[Under this heading will appear each month numerous paragraphs of
general interest, relating to the prison field and the treatment of the
delinquent.]
_A Prison Philosopher._--Number 6203 in the Oregon state penitentiary
sees things thus:
Men are like cigars. Often you cannot tell by the wrapper what the
filler is. Sometimes a good old stogie is more popular than an imported
celebrity. Some men are all right in the show-case on display, but
are great disappointments when you get them home. No matter how fine
a man is, eventually he meets his match. A “two-fer” often puts on as
many airs as a fifty-center. Some men never get to the front at all
except in campaigns. Some are very fancy outside and are selected for
presents. Others have a rough exterior, but spread cheer and comfort
all about them because of what is inside. But all men, as all cigars,
good or bad, two-fers, stogies, rich or poor, come to ashes at last.
_Sterilization in New Jersey._--Governor Wilson has announced the
members of the commission provided for in the sterilization bill passed
at the last session of the legislature. The bill stipulates that George
O. Osborne, head keeper of the New Jersey state prison; Dr. Frank
Moore, superintendent of the Rahway reformatory, and Dr. George B.
Wight, commissioner of charities and corrections, shall be members of
the commission ex-officio. The Governor has named Dr. Henry D. Costill,
of Trenton, and Dr. Alexander Marcy, jr., of Burlington, as the two
other members. Dr. Costill’s term is for three years and Dr. Marcy’s
for five years.
The bill provides for the sterilization of such criminally insane
persons and defectives as in the judgment of the commission it would be
wise to treat thus.
_Big Brothers Show Results._--The big brothers movement in New York has
been given a 230-acre farm in the suburbs of Trenton, N. J., and $4,000
cash from two anonymous persons.
In the last year 2,195 boys, nearly all of whom had appeared in
children’s court, came under the influence of the big brothers; of this
number only ninety had to be brought a second time before the court. Of
the total, 1,208 boys were cared for by the movement in 1910; 840 more
were arraigned in children’s court this year on various charges; 117
came from institutions, and 1,202 applied at the office for advice or
to seek employment.
All for whom places were obtained proved efficient. Permanent homes
outside the city were obtained for thirty-seven, and but one could not
withstand the lure of the city and moving picture shows, and returned.
_Making Prisoners Useful._--At the federal aid good roads convention
of the American automobile association in Washington on January 16 and
17, 1912, a session will be devoted to the question of the utilization
of prisoners in road building; speakers will be heard from the national
committee on prison labor and the American federation of labor.
To increase the output of the state nurseries of New York to 12,000,000
trees per year, the state conservation commission will establish a
nursery at the Great Meadows prison at Comstock.
A class in road building, composed of more than 200 long term convicts,
has been formed at the Kansas penitentiary at Lansing, and this fall
and winter they will learn the fine points of highway construction and
building boulevards around the prison. Next spring it is hoped to have
a gang of at least 250 men, all experts, who will be put to work on the
river boulevard which is to connect Leavenworth and Kansas City.
Warden John E. Hoyle, of the California state penitentiary, is planning
to manufacture safes by skilled workmen serving sentences for bank
robberies and safe blowing. In trying out the plan he has secured
admirable results, as proof of which he displays a vault in his office
which was reconstructed from worn out articles by prisoners under
sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment for robbing a safe. A man who is a
skilled mechanic will take charge of that division of the machine shop
where the manufacture of safes will be carried on.
_Trouble in Ireland._--A strange fault has been found with Irish jails.
The general prisons board reports that the institutions have become
so comfortable and attractive that short sentences, far from having a
reformatory effect, seem to prompt the person once in prison to get
back to the domicile as soon as he can. These short sentence prisoners
are not in long enough to receive the value of any real reform and are
out just long enough to keep themselves confirmed in their vicious
habits. So it happens that the board has recommended longer sentences
for two reasons, one that some real reform may be inculcated and the
other that jail may be made so tedious that culprits will be less ready
to seek the institution as a haven of snug refuge and ease for a time.
The board makes the recommendation that prisoners of education be
given instruction and a chance to study and that others be taught such
things as will tend to increase their usefulness and earning capacity
in the world. A plan is also recommended whereby superintendents of
prisons shall keep in communication with employers to the end that when
prisoners are discharged they may be given work as soon as possible.
_An Excellent Editorial._--Score one for the Boston (Mass.) Transcript,
which says:
“There may have been valid reasons for pardoning a man who has served
four years in our state prison for forging checks and since then has
been in the Springfield jail for another offense, but it is hardly
treating our neighbors well that one of the conditions of his pardon
is that he shall leave the state. If he is entitled to pardon at all
he is entitled to a chance to prove that he is worthy of it in the
jurisdiction where his offenses were committed. It looks too much
like passing our burdens on to others. We have criticised the Italian
government on the alleged charge that, instead of being at the expense
and trouble of punishing its own criminals it has frequently connived
at their emigration to this country. There is ethically not much
difference between that and our own practices. Every state should be
responsible for its own offenders. We do not want the ‘undesirable
citizens’ from other countries or commonwealths passed upon us and
doubtless other states feel the same way about it.”
“_Easy Money._”--Attention has been called by a Boston newspaper to
the vitality which the so-called “Spanish prisoner” swindle exhibits,
despite the repeated exposures to which the game has been subjected,
by the press of the country. Communities in New England, equally with
other sections of the country, continue to report the receipt of fake
appeals, along with the extravagant promises of rewards if money is
sent on, by which the languishing prisoner may be released from prison,
and thus enabled to enter upon possession of his gigantic fortune. The
appeals, it is easy to perceive, would not be sent to individuals where
the swindle has been laid bare, time and again, if out of the batch of
people thus addressed, gullibles were not found in number sufficient to
render the game a profitable one to the swindlers.
_How Many Prisoners Are Innocent?_--In a report read at the Omaha
annual meeting of the American prison association, Frank L. Randall,
chairman of the committee on reformatory work and parole, reported
that the committee devoted an entire year to its search for a case of
capital punishment wherein there was a reasonable doubt as to the guilt
of the victim, and so far has discovered not a single definite case
of the kind. This search was carried on in every prison in the United
States and in Canada, a personal letter having been written to the
warden of every state prison in both countries, and each official was
asked the following questions:
1. Have you personal knowledge of the execution of any person, on
conviction of murder, whom you believe, from subsequent developments,
to have been innocent?
2. Have you personal knowledge of the imprisonment, on conviction
of heinous crime, of any person whom you believe, from subsequent
developments, to have been innocent?
3. If either of the last two questions is answered in the affirmative,
was the victim a worthy person?
To the first question every warden in the United States and Canada
answered “No” unequivocally, with the exception of R. W. McClaughry,
warden of the government prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Colonel
McClaughry was not sure, but said: “I know of one or two who may, in my
opinion, have been executed wrongly.”
Warden Fogarty, of the Indiana state prison, wrote: “I have no
knowledge, personally, of the execution of an innocent person; however,
I have no doubt whatever that some innocent men have been executed.”
To the second question, however, a number of prison officials answered
“Yes,” qualifying their statements by answering question No. 3 with a
negative answer. For instance, Warden McClaughry, of the government
prison, answered, “Yes, a very few,” adding, “In no case could the
party have been called worthy.”
Warden Alston, of Wyoming, says: “Yes. I am confident that I know of
one man in our state who was convicted and sent here who was innocent.
But,” adds the warden, in answering No. 3, “he was of a drunken
disposition, and had he been a sober man would never even have been
suspected or accused.”
Warden Russell, of Marquette, writes: “I don’t think from my experience
as a warden of this prison that the courts make many mistakes.”
However, Dr. Gilmour, of Toronto, answers question No. 2 “Yes,” and
adds as an answer to No. 3: “Most worthy, and results sadder than sad.”
Superintendent C. C. McClaughry, of Boonville, Mo., answers “Yes” to
both No. 2 and No. 3.
Warden Fuller, of Ionia, Mich., writes: “During the seventeen years I
have been warden I know of only one case of wrongful conviction for
offences against property. One prisoner was sent here for stealing a
cow, and another prisoner afterward confessed that he had committed the
crime charged against the other man, in order to get rid of the man
with whose wife he was infatuated.”
Warden Fogarty, of Indiana state prison, writes: “I have not been
convinced by subsequent development that any man convicted and
sentenced here for a heinous crime is innocent.”
The case from the western penitentiary, Pittsburgh, wherein a prisoner
who served fifteen years was pardoned, was pensioned by Carnegie
and heralded as innocent, is treated in the following report: “Your
committee had previously taken pains to write to the warden of the
prison mentioned, but the information elicited did not indicate that
the prisoner had been declared innocent, but was to the effect that
the man had been discharged in the usual way--on recommendation--some
doubt having been raised.”
The writer of the report says: “The writer has for some years made it a
practice to follow up the correspondence or otherwise the most widely
published and sensational accounts of hardships experienced by innocent
persons under judicial conviction, and has been surprised at the meagre
ground upon which such reports rest, though he finds that they are
quite generally credited by the reading public.
“Perhaps his (the secretary’s) report may tend to establish confidence
in the courts on the part of those who are not informed and who have
neither the means nor the time, even if they have the inclination, to
inform themselves, and it might be a good beginning in the effort on
the part of the institutions to be understood by the public.”
_Annual Conference of New York Magistrates._--A number of important
problems before the judges of police courts and children’s courts will
be discussed and acted upon at the third annual state conference of
magistrates, which will meet in Albany on December 8 and 9.
One of the principal subjects to be discussed relates to the need of
a state reformatory for male misdemeanants between 16 and 21 years of
age. Courts outside of New York city have no suitable institutions
to which to commit offenders of this class. A special feature of
the conference will be a stereopticon lecture on the detection and
treatment of defendants who are mentally defective, by Dr. George M.
Parker, psychiatric examiner for the New York prison association. Dr.
Parker has lately examined large numbers of prisoners in the Tombs in
New York city and has found that a large proportion are feeble minded
or otherwise defective.
Other important subjects will refer to the necessity of public
prosecutors in police courts, weaknesses in the present methods of
securing and using court interpreters and the treatment of boys and
youths convicted of illegal train riding, trespassing on railroad
property and stealing from the railroads.