When the “Sage Prison Bill” became a law, providing for the demolition
of the old Sing Sing cell block and the erection there of a new study,
classification and distributing prison, and creating the “State
Commission on New Prisons,” New York State committed itself to a new
and more intelligent policy toward its offenders and toward the whole
problem of misbehavior. The new commission, commanded to carry out the
above and other provisions, soon found itself confronted by problems
that belonged essentially to modern medical science, and it turned
to the “National Committee for Mental Hygiene” for counsel, and an
advisory medical committee was formed. About a year before this,
realizing the need of a more thorough psychiatric study of criminals
along the lines that had been followed so well by Dr. Healy at the
Juvenile Detention Home in Chicago, the National Committee had placed
Dr. Bernard Glueck in Sing Sing Prison, with the consent and sympathy
of the Department of Prisons, to carry out a complete mental analysis
of all new admissions.
[Illustration: THE NEW SING SING PRISON, OSSINING, N. Y.--PSYCHIATRIC
BUILDING