VOLUME IV, No. 7. JULY, 1914
THE DELINQUENT
(FORMERLY THE REVIEW)
A MONTHLY PERIODICAL, PUBLISHED BY THE
NATIONAL PRISONERS’ AID ASSOCIATION
AT 135 EAST 15th STREET, NEW YORK CITY.
THIS COPY TEN CENTS. ONE DOLLAR A YEAR
T. F. Garver, President.
O. F. Lewis, Secretary, Treasurer and Editor The Delinquent.
Edward Fielding, Chairman Ex. Committee.
F. Emory Lyon, Member Ex. Committee.
W. G. McLaren, Member Ex. Committee.
A. H. Votaw, Member Ex. Committee.
E. A. Fredenhagen, Member Ex. Committee.
Joseph P. Byers, Member Ex. Committee.
R. B. McCord, Member Ex. Committee.
Entered as second-class mail matter at New York.
THE “PIRATES” AT SHERBORN REFORMATORY
[Here is a fine human interest story about the Women’s Reformatory
Prison in Massachusetts, and the remarkable success the inmates
achieved in “The Pirates of Penzance.” The story is from the New York
Times of June 21.]
“When a felon’s not engaged in his employment,
His Employment,
Or maturing his felonious little plans,
Little plans,
His capacity for innocent enjoyment,
’Cent enjoyment,
Is just as great as any honest man’s,
Honest man’s.”
This sums up pretty fairly an affair at Sherborn a few days ago. Sung
by the ordinary policeman chorus of any ordinary Gilbert and Sullivan
revival, the sentiment would seem trite enough. Sung by the felonious
themselves, by forgers, by the “enterprising burglars,” it takes on a
keener significance. It comes home.
It was an amazed audience that sat in the chapel of the Women’s
Prison at Sherborn, Mass., and listened to “The Pirates of Penzance,”
presented by fifty-five of the two hundred women who are “doing time.”
It was an audience which did not always get its cue as promptly as an
audience should, for in several places where the Gilbert and Sullivan
Company intended it should laugh it openly dabbed its eyes with
handkerchief or blew nose violently.
In the first place, it had gasped over the grim humor of “The Pirates
of Penzance” as presented by a set of offenders against property and
public order anyway. It gasped again when a lusty opening chorus of
attractive “pirates” demanded that somebody pour, oh, pour, the pirate
sherry--for it was “sherry” that landed on a lot of them in Sherborn.
And it could not for the life of it smile when the jolly pirates
explained to it that,
Although our dark career
Sometimes involves the crime of stealing,
We rather think that we’re
Not altogether void of feeling.
And a few in the audience realized that the pretty little Mabel, with
her long, dark curls and her clear soprano voice, was an old offender,
serving her third term at Sherborn. A few remembered, not without a
shiver, that the pirate at the end of the row, splendid in a blue and
white striped cape slung from his--her--shoulder, a dagger stuck in her
belt, had assisted at having her husband cut up in pieces, and, missing
the electric chair by a minute and a half, was here in Sherborn for
life.
It was hard to realize that one was within prison walls. These girls,
most of them girls of the streets, supposedly the “dregs” of society,
looked and acted like anything but dregs. Accustomed to the cheapest
sort of music, the cheapest sort of amusement before they came here,
they had nevertheless entered into the Gilbert and Sullivan spirit.
They managed the difficult choruses superbly; they attacked their
recitatives with understanding.
They had been branded, most of them, as unmanageables, incorrigibles.
Yet they had been trained to a point of almost complete co-operation.
The mentally defective were not only managing difficult alto, but
getting around the preposterous vocabulary of the “Pirates,” such as
the square on the hypotenuse and the crimes of Heliogabalus. And more
than one in that audience leaned over to say to his neighbor: “If
they can be trained to do this, they can certainly be trained to do
something else.”
It was this realization that brought the audience, made up for the
most part of prominent social workers and city officials from Boston,
to its feet at the closing ensemble with all fifty-five on the stage.
Policemen and pirates took off their hats and waved to the applauding
audience that crowded around the stage, and the audience clapped and
waved back. It was a recognition of a fact that both sides too often
forget, the fact that criminals are not, after all, so different from
non-criminals. It is largely because the criminal does not realize his
relation to the rest of society that he breaks with it, and as for
society, it forgot the human bond when it began clapping its offenders
into dungeons and treating them as complete aberrations.
Mrs. Perle Wilkinson is the reason why Gilbert and Sullivan have
invaded Sherborn. Mrs. Wilkinson’s official title is “chaplain.” But no
chaplain ever took to himself such an amazing set of duties, and Mrs.
Wilkinson admits the name must be changed.
Probably the girls themselves, as they rehearsed for the past eight or
nine months under the “chaplain’s” direction, have not realized that
they were enjoying an advantage which no other amateur performers in
the country could command. For Saturday’s production of “The Pirates of
Penzance” contained the original “business”--the “business” witnessed
by those of us who saw the first presentation of the Gilbert and
Sullivan operas in this country.
Mrs. Wilkinson was one-time chorus mistress for the D’Oyly Carte
troupe, her husband singing the principal baritone roles. She has for
many years had experience in chorus and choir training, and in addition
had charge of the House of Refuge at Randall’s Island at the time when
both boys and girls were admitted to that institution. It is a curious
combination, and one which has brought results of the most amazing
nature.
The girls have been working since September on the “Pirates.” It
should not by rights have taken so long, explained Mrs. Wilkinson, but
the voices were in bad shape. Most of them were hard and inflexible,
patterned on the nasal attainments of the cheap vaudeville performer.
An understanding of the music had slowly to be created. Then, just
as everything was within a few weeks of completion, the parole board
would descend and release the chief soloist and five or six of the best
voices in the chorus, and work would have to be begun all over again.
This might have happened a week or so ago, for the prima donna’s time
had expired and she was free to go. Which would have meant that
“Pirates” would again have been postponed, probably for a much longer
time, for Mabel’s part is difficult and requires a real voice. Mabel
sent word to her family and stayed another week.
It was not only the fifty-five who actually took part in the opera who
presented the “Pirates.” The whole prison, two hundred women, gave it.
Long ago khaki skirts and blue prison dresses were piled up on one side
of the machine room, and the most amazing materials took their place.
Turkey reds and purples, tinsel of silver and gold, gauzy pinks and
yellows surprised those machine needles, which for thirty-six years
have been bobbing up and down through sombre colors. A visitor, looking
in to see those who had been sentenced to “hard labor,” would have been
amazed to see them putting gold braid on three-cornered hats, sewing
buttons on policemen’s uniforms.
All the women attended rehearsals. They brought their crocheting, their
bits of sewing, and sat quietly while the picked fifty tackled long
words and difficult choruses. This in itself was a big concession. The
women were all supposed to be in their rooms, and it was argued that
they would be restless and unmanageable, given so much liberty. But
they weren’t. They looked forward with the keenest enjoyment to the
rehearsals, and it was because the company was accustomed to playing
before an audience that not a member showed the slightest evidence of
“stage fright,” or even of self-consciousness, at the final performance.
While the performance was going on the rest of the women were working
on the prison grounds, in the kitchen, in the laundry, in the machine
rooms, but they were as excited about the event as though they were to
be present. Whenever a matron appeared, or Mrs. Hodder, the head of the
prison, stopped to say a word to them, they asked eagerly about the
guests, were there many of them, had the Governor arrived, did they
get a sword for the Major General?
Upstairs in the chapel a squad of girls worked for several hours before
the performance, setting the stage. The scenery had been painted by
the girls themselves and would have done credit to Granville Barker.
Towering rocks, a rolling ocean in the back, a cave that looked as
though it might harbor any number of murderous pirates, and real
trees. Little birches had been cut down, and the girls worked long and
earnestly setting them in pails of water behind “rocks.” In spite of a
couple of savage onslaughts, one from the pirates in full force with
daggers drawn, and one from the energetic police, the trees stayed
upright with only a couple of quiverings.
The team work displayed by these outcast members of society, who do not
fit into our “organization,” was something of a revelation.
“Get out of this dust, Julia,” cried the stage hands dragging birch
trees to their places, as the pirate king appeared in the chapel
doorway. “Don’t you know dust will ruin your voice?”
“Mis’ Wilki’son, don’t you touch them trees, you’ll get your hands so
rough you can’t play this afternoon,” and, “Mabel, I thought you was
goin’ to lay down and get rested--you’ll be all worn out.”
“Emma, don’t let Mis’ Wilki-son sweep the floor--Mis’ Wilki-son, let
us have a matron up here and you go and get some rest, we can fix
everything now.”
What this means will be realized fully only by those who know the
general temper of the women confined in our penal institutions, who
have seen the sullenness, the bitter vindictiveness, the complaining
spirit of the greater part of them. The girls of the old-style
reformatory or prison have much time to themselves, and they put in
every minute of it inspecting and piling up their grievances. Even when
they are occupied they are thinking about themselves; naturally, they
take little interest in doing kitchen or laundry work, or in running
machines.
Sullenness and distrust, a hardened suspicion of everything that is
done for them, are the biggest difficulties in the way of the woman who
tries to “get at” the girls. Mrs. Wilkinson has shifted the emphasis.
She does not think so much about “getting at” the girls. She tries
rather to get them away from themselves.
She does not bother with the girls’ little sordid histories. She sees
in them so many voices, so many dancers. Her mind is intent on just
one thing--the operetta, the minstrel show, the Easter chorus that is
in progress. Her enthusiasm is unlimited. The girls see her up at 5
o’clock in the morning getting ready for rehearsals, trying out voices,
arranging tableaux, planning costumes down to the smallest detail, as
if this were the most important thing in the world, and they gradually
forget to sulk, and turn in to work.
It was Mrs. Wilkinson and the “Pirates of Penzance” that brought one
of the most refractory inmates of the whole two hundred at Sherborn up
out of the punishment cell where she was confined at regular intervals.
There was no question about it, the girl had a remarkable voice, and
the opera had to have her, and she would simply have to keep out of
the punishment cell. Which she did, and on Saturday sang the part of
the Pirate King with a dash and a finish that brought forth a storm of
applause.
She regards Mrs. Wilkinson as her especial charge. And, indeed, many of
the girls have a maternal sort of attitude toward this little chaplain,
with her wide blue eyes, her earnestness, her trick of asking advice
from everyone, her intentness on her work, and her way of taking it for
granted that everyone else is just as absorbed and just as enthusiastic
as she is.
Mrs. Wilkinson has been at Sherborn a little more than a year. The
“Pirates of Penzance” is by no means the first achievement. All the
public holidays are celebrated. Last year “The Sleeping Beauty” was
given by the lowest grade in the prison, in which eleven nationalities
were represented, many of the cast being unable to read and write.
Fourth of July is always a gala day, and the festivities include a
minstrel show. This year the minstrel show, given out of doors in a
charming little amphitheatre on the prison grounds, was a deviation
from the usual half-circle, end-men arrangement. There was a little
darky cabin, choruses of cotton pickers, and a substantial plot.
Every month there is a birthday party, given in honor of all those
whose birthdays come in that month. An extra dish is provided
for supper, and instead of regular chapel exercises there is an
entertainment of some sort by the girls themselves. Folk dancing has
been held under the trees, the kitchen girls danced “Pease porridge
hot,” the sewing girls “Reap the flax,” and the laundry girls a Swedish
clothes washing dance.
From all this it might be gathered that we were stepping rather far
across the line and giving our offenders a better time in prison than
they have out of it. The ultimate object of these entertainments,
of all this work which seems at first glance rather irrelevant to
correction of criminal tendencies is something quite different from the
mere pleasure to those who take part.
In the first place, concerted action has been the slogan for every
prison reformer. In all too many instances, however, it has been
enforced concerted action, and that is of little or no benefit. In all
the thirty-odd years that the women of Sherborn have been working in
the shop, in the laundry, on the farm there was probably no spontaneous
co-operation whatever. The best that could be said was that they were
not sitting idle in their cells.
The most important contribution which Sherborn’s chaplain, more or
less unconsciously, has brought to that curious community is a new
sort of inhibition. Up to this time the correction of the wayward has
been through the medium of morals. About the best thing that could be
done while a woman was serving her term was to attempt to awaken in
her a sense of her own responsibility, of her duty, of the standards
by which other people lived and which were necessary for comfort and
health and ultimate goodness. It was an attempt to get into working
order that moral inhibition that keeps the greater part of us from
forging checks when we need money, or murdering our enemies when we
hate them.
Mrs. Wilkinson has a new inhibition--the æsthetic. Fifty per cent. of
the women in Sherborn are there for acts which to the normal person
would be unspeakably repulsive. The average woman is held back from
filthiness by her æsthetic sense, even if she isn’t by her moral sense.
By giving the women who for a year or two come under the State’s care
an understanding of any one art, especially of music, which appeals
most directly, a standard is given from which the individual never
backslides. Moral standards depreciate, but the person who has been
educated past ragtime and past bad pictures never really enjoys them
again. And while the æsthetic inhibition has less direct bearing on
conduct than the moral, while it does not always have force enough to
be effective, it is one more chance for the girl who goes out from
under the State’s supervision to stay out.
This is, of course, one of the greatest problems of the penal
institution--how to hold the discharged prisoner to the standards which
she has but just grasped during her term.
“If we could only keep them here until we had set them squarely on
their feet,” said Mrs. Hodder, the head of the prison. “The great
difficulty is in dove-tailing life here with the life that they meet
outside. People are so merciless, so cruel--they force the girl
straight down again into the life she came from.
“The first practical step which our reform institutions must take is
the creating of the indeterminate sentence, which will allow the heads
of institutions to keep their charges until they are in some degree
capable of taking care of themselves. For instance, in Massachusetts a
sixteen-year-old girl can be committed to the State Industrial School
for Girls and be under its custody and its excellent training until
she is 21. For the girl of 17, committing the same offense, there is
only this institution, strictly penal in character and sentence, where
she may serve a minimum of eight months and then be released.
“We have made some advance in this State in that the Parole Board
never releases a girl if we oppose her release, so that we are able to
keep the girls much longer than formerly, when they served the exact
sentence and then were discharged. But it is very hard for us when a
girl knows that her sentence is for one year and we keep her for two.
She is resentful and uneasy all through the second year.”
Sweeping changes have been made in Sherborn since Mrs. Hodder’s arrival
there three years ago. Sherborn is called a reformatory, but it is a
prison, and, although Mrs. Hodder has removed many of the obsolete
features of it, remnants of an old penology, she has not gone to the
other extreme and turned punishment to pleasure and correction to play.
“What I hope to do,” she explained, “is to develop this reformatory as
an ‘Industrial Training Institute for Women.’ We have had the handicap
of ‘hard labor’ stamped on our commitments. This has tended to make of
Sherborn a purely industrial plant.
“What I want to do before I get through is to put in commercial factory
standards in speed and efficiency. Up to this time work here, like work
in many of the prisons throughout the country, is little more than a
stop gap. The training which the worker gets is practically no training
at all. Hours are long, inspection is desultory. The worker who would
go out from our machines into a white goods factory would not be able
to measure up in speed and efficiency to any but the novice.
“The practical thing to do is to institute the factory standard,
introducing some competitive basis. Then there must be correlation with
the educational side of the institution. Before you can get up any
interest from the women who sew on shirts they have to know something
about shirts. They must be taught something about fabrics, how they
are made, how to buy them--the condition of the industry--which they
represent.
“Along with the shop course must go other things--domestic training,
cooking, hand-sewing, millinery, and mending, and all of them
supplemented by class-room training. In short, we must offer industrial
training of a sort which would enable a girl to earn her living when
she leaves us.
“This is the greatest difference between the policy which we are
working out at Sherborn and the policy pursued by Dr. Davis at Bedford
Hills in New York State. The emphasis at Bedford is, I believe, too
much on the educational side. The emphasis on Sherborn has been,
I know, too much on the industrial side. The two must be properly
balanced.”
The reformatory at Bedford Hills can hardly be compared to the prison
at Sherborn. The problem of the latter is much more complicated by
reason of the fact that it is a prison for all mature offenders,
including women of forty and over, while Bedford is nearer the
Lancaster Industrial School, which receives girls under the age of
seventeen. The older women criminals of this State are sent to Auburn.
Mrs. Hodder is energetically opposing the age grouping which our penal
institutions have followed for many years.
“Segregation and classification,” she says, “this is the next practical
move in our prison reform. What classification has been done has been
for the most part according to chronological age, which is absurd.
“An examination of 427 cases from the reformatory showed that, should
all women under fifty be grouped in one institution, the long-sentence
women--almost invariably first offenders, and of a much higher type of
intelligence than short-sentence women--would be classed with a large
number of alcoholics and some of the worst of the sex cases, together
with a number of definitely feeble-minded. In fact, almost every type
of criminal would come into the under-thirty class, and by no means are
the young offenders the least hardened and the most reformable.
“Segregation, as we are fast coming to realize, must be according
to degree of viciousness and according to intellectual and not
chronological age. And the classification must be greater. The
cottage plan is the only one by which successful reform work can be
accomplished, such a plan as Dr. Davis has worked out at Bedford Hills,
for example.
“Under such a system, which allows for very small groups, the women
can be carefully graded, the downright vicious woman kept from the one
whose weakness is nothing more than alcohol or vagrancy. Under such a
system we can care for the extreme cases, which are always the most
perplexing problem--those violent cases for which we now have to employ
the punishment cell. For these women, who are often border-line cases,
should be prescribed steady out-of-door work. My idea is to have a sort
of movable shack and a cage where a violent case of this kind could
have the opportunity for solitary confinement, which undoubtedly is the
best treatment, and for working in the ground, making things grow.
“Of course the prison should not have its progress clogged by these
border-line cases any more than it should be hampered by care of the
distinctly feeble-minded. Out of 427 women 17 per cent. of those below
30 years of age were found to be definitely feeble-minded, 25 per cent.
mentally subnormal, making nearly half of the number with some marked
mental defect. These should, obviously, be separated from those who are
mentally sound and given special instruction, which would be the case
were we to classify according to intellectual age.”
Sherborn Prison is, because of lack of funds, a long way from the
cottage system--it is still a prison, built on the dormitory plan. But
its “cells” are fair sized rooms, clean, and with a large window to let
in the sunshine. There are colored pictures and postcards tacked on
the whitewashed walls of most of them. The room of one of the “lifers”
was unusually attractive, potted plants at the window, a rocking chair,
and a table covered with a spotless cloth, edged with a border of the
finest kind of crochet made by the prisoner herself.
And just before lights-out time Saturday evening it was curious to go
down the corridor and see outside of each barred door a neatly folded
policemen’s suit and helmet, or a pirate’s gay colored cape, with
dagger and cocked hat on top. And behind the barred doors could be
heard, in a subdued undertone:
His capacity for innocent enjoyment,
’Cent enjoyment,
Is just as great as any honest man’s,
Honest man’s.
FRANCIES AND HIS FIVE THOUSAND ACRES
[At Bellefonte, Pa., the State of Pennsylvania has bought what is
probably the most wonderful farm prison site in the world. The editor
of the _Delinquent_ made a recent visit to Warden Francies, and can
enthuse over the site without any reservations. The following article,
from the Pittsburg Gazette Times, tells of Francies and his farm.]
Prison reform is to be realized in the Western Penitentiary now in
course of erection in the Nittany valley, Centre county, about five
miles from Bellefonte, Pa.
One hundred and thirty convicts with terms ranging from 2 to 15 years,
too busy with their day’s labor or their evening’s sports to think of
evil, are building the new penitentiary or tilling the soil. Only nine
hours a day, that time allotted for sleep, are the prisoners under lock
and key. They go about their various duties under the direction of a
guard or overseer, but the shotgun or rifle, usually accompanying such
officer, is conspicuous by its absence.
The prison gives promise of being the ideal penal institution of the
world.
The site is ideal for the work to be accomplished. It stretches
from the Nittany Mountains across the valley, almost to the Muncey
Mountains, being more than six miles long at its greatest length. In
width, it reaches out in some places over three miles and covers an
area of 5,250 acres.
Fertile farms in this vicinity have been combined into one magnificent
estate. In a few years it will be one of the most beautiful parks found
anywhere. Aside from the building to be erected for prison purposes,
prisoners will build roads and bridges, remove unsightly objects from
farms, trim out forests into sylvan retreats and in a thousand ways add
to the work of nature.
How long it will take to complete the entire plan of Warden John
Francies is even with him a matter of much conjecture. He does not
believe the plant will be ready to transfer the entire prison body from
the Woods Run institution to the Centre county farm for several years.
While there are 130 men now employed at the work there, this number
will be increased from time to time, but he believes it will be several
years before the plans are worked out. Warden Francies hopes in the
future to see the prisoners of the new penitentiary manufacturing such
goods as are required in State institutions. He believes that it would
be better for the State if furniture for use in State institutions were
manufactured in the prison than to send to Michigan for such furniture,
and that shoes for the State’s charges could also be made by prison
labor instead of the money being sent to Massachusetts, the seat of the
shoe industry.
Should he be able to work out his plans with the aid of the State
governing bodies, he hopes to be able to pay each prisoner for
labor, deduct the amount of the prisoner’s keep from his earnings
and turn over to those dependent upon the prisoner the surplus, thus
preventing the privation to families and saving the State and municipal
governments money spent through charity departments for the maintenance
of those families.
Events leading up to the acquiring of the land for penitentiary
purposes were by no means favorable. Even after the Board of Prison
Inspectors had decided to adopt the farm idea, many obstacles were to
be overcome. Warden Francies, in asking the legislature on February 14,
1911, to pass a bill which had been drawn up authorizing a purchase of
land and the erection of a penitentiary and other necessary details,
opened his address by declaring “if the Western Penitentiary was not a
tragedy it would be a screaming farce.”
The legislature, after listening to his arguments, passed the bill
without a dissenting vote, there being no semblance of party feeling.
With the act signed by Gov. Tener, the matter of a location was then
taken up and in all over 200 sites were offered. All of these had to be
examined and the merits and defects of all gone into carefully.
The Rockview farm territory was finally decided upon by the warden,
and when he asked the governor and the prison inspectors to view that
site it was unanimously decided to accept it. Options were secured on
over 5,000 acres, but some little technicality developed and it became
necessary to reoption the big tract comprising 40 parcels of ground.
It was finally purchased at an average cost of less than $50 an acre.
Payment was made direct to the owners by the State treasurer.
The first work on the new prison was done in July, 1912. At that time
Warden Francies took one prisoner from the Western Penitentiary to the
farm and put him to work tearing paper from the walls of the old home
on the Ishler farm. A week later two more prisoners were taken up and
the next week four, to be followed a week later by eight prisoners.
After that the prisoners were taken up as needed.
The old Ishler home was thoroughly renovated and changed to suit their
needs. As the number of prisoners increased, the needs became greater
and last September work was begun on the erection of a larger building.
An annex was built to the home. It will later be known as the merit
house. The annex is a two-story concrete building and is regarded as
one of the finest pieces of reinforced concrete construction in the
State. It is practically one piece. The first floor contains a bath
room, with numerous showers, a dining room and kitchen. The second
floor contains one large room which, although now occupied as sleeping
quarters, will be a resting room. In the old farm house now occupied as
sleeping quarters the prisoners will sleep when matters are adjusted
later. Fifty men will find accommodations in the merit house.
The concrete in this building will later be faced, giving it the
appearance of dressed stone construction. Every bit of stone and sand
in the construction of this annex was taken from the farm. In fact,
stone and sand for all buildings and roads will be quarried on the
farm. Only cement will be purchased.
A pen and corn crib near the home was removed and the best material
saved and used in the construction of a machine shop and laundry. An
old barn and other outbuildings likewise furnished lumber for a power
house and other temporary buildings.
Timber worth $3,500 has been taken from the woods on one tract and
converted into lumber needed about the place. It is estimated that
a like amount can be cut from the same tract. Although the woods on
this farm comprised only a small part of the acreage, the farm cost
the State only $16,000 and in addition to the lumber taken from it,
thousands of dollars worth of limestone has been quarried.
With the passage of the act abolishing hanging, it became necessary
to prepare for the new method of execution. The erection of the
electrocution house is now under way. The foundation has already been
constructed and is a remarkable piece of work. This building will be
complete in itself. It will be two stories in height, with wings of
one story on each side, and about 230 feet long and 31 feet wide. In
the basement of the main building will be the heating and ventilating
system and dynamos for generating the current.
The first floor will contain the office of the deputy warden and
observation room. The second floor will contain cell rooms and the
electrocution chamber. Such an arrangement will prevent tampering with
the wires from the outside of the building. The concrete walls will be
two feet thick with an imbedded network of one-inch iron bars.
This is the first building to be erected within the acreage allotted
for the prison proper. The entire group of buildings will be enclosed
with a 30-foot high concrete wall. The enclosed area will be about
50 acres, or five times the acreage now enclosed on the North Side
in Pittsburg. Inside this inclosure will be the complete prison,
including the big cell room where the prisoners will sleep, workshop
and hospital, which occupies a site on the hill, half a mile from the
railroad and facing the beautiful gap in the Nittany Mountains known as
McBrides Water Gap.
The site presents marvelous natural advantages. Spring Creek will be
harnessed and experts declare it will flow even during the dryest
season at the rate of 100,000,000 gallons during each 24 hours. The
riparian right to the State of this stream has been estimated to be
worth no less than $1,000,000, just 80 per cent. of the total cost of
the entire farm. This trout-filled mountain creek will furnish the
power that will turn the wheels of industry on Rockview farm, provide
the electric light and fill other wants and still leave a surplus in
reserve power. For three miles up the beautiful valley its waters will
be held back in check until the time arrives for its use. A dam 55 feet
high at the breast will be constructed. More than six miles across the
farm and up in the mountain is a stream which will furnish 1,000,000
gallons of pure mountain water.
The question may be asked, in what relation does the warden of the
Western Penitentiary stand with his convict farm hands? He is one of
the boys. Could you but see him in the evening on the top of one of the
great hills near the merit house during the baseball game you would be
convinced of the statement. He jumps from his automobile, flings his
coat on the ground and takes a seat on the grass among the prisoner
spectators and is prepared to enjoy the game.
In the working out of this undertaking the welfare and future of the
prisoner after he has served his sentence has not been lost sight of.
This is best illustrated in the words of Warden Francies.
“Our mission is to turn out not worse men, but better men.”
THE TREATMENT OF THE MISDEMEANANT
[This excellent summary of the present correctional treatment of the
misdemeanant was read by Amos W Butler, chairman of the Committee on
Corrections, at the National Conference of Charities and Corrections
in Memphis, in May, 1914.]
Who knows how many persons are confined in local jails in the United
States? Who comprehends the magnitude of the problem involved? How many
appreciate its relation to the individual, to his family, to society?
The Bureau of the Census tells us that 452,055 persons were committed
to county and municipal prisons in 1910, under sentence or for
non-payment of fine. We call them misdemeanants. It is the name
ordinarily given one whose offense the law does not deem sufficiently
serious to warrant a State prison sentence. If the ratio of commitments
to the whole number received is the same throughout the United States
as in Indiana, it is probable that one and one-half million people
annually come under the influence of these local prisons.
We know that jails are the spoil of partisan politics. They are
maintained largely on the fee basis. Most of them were built without
any proper idea of the purpose they were intended to serve. As a rule
they are insanitary, they lack proper provision for separating the
sexes and there is no means of employment. Often they are crowded
beyond their capacity. There is little attempt to classify the
prisoners. They congregate in the corridors and the older and more
experienced in criminal ways instruct the others in vice, immorality
and crime. In how many such institutions are women not only waited upon
but searched by men?
The late Samuel J. Barrows once remarked: “Back in 1876 a committee of
the New York Legislature said: ‘There is no one source of crime more
operative in the multiplication of thieves and burglars than the common
jail’ and that statement still remains true of a large number of jails
throughout the country.”
Many of you have heard Dr. F. H. Wines’ scathing denunciation of
these institutions. Delegates to the International Prison Congress
who visited this country in 1910 declared our local jail system as
bad as it was centuries ago in Europe. “Every jail I saw ought to be
wiped off the face of the earth,” said Thomas Holmes, secretary of the
Howard Association of London, and this was the general verdict of these
distinguished prison officials and penologists. It was the idleness of
the prisoners, the lack of fresh air, the indiscriminate mingling, the
long-delayed trials that impressed them so unfavorably. “I asked two
colored men how long they would be in and they said they did not know;
that they had waited eleven days for a trial,” said Dr. Eugene Borel,
professor of law in the University of Geneva, Switzerland. “That is
a shocking travesty of justice. In Europe a prisoner gets a hearing
within twenty-four hours.”
Yet under such conditions as these we detain hundreds of thousands of
persons:--The vagrant, the drunkard, the witness, the runaway boy, the
first offender, the hardened criminal, the man awaiting trial, the
convicted law-breaker. What can we expect but that they will degenerate
in body, mind and morals? Even where work is provided, as is done in
some larger jails and workhouses, it is under the old contract system,
which we should like to see abolished. In some States misdemeanants are
employed on the public highways. However successful this may be in some
parts of the country, it would probably not be in conformity with the
public sense in the more thickly settled communities, or practicable to
any great extent in the more northern latitudes.
The whole question of the apprehension, treatment and release of the
misdemeanant is of tremendous importance. While prison reforms are
coming with surprising rapidity, they have been confined largely to the
felon. The misdemeanant has been neglected.
In the first place, what are the qualifications of the average
policeman? Ordinarily he is without training or experience. His
politics have usually had more to do with his appointment than any
other consideration. What part can such a policeman play in an
enlightened system of penology?
In a number of States the constitution proclaims that the penal code
shall be founded on principles of reformation and not of vindictive
justice. How far has that been interpreted in the statute laws? The
provision of most of our State constitutions that justice shall be
administered “speedily and without delay” is wholly forgotten. We
generally think that the day of imprisonment for debt is past. Yet many
jail prisoners are held for debt--the fine assessed against them. The
man of means pays his fine and goes free; the man without money suffers
imprisonment under conditions which menace health and morals. It
frequently becomes necessary for his family to ask for help; sometimes
he loses his job. If he becomes embittered, or vindictive, need we
wonder at it?
The picture is not all dark. Here and there light is breaking through.
We are coming to understand that the policeman can be a social agent, a
next friend, an instructor in obedience to the law. We are beginning to
regard as the best officer the one who makes the fewest, not the most
arrests. In some cities women are being added to the police force, and
there are police matrons, and jail matrons, and even women judges.
“Humanizing the courts” is an expression coming more and more into
use. Instead of sending to jail men who are unable to pay their fines,
judges are releasing them conditionally and giving them a chance to
earn the money. The plan works admirably. Judges are finding that their
confidence is seldom misplaced. This principle has been enacted into
law in Massachusetts and other States. Elsewhere it has been practiced
without special authority of law. In New York State the probation law
provides for the collection of fines on probation and also restitution
on probation.
We are further coming to believe that too many persons are sent
to prison. Some States have adopted a system of probation, under
which many lawbreakers are reclaimed to society without the stigma
of a prison sentence. Probation has been successfully tried in
Massachusetts, New York and other States.
We have learned, too, the value of the farm colony for the open-air
employment of almost all classes of public wards. This has been applied
to the insane in Wisconsin, Massachusetts and Indiana; to epileptics in
New York, New Jersey and Indiana; to feeble-minded in Massachusetts,
New Jersey and Indiana; to both dependent and delinquent children
in many States, and more recently to certain classes of prisoners,
including all kinds of misdemeanants of both sexes. What is being
done at Cleveland, at Occoquan and at Guelph is well known. The most
recent development of this movement is the New York State Farm for
Women Misdemeanants. The simple, inexpensive, yet substantial form of
buildings, the freer life and the opportunity to contribute in part
at least to their own support, make it far better for the inmates and
cheaper to the taxpayer.
In Indiana the first step in this direction came about through the
establishment in 1907 of a State workhouse for women misdemeanants as
a branch of the Women’s Prison at Indianapolis. The institution is
entirely in control of women. Then the Board of State Charities began
a vigorous campaign for a state farm for male misdemeanants. Conditions
in the county jails were shown forth in the following paragraph:
HOW PRISONERS LIVE AND LEARN IN INDIANA COUNTY JAILS.
They live in idleness at the expense of the taxpayer.
They learn vice, immorality and crime.
They become educated in criminal ways.
They degenerate both physically and morally.
In 1913 an appropriation was secured, the land has now been purchased,
and work on the buildings will soon begin. The law contemplates
that the construction work shall be done largely by State Prison
and Reformatory men. The new institution is for men who have a jail
sentence of sixty days or more, and prisoners may be transferred from
the State institutions whenever room for them exists at the farm.
Eventually there will probably be several such farms in the State,
and this movement, with proper amendments to existing laws, should in
time do away with the use of the county jails for the confinement of
convicted offenders, and leave them only as places of detention.
We now look forward to the time when we shall have a form of
indeterminate sentence for misdemeanants. The success of this form of
sentence for felons in Indiana as in many other States justifies our
belief that it will prove valuable in the treatment of misdemeanants.
Certainly some improvement can be made over the present illogical short
sentence, which benefits neither the individual nor the public, in
whose name he is held.
New York has already taken an important step in this direction.
Misdemeanants between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one are to be
committed under an indeterminate sentence to the reformatory for this
class of offenders, authorized by the legislature of 1912. The site for
this new institution has not yet been located. It is the purpose of
those interested to place it on a farm and to make it one of the most
complete and modern of reformatories.
Another needed reform, State control of county jails, is receiving some
attention. J. S. Gibbons, Chairman of the Prison Board of Ireland,
said: “I tell you what I think you lose sight of in this country:
That all these splendid reformatories deal with merely a drop in the
ocean compared with the county and city jails to which your thousands
of prisoners go, and where many are manufactured. We were in exactly
the same condition up to 1877 when we brought county and city jails
out from under local authorities in the United Kingdom. We found the
antecedent to all reform was State centralization. In 1877 every
prison and jail was put under central administrative authority, and
the expenses paid out of the imperial funds. Three acts were passed
simultaneously for the three kingdoms. We then began at the bottom,
closing all the superfluous ones, and in that way we were able to close
about half.”
I have the following statement from Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise, of
England: “The Prison Act, 1877, transferred the Local Prisons of
this Country (i.e. prisons for the confinement of all classes of
prisoners other than those sentenced to penal servitude) from the
control of local ‘Visiting Magistrates’ to that of the State. The Act
came into effect on the 1st of April, 1878, 113 Local Prisons being
so transferred. Since that date, their number has been reduced to
56. At the time of their transfer, the Local Prison population stood
at 21,030--the highest known. From that date a continuous fall was
recorded until 1885, when the numbers reached slightly over 15,000.
After a series of fluctuations below and above this number, the
population stands at 15,000 at the present time. Relatively to the
total population of the country, the figure for 1878 represented 686
committals per 100,000, while that for the year ended 31st March 1912
was the lowest on record, viz., 439 per 100,000.”
Massachusetts, perhaps, has led the agitation in this country for State
control of county jails. In other States there has been some publicity
in favor of such action. An offender against the federal law becomes a
prisoner of the United States and is under the direction of the federal
judge. Why should one who violates a State law not be a prisoner of
the State? That is the theory that underlies the new law for jail
supervision in Indiana. Offenders against the State law have been
placed under the oversight and authority of the judge of the circuit or
criminal court, who is a State official. This judge may say where and
how the prisoner shall be detained, and if the jail is unsatisfactory
he may condemn it. He is authorized to prescribe rules formulated by
the Board of State Charities, which has supervision of all jails and
other public charitable and correctional institutions. A violation of
these rules, once entered in his order book, is in effect a contempt of
court.
While these advance steps have been taken, the reform is by no means
general. Most of the States continue to use, unchanged, the system
long since discarded in Europe, whence it came. The results are not
reformatory. On the contrary, they are destructive alike to the
individual and those with whom he later comes in contact. Local jails
are recruiting stations for our larger State correctional institutions.
We should make greater progress in reformation if we did not first
pollute the stream we are going to treat.
The outlook is not bright, but it is by no means hopeless. The evils
which exist are the natural result of the system we adopted. Let us
change the system. Let us begin at the bottom and study all the steps
in the treatment of the offender--his apprehension, detention, trial,
conviction, probation, confinement, treatment, employment, conditional
release, final discharge. Let us set as our goal:
1. A system of police recognizing character, merit, and efficiency in
the personnel and a proper social view for its operations.
2. A prompt hearing for every person arrested.
3. The establishment of juvenile courts for all children’s cases.
4. Provision for the care and detention of delinquent children outside
the jail.
5. A probation system for adults similar to that of juvenile courts.
6. Separate trials for women offenders.
7. A modification of the present system of fines in order not to
discriminate against the poor.
8. Classification of prisoners, confinement of individuals apart from
each other and absolute sex separation in county jails.
9. The prohibition of the use of the jail for any other purpose than
that of temporary detention.
10. The abolition of the fee system.
11. State control of all minor prisons.
12. The establishment of industrial farms for the convicted
misdemeanants.
13. A form of indeterminate sentence for misdemeanants.
14. Their release on parole under supervision.
15. The abolition of contract labor.
The following members of the Committee on Corrections approve and sign
the report:
Major R. W. McClaughry
Julian W. Mack
Arthur W. Towne
Frank E. Wade
Joseph P. Byers
John J. Sonsteby
Quincy A. Myers
W. H. Moyer
A. J. G. Wells
J. A. McCullough
John H. Dewitt
Archdeacon B. M. Spurr
Mr. E. Stagg Whitin disagrees with what is said about the employment of
convict labor on public highways in the more thickly-settled northern
States.
EYTINGE
By Charles Wheatley.
[In the State Prison of Arizona is a life prisoner who has made a
remarkable record. The _Delinquent_ has followed with great interest
Mr. Eytinge’s business career while inside the prison, and now,
through an article from the Ohio State Journal, presents Mr. Eytinge’s
story in part.]
Down in Florence, Arizona, in the State Prison they have penned up a
Daytonian for life on a charge of murder. This man went into prison an
outcast ready to die--or rather about to be killed by tuberculosis. He
had been a “con man,” forger and all-around crook, and today, seven
years after his conviction, he occupies a prominent place in the
business world.
The man in question is Louis Victor Eytinge, born in Dayton in 1878.
At the age of three his parents separated. His mother was a talented
musician, while his father had been actor, broker and gambler. Sometime
after the separation young Eytinge went to live with an uncle. He was
educated in the First District school, Central high school, spent two
years at St. Mary’s Institute and one year at the University of Notre
Dame.