. In other words, the same argument
which is used against release on parole will apply more strongly to any
release whatever. Again, it must be remembered that the paroled man or
woman is under watchful care, while the person absolutely released is
subject to no restraint.
Out of every 100 persons reported January 1, 1919, as being on parole,
74 were making good. Of the remaining 26, barely two have committed
felonies. This record is better than Boards in some other States have
reported. Our Parole Officials are giving deep study to this subject
with a view to increasing the percentage of successful effort.
A. H. V.
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA.
REPORT OF COMMISSION TO INVESTIGATE PENAL SYSTEMS.
_To the General Assembly_:
Your Commission duly appointed pursuant to Act of the Legislature, No.
409, 1917, “to investigate the prison systems and the organization
and management of correctional institutions within this Commonwealth
and elsewhere; to recommend such revision of the existing prison
system within this Commonwealth, and the laws pertaining to the
establishment, maintenance and regulation of State and County
correctional institutions within this Commonwealth as it shall deem
wise, and to report the same to the General Assembly at the session of
1919,” respectfully submits the following report of its proceedings,
together with its conclusions and recommendations and proposed bills
for carrying the same into effect.
The Commission was constituted as follows:
Fletcher W. Stites, Narberth, Chairman,
Alfred E. Jones, Uniontown,
Mrs. Martha P. Falconer, Darling P. O.,
Louis N. Robinson, Swarthmore,
Albert H. Votaw, Philadelphia.
On November 1, 1917, the members of the Commission met in the City
of Philadelphia, for the purpose of organization and assigned the
work of investigation which had been committed to it to the several
members thereof. On July 1, 1918, the Commission retained Dr. George
W. Kirchwey, of New York City, as its counsel to direct the subsequent
course of the investigation and to aid the Commission with his counsel
and advice.
I.
SCOPE OF INVESTIGATION.
The Commission was fortunate in having in its personnel as thus
constituted four members, including its counsel, who had through
long experience and previous investigations acquired considerable
information as to penal institutions and their management in this and
other States. The investigation covered:--
(1) A careful study and analysis of the laws governing penal conditions
and institutions in this Commonwealth;
(2) An examination of the six correctional institutions directly
controlled by the State, namely:
The Eastern Penitentiary, at Philadelphia;
The Western Penitentiary, at Pittsburgh;
The New Central Penitentiary, at Bellefonte;
The State Industrial Reformatory, at Huntingdon;
The Pennsylvania Training School, at Morganza;
The State Industrial Home for Women, at Muncy;
(3) A similar examination of the Glen Mills Schools--the Girls’
Department, Sleighton Farms, at Darlington, and the Boys’ Department at
Glen Mills;
(4) A similar examination of the Philadelphia House of Correction and
of the County Convict Prison at Holmesburg, Moyamensing Prison in
Philadelphia, the Allegheny County Workhouse at Hoboken and many other
county institutions;
(5) A study of the constitution, organization and functions of the
State Board of Public Charities, and specifically of those of its
Committee on Lunacy;
(6) A study of the powers and activities of the Prison Labor Commission
instituted under the Act of June 1, 1918;
(7) A careful survey of the entire history of the penal system of the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania from the colonial period down to the
present time, based on the historical research of Professor Harry E.
Barnes of Clark University, Massachusetts;
(8) An investigation of significant correctional institutions in
several other States, notably in New York, New Jersey and Ohio.
To supplement and enlarge the range of these inquiries and studies, the
Commission was permitted to avail itself of the results of previous
investigations conducted by two of its members; on the Employment
and Compensation of Prisoners in Pennsylvania, by Professor Louis N.
Robinson, as Secretary of the Penal Commission of 1913-1915, and on the
county jails and workhouses, made periodically from 1914 to 1918 by
Albert H. Votaw, as Secretary of the Pennsylvania Prison Society.
The Commission desires to express its sense of deep obligation to
the officials and inspectors of prisons in this Commonwealth for the
courtesy and hospitality extended to its members in the course of their
investigations. It also acknowledges its indebtedness to the Secretary
and members of the Board of Public Charities and to the Secretary of
the Public Charities Association for their helpful co-operation.
The Commission has heretofore submitted to the Governor two preliminary
reports, one a Special Emergency Report on Prison Labor, bearing date
September 1, 1918, and a special report on the State Industrial Home
for Women, under date of September 15, 1918, both of which are hereto
appended.
While both these reports were called out by war emergencies, the
former by the dearth of labor power to man the war industries of
the Commonwealth, the latter by the need of providing a place for
the detention and treatment of the large number of dissolute women
convicted of offenses against Federal and State laws enacted for the
protection of the soldiers in the training camps--the Commission
believes that they are still pertinent and that the recommendations
which they contain should form a part of any constructive scheme for
the improvement of the penal system of the Commonwealth.
II.
DEVELOPMENT OF PENAL SYSTEM OF PENNSYLVANIA.
The most inspiring and significant chapter in the history of penology
is not the achievement of John Howard in redeeming the common gaols
of England from the degradation into which they had fallen, nor of
Lord Romilly in his lifelong struggle against the barbarities of the
English penal laws, but the leadership which for more than a century
the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania gave to the world both in prison
reform and in the amelioration of the penal code. The two former were
the revolt of sensitive and humane natures against hoary abuses;
but the latter was all this and something more. It was a bold and
imaginative reconstruction of the whole basis of penal discipline. As
far back as the last quarter of the seventeenth century the Quaker
colonists of Pennsylvania introduced for the first time the practice
of employing imprisonment at hard labor as the ordinary method of
punishing anti-social action. After the reversion of the American
colonies for fifty years to the barbarous criminal jurisprudence of the
mother country, Pennsylvania was the first State, the first community
in the world, to break with this system and to substitute imprisonment
for the various brutal and degrading types of corporal punishment.
The Walnut Street Jail in Philadelphia, in 1790, was the earliest
institution in America in which these more enlightened principles were
put into practice. From this second beginning, for a period of forty
years, Pennsylvania was elaborating and perfecting the first of the two
great systems of penal administration which were destined to dominate
the penology of the civilized world during the nineteenth century--the
separate confinement of malefactors. Visited, admired and imitated
by large numbers of eminent and enthusiastic European penologists,
the Eastern Penitentiary at Cherry Hill was the pivotal point linking
American and European penology for more than a generation after 1830.
Then followed that long period of inertia, of lassitude, of marking
time, which is so apt to succeed to a period of ardent reforming energy
and which to this very day has maintained its spell over the State and
the Nation.
Not that there have not in the last half century been notable
improvements in the theory and practice of penal administration,
some of them bold enough to bring America from time to time into the
forefront of interest and example to the penologists of the Old World,
but in most of these the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has been content
to play a secondary role. Throughout this era of slackened energy she
has not cared or dared to initiate, to lead, to “carry on,” but has
followed belatedly and afar off the progress of other States. Examples
of this are the Auburn congregate system, which divided with the
Pennsylvania system of solitary confinement the interest of European
as well as of American penologists, and which was adopted in the
Western Penitentiary in 1869, a full generation after its establishment
in New York State, and which has only recently conquered the parent
institution on Cherry Hill; the justly famous Elmira experiment
of progressive classification and industrial training of inmates
embodied in the Huntingdon Reformatory in 1889, and the long-promised
reformatory for women at Muncy, which, six years after its creation by
legislative action, has not yet been rendered available for the purpose
for which it was designed.
The first step in the development of an intelligent conception of
delinquency and its treatment came not in an accurate conception of
the nature of crime and its causes, but in a clearer and more correct
notion of the function of punishment. By 1790 the element of deterrence
in punishment was recognized and emphasized. The element of reformation
was a cardinal point in the theory and practice of the Philadelphia
Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons, and this
Society did its best to infuse this doctrine into the Pennsylvania
system of prison administration. Before 1830 it was very generally
asserted that reformation, as well as deterrence and social revenge,
was to be regarded as a chief aim of punishment, though the offender
was still regarded as an unregenerate free moral agent.
This theory of crime received a severe shock in the “forties” from the
investigations of Dorothea L. Dix and others, who showed the great
prevalence of insanity and idiocy among the delinquent classes. It
could scarcely be denied even by the traditional jurists that the
exercise of free will was likely to be seriously impeded by insanity or
feeble-mindedness. From 1850 to the beginning of the present century
the most notable advances toward a more intelligent conception of crime
and its treatment consisted in the gradual but definite triumph of the
notion of detention and punishment as agencies for reformation rather
than as instruments of social revenge.
For more than a century of its history the penal, reformatory and
correctional institutions of Pennsylvania were limited to the county
jails and the few and scattered workhouses, which were erected mainly
in conjunction with the almshouses. In the jails there could be no
approach to anything like a differentiated treatment of delinquents.
In them were herded promiscuously those imprisoned for debt, those
convicted of crime and those accused or held as witnesses; those of all
ages and both sexes; those convicted of all categories and grades of
crime punishable by imprisonment; those of all mental states--normal,
feeble-minded, neurotic, psychotic, epileptic. The few colonial
workhouses were employed as little more than an agency for suppressing
vagrancy.
The first step in a differentiated treatment of crime and criminals
came with the erection of a semi-state prison in the Walnut Street
Jail in 1789-90. This provided for a partial differentiation between
those convicted of the more serious crimes and those convicted of
petty offenses or awaiting trial. It did not however, attempt any
scientific differentiation on the basis of age, sex or mental state.
Children and adults, male and female, sane and insane, were confined
in contiguity. The opening of the State penitentiaries at Allegheny
and Philadelphia in 1826 and 1829, with their fundamental principle of
solitary confinement, carried further the process of differentiation,
but still continued to apply the same general type of treatment to all
incarcerated inmates. It was a system of separation rather than of a
differentiated treatment of special types of prisoners.
The second important development in the direction of specialization
in the provision of institutional treatment of delinquents appeared
in the establishment of a House of Refuge for juvenile delinquents in
Philadelphia in 1828. Though this was at first a private rather than
a State institution and was of very limited capacity, it marked an
epoch in the progress of Pennsylvania penology by making possible some
elementary differentiation on the basis of age, degree of criminality
and relative susceptibility to reformation. The next attempt at further
differentiation came with the erection of the State Hospital for
the Insane at Harrisburg between 1841 and 1851, chiefly as a result
of the agitation initiated by Dorothea L. Dix. This and the other
State hospitals for the insane, subsequently erected, provided for a
treatment of the more important types of mental disorder, though no
adequate provision was made for removing the insane from the prison.
Not until 1905 was an act passed providing for the erection of a State
hospital for the criminal insane at Fairview which was opened in 1912.
During the quarter of a century following 1850 there was an active
agitation to provide a means of differentiating the treatment of
criminals on the basis of age, sex and degree of criminality. The first
important achievement in this direction was the further development
of reform schools for juvenile delinquents through the removal and
enlargement of the Philadelphia House of Refuge in 1850-54 and the
erection of the Western House of Refuge at Allegheny during the same
period. Juvenile delinquents, if petty offenders, could thereafter be
removed from their degrading confinement in the state prison or worse
county jails and receive the properly specialized treatment which their
circumstances demanded. No provision for the differentiated treatment
of the less definite and confirmed types of adult delinquents was made
until the opening of the reformatory for men at Huntingdon in 1889
and the authorization of the State Industrial Home for Women at Muncy
in 1913. The provision of reformatories and juvenile correctional
institutions marked a double process of differentiation, in that these
institutions not only called for a diversity of treatment according to
age, sex and degree of criminality, but also from the fact that they
were clearly differentiated from the State prisons and the county jails
in making reformation rather than punishment or detention their chief
aims.
Along with this development of a properly differentiated system
of treating the delinquent population, has gone the growth of
specialized institutions for dealing with the closely related class
of defectives, which was once treated indiscriminately along with the
delinquent classes when its members were guilty of criminal action.
The State institution for feeble-minded at Polk, opened in 1893, and
at Spring City, provided by an act of 1903, and the State Village
for Feeble-minded Women at Laurelton, not yet available for use, are
designed to furnish scientific treatment for large numbers of those
who would today be confined in the state prisons or county jails, if
the ideas and institutions of 1840 prevailed. Even an institution for
inebriates was contemplated in an act of 1913.
But this vital and all important process of the differentiation,
classification and specialized treatment of the delinquent and
defective classes has now proceeded far beyond that most elementary
stage of furnishing separate institutions for dealing with the most
general classes of delinquents and defectives. It has been found
that the terms defective, insane and criminal have only a legal
significance and are practically useless when involving the problem
of exact scientific analysis and treatment. Each general class of
delinquent boys, of defective girls or of criminal adults, for
instance, is made up of distinguishable and distinct types which demand
specialized treatment in the same way that it is required for one
general class as distinguished from another. Though it is as yet very
imperfectly developed, the present tendency is for each institution to
differentiate into a number of specialized departments, each designed
to provide the proper treatment for one of these types.
Finally, within the last decade beginnings have been made in
what is likely to be an important future development, namely the
non-institutional care of the less pronounced and confirmed types of
delinquents, particularly of delinquent minors. The developments along
this line have, up to the present, consisted chiefly in the adoption
of parole systems in all the State penal, reformatory and correctional
institutions and in a more liberal use of the suspended sentence
and probation. The recently established Municipal Probation Court
of Philadelphia is a pioneer in Pennsylvania in this promising new
development in the preventive treatment of the less confirmed type of
delinquents.
Looking at the whole matter as it stands today, it cannot be said
that conditions in Pennsylvania are in any material respect either
better or worse than in other progressive States, except in the one
matter of the useful employment of the convict population. Here, as
elsewhere, some lucky chance has placed a man or a woman of exceptional
qualifications at the head of an institution, one who has by his strong
personal initiative made the best of a bad situation, as in the case of
the Eastern Penitentiary, or who has, with something akin to genius,
seized upon a new opportunity, as in the case of the Girls’ School at
Darlington and the new Penitentiary foundation at Bellefonte. But these
are sporadic and exceptional developments and have furnished no new
principle of a revolutionary character to mark the dawn of a new era in
penal administration.
Meanwhile the hopeless and demoralizing idleness to which most of
the inmates of the Eastern Penitentiary and of most of the county
institutions of the Commonwealth are doomed, is a spectacle in which
the people of Pennsylvania can take nothing but shame. But even if this
is remedied, as it should be at once by drastic legislative action,
Pennsylvania will have done no more than reach the level of penological
theory of the Quaker innovators of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. The step is an imperative one, but it will not restore to
the Commonwealth the proud position of leadership which once was hers,
which is still, by virtue of past achievements and by common fame,
attributed to her.
While we have thus been dreaming, tardily and ineffectually putting
into effect the aspirations of a long-distant past, a new penology has
come into being, based not on humanitarian sentiment or on “the common
sense of most,” but on the scientific study of the delinquent and his
environment. New sciences of psychology, psychiatry and sociology
have been forged to meet the conditions of the new day and these have
furnished us with a new basis for penological experimentation. We
have learned that the criminal is not merely a person who has in the
exercise of an unfettered will chosen the evil rather than the good,
but a person of complex personality shaped by heredity and environment
to what he is, none the less a menace to society than the older
conception made him, not the less requiring restraint and correction,
but demanding and deserving individual treatment according to the
nature which has been developed in him. We have learned from recent
scientific study of the most rigorous and trustworthy sort that from
50 to 60 per cent. of the inmates of our correctional institutions
are abnormal--feeble-minded, insane, psychopathic--to the point of
irresponsibility, to all intents and purposes the same kind of people
that fill our hospitals for the insane and institutions for the
feeble-minded. We have also learned, from sociological case studies,
that a very large proportion of those that the psychiatrist would class
as normal are the victims of neglected childhood and of the depraving
influences of the institutions in which they have spent a great part of
their young lives.
It seems clear that this new knowledge makes for a new classification,
based not, like that of the Elmira system, on behavior in confinement,
nor, like that of the current penology, on the character of the crime
committed, but on the exact study of the individual and that the
treatment accorded him must be adapted to the results of such study.
Here, then, is the new opportunity for a further advance out of this
slough of despond--an opportunity not inferior to that which this
Commonwealth so superbly grasped in its heroic youth--to bring its
penal administration into conformity with the newer conceptions of
delinquency. Tinkering the old machine is not enough. It must be
remodeled altogether. Adding to the powers of a board of inspectors
here, curbing them there, setting up new boards and commissions to
direct the doing of this, to restrain the doing of that--all these
are but a part of the old game, which will after all continue to be
played in very much the old perfunctory way. What is demanded is a
genuine reconstruction of the penal system of the Commonwealth, one
which shall, with as little disturbance to the existing management of
the several institutions as possible, put at their service all the
resources of the new knowledge of crime and its treatment. It is the
purpose of this report to suggest the lines of this future development
of our penal system.
III.
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PRESENT PENAL SYSTEM.
As the foregoing outline indicates, the several State institutions of
a penal, correctional and reformatory character, with the two Glen
Mills Schools (which, though largely under private management, are
essentially public institutions) have been developed at different
times, under the influence of changing conceptions of social
responsibility for different types of offenders. As a result of this
circumstance each is separately managed by a board of inspectors or
managers, which exercises complete control over the policy of the
institution to which its authority extends. This Board appoints the
Warden or Superintendent, fixes his or her compensation, determines
the industrial and educational policy of the institution and, under
the authority of the Legislature, disburses the funds appropriated
for its maintenance. The disciplinary policy of the institution is
almost invariably entrusted to the Warden or Superintendent and,
as is natural, if that official happens to be a person of strong
individuality and initiative, his policy in practice, if not in theory,
governs the entire administration. Nowhere is there a centralized
authority exercising a general control or an effective influence. The
only approach to such a general agency is the State Board of Public
Charities, which may investigate and require the submission of an
annual report, and the Prison Labor Commission, which exercises a
general supervision over the industries of the two penitentiaries and
the Huntingdon Reformatory, but which has no effective power to carry
its plans into execution. There is, accordingly, no uniform policy,
even in the case of institutions like the two Glen Mills schools,
which have a similar type of inmates and an identical aim, nor in the
case of all the institutions under consideration in matters where
their problems and needs are the same. That there are advantages in
this policy of separate control cannot be denied. It gives to an
energetic and progressive superintendent or board of managers a degree
of initiative in reform and experimentation which, under a highly
centralized control of all the institutions, it would be difficult to
secure. On the other hand it may have the effect of depriving the
individual institution, because of its poverty or because of the
reactionary character of its administration, of the benefits of an
advance which may have been made elsewhere. There could not be a better
illustration of the unevenness of development resulting from this lack
of co-ordination in the Pennsylvania prison system than the fact that
the Eastern Penitentiary was compelled to wait for the initiative of
its present Warden for the partial adoption of the congregate system,
which had for forty years existed in the Western Penitentiary, and
which had everywhere demonstrated its superiority over the system of
solitary confinement.
Upon the whole, however, what strikes the thoughtful observer is not
the diversity of policy and management among these institutions,
even where they have avowedly different aims, but their conformity
to a common type, and that the prison type. With only two
exceptions--Sleighton Farms and the Training School at Morganza--the
persistent shadow of the Penitentiary rests upon them all. It is true
that in the new Central Penitentiary on its broad acreage at Bellefonte
and in the Eastern Penitentiary, so far as the physical and industrial
conditions render possible, the shadow has been lifted, but it is safe
to say of the penal system of the State as a whole, that it is still
too much dominated by the ancient ideal of demonstrating to the inmates
that “the way of the transgressor is hard.” Even in institutions of a
purely reformatory character, while they leave little to be desired
in the way of healthful conditions of living, orderly administration
and educational opportunities, the reformation of the wrong-doer is
still too much sought through a system of stern repression, of “iron
discipline”--a system which, as all experience shows, defeats its end
by crushing out the finer elements of character on which the redemption
of the individual must depend. An almost invariable incident of this
type of disciplinary control is the persistence of the policy of
securing good conduct through punishment--often severe punishment
for trivial offenses--rather than by the more enlightened and humane
method of holding out incentives to good behavior, either by the grant
of special privileges or by putting on the inmates themselves the
responsibility for the good behavior of all.
Other instances of the persistence of the traditional attitude toward
the offender are the almost complete lack throughout our penal system
of a scientific, balanced ration, such as has in the experience of
prison administrators in other States, as notably at Sing Sing Prison
in 1916, and more recently in our army camps, demonstrated the value
both for health and efficiency and from the point of view of economy
of a scientific management of the problem of food supply for large
masses of men; the general indifference to outdoor recreation and
exercise, so essential to the health and morale of the inmate body;
the meagre provision for any education worthy of the name; the all but
complete lack of comprehensive and well rounded systems of vocational
or industrial training, on which the efficiency of prison labor and the
ability of the inmates to “make good” in the world of industry after
their release so largely depends; the demoralizing idleness which is
still after three decades of effort the most marked characteristic of
our prison system; and, finally, the insufficient care for the physical
and mental health of the inmates of our correctional institutions,
which still for the most part mingle indiscriminately together the
tuberculous and syphilitic with those who are sound in body and the
insane, psychopathic and defective with those who are sound in mind.
Many of these conditions which continue to put the brand of the prison
on the inmates of our correctional institutions are doubtless due to
the survival of the Bastille type of prison architecture, which is
exemplified in the Eastern and Western Penitentiaries and in such
structures as Moyamensing Prison in Philadelphia, the Convict Prison at
Holmesburg, the Philadelphia House of Correction and many others. It is
scarcely too much to say that no human being is vile enough to deserve
confinement in such a place or dangerous enough to need it. Even the
most unbending of the old type of prison official will concede that
80 per cent. of the inmates neither need nor deserve to be confined
behind triple bars of steel or in cells like catacombs or within walls
like those of Egyptian tombs. Keepers and inmates alike lose half their
humanity by confinement in these grim and forbidding structures. No
reforming influence however humane and generous, can long survive in
their atmosphere.
Public opinion is at last moving away from this antiquated type of
prison architecture to the newer type represented in the honor prison
at New Hampton Farms in New York and in our Commonwealth in the cottage
colonies at Sleighton Farms, Glen Mills, Morganza, and Muncy. The
change which comes over the men who are transferred from the Western
Penitentiary to the new prison site in Centre County is a sufficient
commentary on the older type of prison, and demonstrates beyond
peradventure the duty of affording to all of our convict population a
similar life of freedom and opportunity. This result, so desirable from
every point of view, could in large measure be attained in a short time
by equipping the Eastern Penitentiary with a suitable area of farm land
in the Eastern Section of the State and by making immediate provision
for the institution of State industrial farms for the convicts confined
in the county prisons, as is recommended elsewhere in this report.
IV.
PRISON LABOR.
The conditions existing in the penal institutions of the Commonwealth
with respect to the employment of the inmates in useful industry
have been so fully set forth in the Emergency Report submitted by
the Commission to the Governor in September last (a copy of which is
annexed to this report) and in the comprehensive study of the problem
by the Penal Commission of 1913-1915 (submitted to the General Assembly
under date of February 15, 1915) that it is not deemed necessary to go
into the matter at length in this place. It suffices to call attention
to the fact that the conditions described in those reports have not in
any material respect been improved. Of approximately 10,000 inmates
in the penal and correctional institutions of the State, less than
one-half are usefully employed, not more than one-fourth in productive
labor. The economic waste of such a system extended over a century is
scarcely less appalling than its inhumanity. By the law a large part of
this interminable procession of offending and suffering humanity has
been condemned to hard labor. In actual practice nearly all of it has
been doomed to wasteful and demoralizing idleness.
The law of June 1, 1915, “providing a system of employment and
compensation for the inmates of the Eastern Penitentiary, Western
Penitentiary and the Pennsylvania Industrial Reformatory at Huntingdon”
and creating a Prison Labor Commission to carry its provisions into
effect, has proved almost wholly inoperative, owing primarily to the
failure of the Legislature to provide for the compulsory purchase
of prison-made goods by the Commonwealth or the political divisions
thereof or by public institutions. As a consequence, out of a total
population of 3200 in the three institutions to which the authority of
the Commission extends, at the close of the year 1918 only 169 were
employed under the direction of the Commission. These were distributed
as follows:--
Eastern Penitentiary, population 1,371
Caning chairs 16
Cigarmaking 11
Shoemaking 42
Knitting hosiery 38
----- 107
Absolutely idle 839
Western Penitentiary, population 720
Broommaking 10
Brushmaking 2
Weaving 18
----- 30
Absolutely idle 393
Huntingdon Reformatory, population 579
Auto-tagmaking 32
Whether considered as a relief from the crushing burden of expense
that our penal establishments entail, or as a remedy for the physical
and moral degeneration resulting from enforced idleness, or as a means
to equip the inmates for lives of industry and usefulness after their
release, a system of prison labor which produces the results set forth
in these figures stands self condemned.
To make the plan embodied in the law of 1915 effective, it should
further provide:
(1) That municipalities as well as the Commonwealth and the political
divisions thereof and all public institutions shall be required, as
far as may be practicable, to supply their needs from the labor of the
penal and correctional institutions;
(2) That the authority of the Commission or of any body in which its
powers may be vested shall extend to the reformatory institutions at
Darlington, Glen Mills, Morganza and Muncy and to all State, county
and municipal institutions of a penal or correctional character;
(3) That the power of such Commission or body to regulate prison
industry be extended to all forms of labor activity of the inmates of
such institutions, including farming, roadmaking, land reclamation,
forestry, etc.;
(4) That such Commission or body be empowered to determine the
compensation of prisoners for industrial and other work performed by
them and the method of applying such compensation to the use of such
prisoners or their dependents;
(5) That the strict “State use” plan be modified by permitting the sale
in the open market, at not less than the market price, of any surplus
product resulting from the labor of the inmates over and above the
product disposed of as provided in the act.
V.
THE COUNTY PRISONS.
In Pennsylvania, as in most, if not all, of the other States of the
Union, the county jail is the despair of those who look for a better
day in the treatment of the wrong-doer. The admiration which our
experiments in the reformatory treatment of the young have excited
in eminent foreign penologists has turned to loathing when their
attention was directed to the county jails. Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise,
the distinguished head of the English prison system, in an article
published a few months after his visit to this country in 1910,
described them in the following terms:
“In these gaols it is hardly too much to say that many of the
features linger which called forth the wrath and indignation
of the great Howard at the end of the eighteenth century.
Promiscuity, unsanitary conditions, absence of supervision,
idleness and corruption--these remain the features in many
places. Even the ‘fee’ system is still in vogue. The gaolers are
still paid by fees for the support of prisoners, and commitments
to gaol are common when some other disposition of the case would
have been imposed had not the commitment yielded a fee to the
sheriff, who is usually in charge of the gaol. In many gaols
there are not facilities for medical examination on reception,
for ventilation, for exercise, or for bathing.... The foreign
delegates were amazed at this startling inconsistency between the
management of the common gaols and that of the State prisons and
State reformatories. The evils to which I refer are well known
and deplored by that body of earnest and devoted men and women in
all sections of American society with whose lofty ideals on the
subject of prison reform and generous aspirations for the humane
treatment of the prisoner, the Washington Congress made us every
day familiar, but they seem helpless and almost hopeless....
I was appealed to by leading men in more than one State, as
British representative, to publicly condemn the system, and this
I did, at a risk of giving considerable offense. Until the abuses
of the gaol system are removed, it is impossible for America to
have assigned to her by general consent a place in the vanguard
of progress in the domain of ‘_la science penitentiaire_.’”
Your Commission desires to submit as its considered judgment that the
foregoing statement does no injustice to many of the county prisons of
this Commonwealth, and that the Legislature can do no greater service,
nor one that will reflect more credit on the Commonwealth, than to
sweep away the entire county jail system without delay.
Attention has been called elsewhere in this report to the deplorable
conditions of idleness which prevail in the prisons of our
Commonwealth. These conditions are at their worst in the county
institutions. In the last six years the average daily number of
prisoners in the county jails of the Commonwealth has been about 6500.
Only about one-fourth of these have some form of employment other than
domestic service. But when all of the returns are in with regard to the
work accomplished, the number of days spent in complete idleness in the
course of a year will average more than one million. If we regard the
labor of the prisoners as worth fifty cents a day, the amount of waste
thus exceeds $500,000 annually.
In order to obviate this condition of affairs, the General Assembly
in 1917 passed an Act (No. 337, P. L. 1917), vesting in the officers
in charge of county prisons the privilege of allowing the prisoners
to work on county and poorhouse farms. Although only twenty-seven
counties have taken advantage of this Act, its results have been very
beneficial. The workers have improved in health, strength and morale,
and the produce of their labor has been of material help in the
up-keep of the institutions. Unfortunately, the operation of this Act
terminates with the close of the war.
A more comprehensive Act was proposed by the Penal Commission of
1913-1915, which recommended the establishment of six industrial farms
to be controlled by the State, to which all persons convicted of crime
or misdemeanor, and now committed to county institutions, should
hereafter be sent. This admirable measure was, however, amended in such
a way as to leave the initiative in the creation of such farms and
the control thereof to the County Commissioners of the nine groups of
counties into which the State was divided for the purpose (No. 399, P.
L. 1917). This legislation has fallen flat, not one of the industrial
districts having carried the scheme into effect.
Your Commission submits that there is no remedy for the condition of
affairs above described other than the complete assumption by the
State of the custody and care of the offenders, whether felons or
misdemeanants, who are now committed to the county institutions.
Farming for prisoners, as our investigations in other States have
clearly shown, has passed beyond the experimental stage. The State
of Massachusetts, some years ago, established a penal farm for
misdemeanants at Bridgewater. A large tract of ground was purchased,
consisting largely of swamp and abandoned land, which, by the use of
fertilizers and by drainage, has been brought to a high degree of
cultivation. This enterprise has been so signally successful that it is
now proposed to move the State Prison at Charlestown to this same farm
at Bridgewater.
Perhaps the most successful experiment of the kind has been made in
Indiana, where the State has taken over the custody of misdemeanants
on the plan which was recommended by the Pennsylvania Penal Commission
of 1913-1915, a recommendation which is renewed in this report. The
Superintendent of the Indiana State Farm makes the following report:--
“The farm had an average daily population, in 1918, of four
hundred and sixty-two prisoners. All institution buildings and
outbuildings, the sewer system, power plant, heating and water
systems, land reclaiming, farming and gardening, has been done
with the labor of misdemeanants at a surprisingly low cost for
guards. The Indiana State Farm is allowed fifty-five cents per
man per day for its entire maintenance, while the same man in
jail, at the present time, will cost more than one dollar per
day for the gross maintenance. The fifty-five cents per man per
day pays the entire pay roll, subsistence, fuel, light, heat,
medical services, clothing, transportation, field and garden
seeds, fertilizers, common labor, tools and all other items of
maintenance....
“The effect that the Indiana State Farm has had on the jail
system of the State is indicated by the following figures: In
the year 1914 there were 18,130 commitments to county jails, in
1915, 14,644, and in 1916, 9,896. The doors of the State Farm
were opened April 12, 1915, and the full effect of the State Farm
was not noticeable until the close of the year 1916. The moral
effect of the institution on the misdemeanant class was one very
important factor in reducing the jail commitments.”
During the year ending September 30, 1918, this penal farm was
two-thirds self-supporting, and it is confidently expected that the
institution will soon be entirely self-supporting.
New York City has established a reformatory farm of 630 acres at New
Hampton, N. Y., to which boys and men from sixteen to thirty years of
age are committed. They have no bars, no wall, no restraining thing,
except supervision. They have no cell for punishment. From the farm
they secure most of their provisions. In handling 2000 prisoners, they
have lost only five. The health of the inmates is greatly improved. It
is estimated that 45 per cent. of the prisoners there were addicted to
the drug habit. Most of them were sent away restored. What they needed
was to be built up by fresh air, good food and exercise, and to be
employed in wholesome work. In fact, they have been taught the dignity
of labor--a thing to which most of them had hitherto been strangers.
But we need not go beyond the limits of our own State to prove the
benefit and success of farming for misdemeanants. The administration of
the Allegheny County Workhouse illustrates the economy of providing
employment for prisoners on an industrial farm. Here the average daily
number of inmates in 1918 was 722. The daily average cost of each
inmate was 81 cents, but after deducting the earnings of the inmates,
the net cost was only 32 cents. This means that the inmates earned 49
cents a day toward their own maintenance. Their bookkeeping indicates
merely the cost of raising the crops. If the institution had charged
itself with the produce used by it at the prevailing market price, the
net cost would have been much less. The farm has 670 acres, of which
560 acres are farmed and used as pasture. The inmates are continually
coming and going. Many of them are committed for ten days or less, and
a large part are sentenced for 30 days, while comparatively few of them
remain longer than one year. This shows that a great deal of efficient
work can be secured, even from those who serve for short terms.
A similarly striking result has been attained in Delaware County under
the law of 1911, empowering the judges of the Courts of Common Pleas
to release on parole convicts confined in county jails or workhouses
under the supervision of designated probation officers. Acting under
this law, the President Judge of that county has during the year 1918
paroled a number of inmates of the county jail to work on farm lands
rented for the purpose with the remarkable result that only two of
the men so paroled made their escape (both being afterwards retaken)
and that nearly $14,000 worth of crops were sold for cash in addition
to the vegetables used and stored in the prison. The net profit is
estimated at $7,000.
Logically, we cannot avoid the conclusion that the State ought to
assume the care of all offenders. The laws are made by the State, and
the indictments charge the accused with offences against the “peace
and dignity of the Commonwealth,” not against the peace and dignity of
the county, municipality or borough. The conclusion is inevitable that
the Commonwealth should assume the responsibility for the protection
of the community from both felons and misdemeanants. And since such
an arrangement as has been proposed will result in reduced taxation,
uniformity of management and in greater facilities for the education
and reformation of the delinquent, we feel that the establishment of
State industrial farms to receive the delinquents now committed to the
county prisons should receive your favorable consideration.
The bill submitted to carry this recommendation into effect omits the
counties of Philadelphia and Allegheny from its operation. Allegheny
County already has a prison farm which in many ways may be considered
a model of its kind. Philadelphia has a farm in connection with the
House of Correction which furnishes employment to many prisoners and
supplies much produce for the institution. We recommend that at some
early date the City of Philadelphia may, by the purchase of more land,
extend the advantages of a penal farm to its convict prison and in
some way combine under one management the entire penal system of the
municipality.
The fee system, whereby the sheriff or warden receives a stipulated
sum each day for the board of prisoners, is so liable to abuse that
we submit a proposition to abolish the practice in all our prisons.
Whenever the profits from boarding the prisoners is a part of the
remuneration of the officer in charge, the tendency is doubtless to
exploit the prisoners, or to reduce to a minimum the supply of food, in
order to derive the greater profit.
In 1915 a comprehensive study of the cost of boarding the prisoners in
the largest 25 counties of the Commonwealth indicated that the average
daily cost of food per prisoner in the 15 prisons where the food was
purchased on the contract system was 12 cents, and in the 10 counties
where the fee system was in vogue 33.7 cents, the difference in favor
of the contract system being 21.7 cents per day for each prisoner.
We estimate that in these 10 counties alone the saving to the taxpayers
by the adoption of the contract system will be at least $50,000
annually. The economy of the proposition is evident, making due
allowance for providing in some counties additional compensation for
the official in charge of the prison. In all cases where a change has
been made from the fee system to the contract system, the food has
improved in character, thus tending to the betterment of the health and
morale of the inmates.
Moved by these considerations, the General Assembly in 1909 provided
that in all counties having a population of 150,000 or more, the food
for the prisoners must be purchased by contract. We are now proposing
to extend this principle to all the counties of the Commonwealth, with
the understanding that no such change is to take place during the
incumbency of the officials who are at the present time in charge of
the prisons.
VI.
PROBATION AND PAROLE.
(_a_) Under the law of May 10, 1909, the several courts of criminal
jurisdiction are invested with the power of suspending sentence on
certain classes of convicted offenders and of placing such offenders
on probation instead of committing them for definite or indeterminate
periods of imprisonment. Probation officers, charged with the duty of
supervising the behavior of such probationers, are appointed by the
judges to serve in their respective counties. In this Commonwealth,
as in many others, experience has demonstrated that there is little
uniformity in the practice of the courts in suspending sentence or of
the probation officers in exercising their powers.
Conceived as a mere incident of the sentencing power, to be exercised
only in exceptional cases, the suspended sentence and probation
are beginning to disclose themselves as a momentous, not to say
revolutionary step in the progress of penology, not less important
in its ultimate consequences than the substitution a century ago
of imprisonment for the death penalty and other forms of physical
punishment. Like the older forms of punishment which it superseded,
imprisonment too has proved a failure, so far at least, as the newer
aim of punishment, the reformation of the wrong-doer is concerned. And
we are coming to see that the protection which society enjoys through
the imprisonment for a few months or years of a small proportion of
the criminal class is dearly purchased by a system which returns the
offender to society less fitted than before to cope with the conditions
of a life of freedom. More and more, as we develop a probation service
worthy of the name, will the courts be reluctant to commit men, women
and children to the demoralizing associations and discipline of
institutional life and will give them their chance to redeem themselves
under competent guidance and supervision among the associations and
activities of everyday life.
Even under existing conditions it is safe to say that far too
many adult and youthful offenders convicted of criminal offences
are committed to prison and far too many delinquent children to
reformatories and other correctional institutions. Your Commission
believes that the suspended sentence should be more liberally employed
by the courts of the Commonwealth under strict conditions requiring a
life of useful industry under careful supervision; that children under
12 years of age should never be committed to penal or correctional
institutions but rather, where institutional care is deemed necessary,
to parental schools such as have been established in other States as
a part of the regular educational system; and that children of larger
growth, say from 12 to 16, should, wherever possible, be placed on
probation or put under private guardianship.
Those considerations have led the Commission to the conclusion that
the whole subject of the suspended sentence and probation in this
Commonwealth should be thoroughly studied in order that the principles
that should govern it may be carefully defined and its procedure
worked out, supervised and put on a uniform basis. New York and other
States have for this purpose created a permanent probation board or
commission and the success which has attended their labors suggests the
institution of a similar body in this Commonwealth.
(_b_) The indeterminate sentence, which made its appearance in this
Commonwealth in the law of May 10, 1909, has passed through several
phases to a state in which its purpose is almost completely defeated.
In its original form it provided that the maximum term to be imposed
upon a convict who should be sentenced to imprisonment in either the
Eastern or the Western Penitentiaries should not exceed the maximum
time prescribed by law and that the minimum term when not fixed by law,
should not exceed one-fourth of the maximum time. This law was amended
by an Act approved June 19, 1911, striking out the restriction as to
the minimum sentence, thus leaving to the courts complete discretion
to fix the minimum to be served at any period short of the maximum.
Many of the courts have in frequent instances virtually nullified the
indeterminate sentence principle by imposing minimum sentences so
excessive as to bring the judicial office into disrepute. Sentences of
from 18 years to 20 and from 19 years to 20 have been common, and there
have been cases so grotesque as sentences of 19 years 11 months, or of
19 years, 11 months and 29 days to 20 years, of 23 years and 3 months
to 25 years and of 27 to 28 years. These are only the more extreme
illustrations of a practice which has been common enough to justify a
demand for a law which will result in greater uniformity in the matter
of imposing sentences for crime.
At its best the maximum-minimum form of the indeterminate sentence is
an unsatisfactory compromise between the ideal aim of penologists and
the traditional attitude of the courts, which cling tenaciously to
their ancient prerogative of “making the punishment fit the crime.”
That the power of determining the period of imprisonment requisite to
meet the demands of justice and the interests of society may safely be
confided to other than judicial hands has been conceded in the case
of all offenders entitled to commitment to reformatories, who are
sentenced to an indeterminate term limited only by the maximum fixed by
law, or, in the case of minors, to the attainment of their majority,
and who may be released on parole in the discretion of the boards of
managers of the institutions to which they are committed. It is only
in the case of hardened offenders or of those guilty of certain major
offenses that a minimum sentence is imposed.
For more than a generation prison reformers have urged the extension of
the pure indeterminate sentence to this class of offenders also. Their
logic is sound; it is the facts that are against them. The argument
runs like this: The offender should be kept in confinement only until
he is fitted by his prison experience to lead an honest and useful
life; when this end is attained he should be released. The answer
is that the prison doesn’t in fact reform the wrong-doer; that good
behavior under the conditions of prison life is no assurance of the
intention or capacity of the prisoner to lead an honest and useful life
after his release, and that the inspectors or other paroling authority
have no other guide to go by in determining the inmates’ fitness for
a life of freedom than his prison record. If the reformer makes the
obvious retort--“then reform your prison so that it shall reform its
inmates, and reform your paroling authority so that it shall make
its determination on all the facts of the inmate’s personal history
including a study of his mental conditions, his heredity and the social
influences that have shaped his character,” he is admitting that we are
not yet ready for the complete acceptance of the indeterminate sentence
in all classes of cases.
But there is a middle ground between the position of the extreme
reformer and that which has been assumed by the courts of this
Commonwealth. If there is to be anything short of a fixed sentence,
declared by law, it should be a reasonable minimum which should also
be declared by law. The policy of the indeterminate sentence is that
the delinquent shall be supervised and guided and his capacity to lead
an honest and useful life tested by actual experience under normal
conditions of living for a period of years long enough to try out
his capacity to readjust himself to a life of freedom in society. For
this reason an adequate interval between the expiration of his minimum
sentence, when he becomes eligible to parole, and the expiration of his
maximum sentence, when he becomes free from judicial control, should be
guaranteed by law.
There is great diversity of opinion as to the best form of paroling
authority. Generally, as in this Commonwealth, this power is lodged
in the inspectors or managers of the several institutions or, in the
case of commitments to county prisons, in the courts of criminal
jurisdiction. In some States, as in New York, a distinct Board of
Parole is constituted which visits the convict prisons at intervals and
hears and determines all applications for parole that may be awaiting
determination. Neither system has worked with complete satisfaction.
Under both the grant of parole is largely a perfunctory matter, the
inmates who have served their minimum sentences being generally
admitted to parole at once, except in those cases, comparatively rare
in number, where the applicant has been penalized for misconduct while
in confinement. It would seem, therefore, that the first step toward a
reform of the paroling system is not to set up a new paroling authority
but to devise some more effective machinery to put before the existing
authorities all the essential facts as to the applicant’s mental, moral
and physical capacity to conduct himself as a self-respecting, useful
member of the community. A second, but not less necessary step, is such
a change in the spirit and method of prison discipline as will develop
in the inmates by actual practice the qualities of self-respect and
self-reliance, the sense of honor and of responsibility and the habit
of co-operative action so essential to fit them for a life of freedom
and responsibility, and at the same time to equip them with the habits
of industry and the vocational skill which will enable them to make
good in the life that awaits them beyond the prison-wall.
VII.
GENERAL CONCLUSIONS.
In the foregoing analysis of the penal system of this Commonwealth, the
Commission has endeavored not only to present a picture of the existing
conditions in the light of modern conceptions of penology but to point
out, also, the lines of a sound and progressive development of the
system. Most of the suggestions thus made have already been embodied
in the penal systems of other states and of enlightened communities
beyond the seas. Especially is this the case in such matters as the
general employment of the prison population in useful and productive
labor and in the substitution of farm and cottage colonies for the old
type of prison. In a few of the larger cities and in some institutions
promising beginnings have been made in the mental examination of
delinquents with a view to the provision of specialized treatment for
those found to be mentally afflicted or seriously defective. But in
no State or country, as yet, have all these improvements been welded
into a comprehensive system which makes them available for the entire
delinquent population. The inertia or indifference which leaves the
extension of these benefits to chance or to the slow contagion of
example is unworthy of a great and progressive Commonwealth which has
in the past more than once demonstrated its capacity for leadership in
penal reform.
It is evident that the general adoption in this State of these modern
improvements in the treatment of the criminal problem can be effected
only through the institution of a central agency adapted to secure a
co-ordination of effort and a uniformity of development which under
the present system of separate control has been demonstrated to be
impossible. It seems equally evident, however, that the system of
separate management of the several institutions with their diverse
aims and problems possesses advantages which we would not willingly
sacrifice to an ideal unity. For this reason the Commission has not
deemed it wise to recommend the example of other States which have
committed the management of all their correctional establishments to
a central board of control. Moreover, with such a body as the Board
of Public Charities already vested with a certain authority over the
penal institutions of the State, it has not been deemed desirable to
recommend the creation of a new and independent body to exercise a new
jurisdiction over such institutions. It seems better to utilize the
authority which already exists, to enlarge its range of functions to
meet the needs of the proposed development and to commit the exercise
of these functions to a standing committee analogous to the existing
Committee on Lunacy. Through such a committee of the Board of Public
Charities your Commission believes that the desired co-ordination and
future development of the penal system of the Commonwealth can best be
secured.
VIII.
RECOMMENDATIONS.
Upon the foregoing facts and conclusions the Commission submits the
following recommendations, which are herewith submitted for such action
as the General Assembly may deem proper:--
_First._--The Commission recommends that the General Assembly provide
for the enlargement of the Board of Public Charities by the addition
of two members thereto, at least one of whom shall be a woman, and by
the institution of a standing committee of five members of such Board,
at least one of whom shall be a woman, such committee, which shall be
chosen annually by a majority vote of the Board, to be known as the
“Committee on Delinquency” and to be vested with the following powers:--
(_a_) To inspect and investigate the condition and management of
all penal, correctional and reformatory institutions within the
Commonwealth and inquire into all complaints against the same and
report thereon, with recommendations of appropriate action, to the
Board of Public Charities, the Governor, the General Assembly, or the
Courts, as the circumstances may require;
(_b_) To institute, maintain and supervise a medical service adapted
to the examination of the inmates of such institutions and the proper
professional treatment of all such as are mentally or physically
afflicted or deficient;
(_c_) To make recommendations to the governing authorities of all
such institutions for the improvement of the sanitary and hygienic
conditions, the medical and hospital equipment, and the medical service
thereof;
(_d_) To transfer inmates of institutions within its jurisdiction to
other institutions owned, managed or controlled by the Commonwealth or
any political subdivision thereof, or, if suitable arrangements can be
made, to other institutions, where such inmates may receive treatment
more suitable to their mental and physical condition;
(_e_) To institute, maintain and supervise in institutions within its
jurisdiction a system of correctional and reformatory education;
(_f_) To institute, maintain and supervise a system for the employment
of the inmates of institutions within its jurisdiction;
(_g_) To prepare and submit to the Board of Public Charities not later
than the first day of December of each even-numbered year, a biennial
budget for the Committee and such of the institutions within its
jurisdiction as are wholly or partly supported by the Commonwealth, and
for that purpose to require of such institutions such reports from time
to time as the Committee shall deem necessary; and
(_h_) To make rules and regulations establishing a uniform system of
accounting and bookkeeping in all institutions within its jurisdiction.
It is also recommended that the Committee on Delinquency be authorized
and directed to choose a Secretary, not a member of the Board of
Public Charities, at a salary of $7500 per annum, who shall be the
executive officer of the Committee and an expert in the care and
treatment of delinquents, and who shall be known as the “Commissioner
of Delinquency.”
_Second._--The Commission further recommends that the General Assembly
provide by appropriate legislation for the employment of all the
able-bodied convicts of the Commonwealth in useful and, so far as
possible, in productive labor, and especially, that it vest in the
Committee on Delinquency the powers of the Prison Labor Commission and
the functions of the Business Agent of such Commission and enlarge such
powers and functions as suggested on page 15 of this report.
_Third._--The Commission further recommends the enactment of a law
establishing four State Industrial Farms, to receive, care for and
provide for the useful employment of the inmates of county prisons and
jails and of persons hereafter convicted of any offense punishable
by imprisonment in any county jail or prison who have been or shall
hereafter be sentenced for a term of thirty days or more.
_Fourth._--The Commission further recommends that the Act of Assembly
approved July 17, 1917 (No. 337), providing for the employment, during
the continuance of the war, of inmates of county jails at agricultural
labor on any county or almshouse farm, be amended so as to continue its
operation indefinitely after the conclusion of peace.
_Fifth._--The Commission further recommends that the General Assembly
provide for the purchase of a tract of land, of not less than 600
nor more than 1200 acres, to be used for the benefit of the Eastern
Penitentiary as a prison farm.
_Sixth._--The Commission further recommends that a law be enacted
prohibiting fees or allowances and contracts for furnishing meals
to the inmates of county jails or other penal institutions of the
Commonwealth.
_Seventh._--The Commission further recommends that the Act approved
June 19, 1911, authorizing the courts in the case of a person sentenced
to a penitentiary to fix as the minimum term of imprisonment any period
less than the maximum prescribed by law for the offense of which such
person was convicted, be amended by a provision that the minimum limit
of the sentence imposed shall never exceed one-third of the maximum
prescribed by the Court.
* * * * *
In the foregoing recommendations the Commission has confined itself
to matters requiring legislative action and to such only as seem
to it to be essential to a consistent, integrated policy of penal
administration. All other matters with respect to which the Commission
has given expression to its views are either subsidiary to those on
which immediate legislative action is recommended or are such as
may be properly referred to the wisdom of the proposed Committee on
Delinquency for consideration and action. The greatest abuse of the
prevailing prison system--the lack of imagination and of understanding
which keeps alive in most of our penal establishments the methods of a
severe and repressive discipline--cannot be abolished by legislative
decree. The greatest reform of which the system is capable--the
awakening in the inmates of the new life which comes from active,
responsible participation in the life of the prison community--is
equally beyond the reach of legislative action. These will be the
fruits of a keener intelligence and of a deeper understanding than
have yet, except in a few rare instances, been brought to bear on
the problem. But your Commission believes that the plan of penal
administration which it has recommended, and which provides for the
most thorough-going study and the most intelligent treatment of the
individual delinquent which has yet been attempted, will gradually
prepare the way for these and other reforms in the penal system of the
Commonwealth.
Respectfully submitted,
January 1, 1919.
FLETCHER W. STITES, _Chairman_,
ALFRED E. JONES,
MARTHA P. FALCONER,
LOUIS N. ROBINSON,
ALBERT H. VOTAW,
_Commissioners_.
GEORGE W. KIRCHWEY,
_Counsel to the Commission_.
COMMITTEE ON DELINQUENCY ACT.[1]
SECTION 1. _Be it enacted, etc._, That the Board of Public Charities
shall appoint a standing committee of five of its members to be known
as the Committee on Delinquency. Such Committee shall be chosen within
thirty days after the approval of this Act, and annually thereafter, by
a majority vote of all of the members of the Board, and at least one
member of such Committee shall be a woman. Vacancies in the membership
of the Committee shall be filled in like manner. Within thirty days
after their selection, the Committee shall each year elect one of its
members as chairman.
The members of the Committee shall serve without compensation but shall
receive all of their travelling and other necessary expenses incurred
in the performance of their official duties.
SECTION 2. The Committee selected under the provisions of this
Act shall appoint a secretary, who shall not be a member of the
Committee or of the Board of Public Charities. The secretary shall
be the executive officer of the Committee and shall be known as the
Commissioner of Delinquency. He shall be a person having expert
knowledge respecting delinquency, and the care and treatment of
delinquents and shall devote his entire time to the duties of his
office. He shall be appointed for a term of five years and shall
receive a salary of seven thousand, five hundred dollars per annum. The
Committee shall have the power to remove the Commissioner at any time
for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or misconduct in office, and shall,
whenever a vacancy occurs either by death, resignation, or removal from
office, appoint a Commissioner to fill the unexpired term.
SECTION 3. Subject to the approval of the Committee on Delinquency,
the Commissioner of Delinquency shall appoint a medical director,
an educational director, a director of industries, and such other
directors, experts, agents, and employees for such terms and at such
compensation as shall be fixed by the Committee on Delinquency. The
Commissioner with the approval of the Committee shall have the power at
any time to remove any director, or any expert, agent, or employee, so
appointed.
SECTION 4. The Board of Commissioners of Public Grounds and Buildings
shall provide the Committee on Delinquency with suitable rooms in the
State Capitol, and elsewhere if necessary,....
SECTION 5. The Committee on Delinquency shall have jurisdiction for the
purposes of this act over all institutions within this Commonwealth
of a penal, correctional, or reformatory character now existing,
or which may hereafter be established including industrial farms,
workhouses, and reformatories, and reformatory institutions for minors
or women, whether managed by the Commonwealth, or any political
sub-division thereof or otherwise; _Provided_, That this act shall not
be interpreted to deprive any warden, superintendent, or other officer,
or board of inspectors, managers, or trustees, of any such institution
of the right to manage its affairs, but every such institution shall
make such reports to the Committee on Delinquency as the Committee
shall be authorized by this Act to require and shall obey the rules and
regulations established, and follow the recommendations made, by the
Committee as authorized by this Act.
SECTION 6. The Committee on Delinquency shall have the power and its
duty shall be:--
(_a_) To inspect and investigate the condition and management of
all institutions within its jurisdiction, and inquire into all
complaints against the same, and report thereon with recommendations of
appropriate action to the Board of Public Charities, the Governor, the
General Assembly, or the courts, as the circumstances may require;
(_b_) To institute, maintain, and supervise a medical service to
accomplish the purposes enumerated in this Act;
(_c_) To make recommendations to institutions within its jurisdiction
for the improvement of the sanitary and hygienic conditions, the
medical and hospital equipment, and the medical service thereof;
(_d_) To transfer inmates of institutions within its jurisdiction to
other institutions owned, managed, or controlled by the Commonwealth or
any political sub-division thereof, or if suitable arrangements can be
made, to other institutions, where such inmates may receive treatment
more suitable to their mental and physical condition:....
(_e_) To institute, maintain, and supervise in institutions within its
jurisdiction a system of correctional and reformatory education to
accomplish the purposes enumerated in this Act;
(_f_) To institute, maintain, and supervise a system for the employment
of the inmates of institutions within its jurisdiction as provided in
this Act;
(_g_) To prepare and submit to the Board of Public Charities, not
later than the first day of December of each even-numbered year, a
biennial budget for the committee and such of the institutions within
its jurisdiction as are wholly or partly supported by the Commonwealth.
Such budget shall set forth the expenditures of the Committee and such
institutions during the preceding two years, their estimated financial
needs for the succeeding two years, and such other information as the
Committee shall deem appropriate.
To enable it to prepare such budget, the Committee shall have the
power to require of institutions within its jurisdiction, and such
institutions shall prepare and submit, such reports from time to time
as the Committee shall deem necessary, but to the extent that reports
shall be required by the Committee for the purpose of preparing such
budget; institutions within the jurisdiction of the Committee shall not
be required to report to the Board of Public Charities; and,
(_h_) To make rules and regulations establishing a uniform system of
accounting and bookkeeping in all institutions within its jurisdiction.
SECTION 7. The medical service which the Committee on Delinquency is by
this Act required to institute, maintain, and supervise shall include:--
(_a_) The prompt and thorough examination of all the inmates of
institutions within its jurisdiction with a view to the proper
diagnosis, classification, and treatment of all such persons;
(_b_) The prescription and maintenance of standards in diagnosis
and treatment in all institutions within its jurisdiction and the
determination of the qualifications of those selected as physicians,
psychiatrists, stewards, or nurses, in such institutions;
(_c_) The furnishing of instructions in personal and social hygiene
to the inmates of all institutions within its jurisdiction, and of
instruction in professional training to such officials, employees,
or inmates of such institutions as may be called upon to serve
as assistants, nurses, or otherwise, in the medical or hospital
departments thereof;
(_d_) The frequent inspection of the institutions within its
jurisdiction with respect to their sanitary and hygienic condition, the
adequacy of their medical and hospital equipment, and the competency
and efficiency of their medical service; and,
(_e_) The installation and supervision of a proper dietary adequate to
the maintenance of the health, efficiency, and morale, of the inmates
in all institutions within its jurisdiction.
SECTION 8. The system of correctional and reformatory education which
the Committee on Delinquency is by this Act required to institute,
maintain, and supervise shall include:--
(_a_) The prescription and maintenance of standards of correctional and
reformatory education in all institutions within its jurisdiction and
the determination of the qualifications of those selected as teachers;
and,
(_b_) The education in elementary branches of illiterate and
undeveloped inmates of such institutions; the instruction of all
inmates of such institutions in the principles, organization, and
practice of American government; and the furnishing of a thorough
industrial training to any of the inmates of such institutions for whom
such training shall be deemed useful and desirable.
SECTION 9. With respect to the labor of the inmates of any institutions
within its jurisdiction to which persons are committed for crime or
delinquency, the Committee on Delinquency shall have the power and its
duty shall be:--
(_a_) To require every such institution to afford to the inmates
thereof, who are physically capable, an opportunity to perform useful
labor in such institutions;
(_b_) To determine what industries shall be established in such
institutions and to regulate and supervise the installation of
machinery and equipment therein;
(_c_) To establish rules and regulations for the employment of inmates
of such institutions at road-building, quarrying, or crushing stone,
agricultural work, land reclamation, or forestry, or other suitable
work outside of such institution; and,
(_d_) To establish rules with regard to the number of hours per day
during which such inmates shall be employed; Provided, That except in
agricultural work such inmates shall not be employed for more than
eight hours in any one day.
SECTION 10. With respect to the labor of inmates of such of the
institutions within its jurisdiction as are owned or managed and
controlled by the Commonwealth or any political sub-division thereof,
the committee shall, in addition to the powers and duties enumerated in
the preceding section of this act, have the power and its duty shall
be:--
(_a_) To maintain a manufacturing fund for the purposes specified in
this section. The original manufacturing fund of the committee shall
be the manufacturing fund paid to the committee by the Prison Board
Commission, as provided in this act, together with any and all sums
due and owing to such Commission, and the unexpended balance of any
appropriation made for the use of such commission. To such fund there
shall be added from time to time such amount or amounts as shall be
appropriated by the General Assembly;
All receipts from the sale of the products, manufactured or produced
by the labor of the inmates of any such institution, shall be credited
to the manufacturing fund and used for the purchase of machinery,
equipment, raw materials, and supplies, and for the payment of wages to
such inmates;
(_b_) To sell to the Commonwealth or to any political sub-division
thereof, or any institution, owned, managed, or controlled by the
Commonwealth, or any political subdivision thereof, at not more than
the prevailing market price the products of the labor of such inmates;
_Provided_, That institutions within the jurisdiction of the Committee
owned, or managed and controlled by the Commonwealth, or any political
subdivision thereof, shall have the privilege of selling directly such
of their agricultural products as they do not consume, but every such
institution selling agricultural products shall account for and pay to
such committee the proceeds of the sale of such products.
Any surplus of the products of the labor of such inmates which cannot
be sold to the Commonwealth, etc., shall be sold in the open market,
but any such product sold in the open market shall not be sold for less
than the prevailing market price.
Should any institution desire to use the products of the labor of its
inmates, other than agricultural products, it shall purchase the same
from the Committee on Delinquency;
(_c_) From time to time to fix the compensation of such inmates for
labor performed by them; _Provided_, That the rate of compensation to
such inmates shall be based both upon the pecuniary value of the work
performed and on the willingness, industry, and good conduct of the
inmate performing the same;
(_d_) To make rules and regulations governing the payment of
compensation earned by such inmates. Such rules and regulations may
provide for the payment of a part of their compensation to inmates
during their term of confinement to be used for such purchases as such
rules and regulations shall permit. They shall also provide for the
bi-monthly payment of such part of the compensation of such inmates
as the committee shall determine to the dependents of such inmates,
and for the payment of the unpaid balance of such compensation to such
inmates at the time of their discharge, or at periodic intervals on and
after their discharge; and,
(_e_) To establish rules and regulations for the keeping of records and
accounts by all such institutions, showing the labor performed by the
inmates thereof, the value of the products thereof, and the wages paid
to inmates, or their dependents, or both.
SECTION 11. All wages paid to the inmates of institutions within
the jurisdiction of the Committee on Delinquency owned, or managed
and controlled by the Commonwealth, etc., shall be paid out of
the committee’s manufacturing fund upon the order of the warden,
superintendent, or other proper officer of the institution in, or in
connection with, which the labor shall have been performed.
SECTION 12. The Prison Labor Commission created by the act approved
the first day of June one thousand nine hundred and fifteen, ... is
hereby abolished, and shall cease to exist, thirty days after the
chairman of the committee on delinquency shall have notified the
Prison Labor Commission in writing that the Committee on Delinquency
has been duly organized as provided in this act. Within such period of
thirty days the Prison Labor Commission shall transfer and set over
to the Committee on Delinquency all books, papers, and records, and
all moneys and evidence of debt, in its possession, and the Auditor
General is hereby authorized and directed to draw a warrant on the
State Treasurer for the payment to the Committee on Delinquency of the
unexpended balance of any appropriation made for the use of the Prison
Labor Commission.
SECTION 13. For the purpose of inspecting any institution within the
jurisdiction of the Committee on Delinquency, such committee, the
Commissioner of Delinquency, and any director, expert, agent, or
employee, deputized by the Commissioner of Delinquency for the purpose,
shall have free access to the grounds, buildings, and all books,
papers, and records of such institution, and all persons, connected
with any such institution, are hereby directed and required to give
such information and to afford such facilities for inspection as the
person making such inspection may require....
SECTION 14. ...
Should any institution within the jurisdiction of the Committee on
Delinquency which is not owned, or managed and controlled by the
Commonwealth, etc., fail to obey such rules and regulations, or make
such report, such institution shall not be entitled to receive any
financial assistance from the Commonwealth, and it shall be unlawful
for the Auditor General, after having received notice in writing from
the Committee on Delinquency that any such institution has failed to
obey such rules or regulations, or to make such report, to issue a
warrant for the payment of any money appropriated to such institution
so long as such institution shall continue to refuse to obey such rules
and regulations, or to make such report.
SECTION 15. All salaries, compensation, and expenses, payable under
this act, except wages for labor performed by inmates shall be paid by
the State Treasurer on the warrant of the Auditor General.
SECTION 16. To carry out the purposes of this act the sum of two
hundred thousand dollars, ($200,000), or such part thereof as shall be
necessary is hereby appropriated to the Committee on Delinquency.
SECTION 17. All acts and parts of acts inconsistent herewith are hereby
repealed.
STATE INDUSTRIAL FARMS ACT.[2]
SECTION 1. _Be it enacted, etc._, That this act shall be known and
may be cited as “The State Industrial Farms Act of one thousand nine
hundred and nineteen.”