=[Under this heading will appear each month numerous paragraphs of
general interest, relating to the prison field and the treatment of the
delinquent.]=
_Congress of Juvenile Court Judges._--Eight hundred invitations are
being sent out by Judge Muir Weissinger and his advisory board of the
Juvenile Court, for the third annual conference of juvenile court
judges of the central states to be held in Louisville November 14, 15
and 16. The invitations go to judges in Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana,
Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Colorado.
Special invitations are issued to officials of institutions in Kentucky
interested in juvenile corrections and the juvenile judges in other
states are asked to bring with them such probation officers and other
officials as may wish to attend the conference.
* * * * *
_Reformatory versus Prison._--That the proper classification of
prisoners is of basic importance in any effort to reform and
rehabilitate them, and that courts are often parties to the creation
of almost insuperable difficulties in this regard is shown in a recent
article in the Rahway (New Jersey) Herald:
D. George Wight, commissioner of charities and correction of New Jersey
finds that there is no uniform rule under which the common pleas judges
of the state deal out sentences. There are a number of first offenders
in the state prison who should have been sent to the reformatory, and
there are numerous cases where prisoners should have been sent to the
state prison instead of the reformatory. Dr. Wight also shows that
there are a number of hardened criminals confined in the reformatory.
The out-of-place presence of these detained persons interferes with
the work in the prison and in the reformatory. Mr. Osborne, warden of
the state prison, concludes that reformation is an almost impossible
achievement in the state prison, and Dr. Moore, superintendent of the
state reformatory, is of the opinion that the presence of hardened
criminals in the reformatory prevents the carrying on of efficient
reformatory work in his institution.
Under the existing laws it is provided that the male first offenders
between the ages of 16 and 30 years shall be sent to the reformatory.
Notwithstanding the provisions, Dr. Wight’s statistics show that from
June, 1909, to June, 1911, there were committed to the state prison
240 prisoners of the first offender class, and less than 25 years of
age. Dr. Wight shows that this total is twenty-five per cent. of the
commitments during the two years which the statistics cover. There have
been 231 commitments to the Rahway reformatory in the past year, and
of this number at least fifty-five per cent. are second offenders, and
some of the men are serving their third and fourth terms in prison.
The report of Dr. Moore shows that of the commitments in the past year
sixty-nine are second offenders, thirty-three are third offenders,
eighteen are fourth offenders, five are fifth offenders and six are
sixth offenders, leaving 104 first offenders committed during the year,
with a total of 234.
The investigation shows that the sentences imposed by the trial judges
have not been based upon the seriousness of the crime, but upon the
individual preferences of the court.
* * * * *
_A Prison Program for New York._--Commissioner Frank E. Wade, of
Buffalo, has embodied the results of a recent careful inspection of the
county penitentiaries of New York (New York, Albany, Onondaga, Monroe
and Erie) in well digested reports to the commission, and in addition
recommends a policy of action for the state which deserves quoting. For
years the inefficient county management of most of the penitentiaries
has been notorious.
“Control of the penitentiaries under existing conditions is essentially
a state function. The prospects, however, of state ownership are not
promising for some time to come. The initial cost will be so great
that, in the present condition of state finances, the proposition for
the purchase of these institutions is not likely to meet with favor;
furthermore, there are some related problems which should be settled
before state ownership of penitentiaries. I refer to a state farm for
vagrants, a reformatory for male misdemeanants between the ages of 16
and 21 and the development of industries in the penitentiaries.
“The state is already committed to the farm colony plan and its
successful operation will decrease the number in the penitentiaries of
the most hopeless class of inmates as far as penitentiary treatment is
concerned.
“A state reformatory for misdemeanants, where boys between the ages of
16 and 21 can be committed on an indeterminate sentence and receive
instruction in trades and letters, is the most necessary and urgent
prison reform under public discussion. These boys can now be committed
only to penitentiaries and jails, except in the city of New York, and
the penitentiary and jail associations and treatment confirm them in
criminal habits.
“The introduction and extension of industries in the penitentiaries is
of vital importance. The present idleness of the prisoners in all the
penitentiaries (except New York and Onondaga county penitentiaries,
where the product can be increased fifty per cent) is tending to
destroy their future usefulness and turn them into loafers. It is the
duty of the state commission of prisons to present the evils of this
idleness to the public and to endeavor to have the county authorities
furnish employment for all the prisoners, as required by law.
“The enactment of a law permitting the superintendent of prisons
to market the product of the penitentiaries will be of great
assistance. Staple industries could then be established and industries
supplementary to those in the state prisons could be installed in the
penitentiaries.
“The proposition of paying prisoners or their families a portion of
the earnings is involved in the development of the industries in
the penitentiaries. At present the idleness and the heavy cost of
maintenance will not permit such payments, but if the earnings of
prisoners were materially increased a substantial percentage might be
given.”
* * * * *
_Mr. Hall on Prison Reform._--Albert H. Hall, who has the gift of
“speakin’ out in meetin’” to some purpose, outlined at the recent
annual conference of the American Institute of Criminal Law and
Criminology what Minnesota has recently done, and recommended a law
which has been enacted this year in his own state. He stated the
provisions of that law, giving the reasons for each. All sentences,
except for treason or murder in any of the degrees, shall be
indeterminate: they shall be without limit of time. A board of parole
is established, with the prison warden as a member ex-officio, to
observe the prisoners, study them minutely, inquire into their history
and watch their tendencies and their motives, and learn all about them.
With this knowledge about them, the board establishes a record of
marks, giving credit for merits and charge for derelictions, and on
the basis of such register the board may release the prisoner on parole
when it deems it expedient. The prisoners are to be provided with the
rules and regulations, enabling them to score themselves, if they like,
and giving them the right of a hearing before the board if they think
the official score does not give them full credit.
In order that all shall be treated absolutely alike, petitions from
outside persons for the release of any prisoner will not be received
or acted upon. The initiative is to rest with the board, and it may
modify its conditions of parole during the period the prisoner remains
under its observation. The prison warden is made a member of the board
because of his intimate knowledge of the prisoners.
Another feature of the proposition is that the prisoner loses his
citizenship when he is sentenced, and its restoration rests with the
governor, to whom the board of parole is to certify when it grants an
absolute release, stating the reasons for the release.
Addressing himself to the merits of the general proposition, Mr. Hall
declared that the deterrent of crime is not the punishment, but the
fear of conviction. What any person respects more than anything else is
his honor, and he shrinks from being branded as a criminal. The system
proposed puts him on his own honor and gives him hope and ambition.
* * * * *
_Changes at Atlanta._--Widespread newspaper attention has been given
to proposed changes at the Federal prison at Atlanta. Hereafter the
emphasis will be placed upon reformation instead of on punishment.
The convicts will no longer be regarded as dangerous and unmanageable
animals, to be subjected only to hard labor, coarse diet and various
degrees of punishment, but they will be treated as men: men facing a
future filled with the opportunity of reformation, and the influences
of prison life will be directed towards the development of their
manhood and the creation of new hope in their bosoms.
In the prosecution of this new plan a prison library will be
inaugurated, a school established, concerts given by a band to be
formed among the inmates and games permitted in the leisure hours. Good
behaviour will be rewarded by increased opportunities for instruction
and amusement; bad conduct will be punished by curtailment of privilege.
* * * * *
_A Governor to Stump for Prison Reform._--The Boston Advertiser reports
that Gov. Foss having pardoned 51 convicts, and broken the record, will
make prison reform an issue on the stump. He says:
“I have pronounced ideas on the subject. I have received many letters
commenting favorably on the reforms that I suggested in my address
before the American Bar Association. Massachusetts is standing still on
the treatment of its prisoners.
“There are hundreds of so-called criminals in the prisons who may be
cured just as people in hospitals are cured of disease.
“Only a very small number of the men in prison are habitual criminals.
I don’t wish my ideas to be misinterpreted. Some of my political
opponents are attempting to picture me as opening the doors of the
prisons. As a matter of fact, I have very decided ideas on the
protection of the public from the habitual criminal.
“There are many men in the prisons, however, who commit crime when
under the influence of liquor. They become brutes when under the
influence of liquor, but when sober and temperate are perfectly
normal, first-class citizens who may become a credit to their various
communities.”
* * * * *
_Transferring Prisoners._--A recent Auburn (N. Y.) newspaper item
states that forty-four prisoners were that day transferred to Comstock
prison, a journey of about 200 miles. “At 9.30 the prisoners were
manacled by twos, with handcuffs on their wrists, and short lengths of
chain between their feet, making the act of walking as difficult as
a three-legged race. They were marched by twos to the outside prison
gate, and lined up while the guards placed themselves in position. At
the word, the gate swung back, and the line of gray suits filed out,
with a guard in blue at the side of every ten or twelve men. Marching
to the New York Central station across the street, each man carrying a
small bundle containing a few private belongings, they waited for the
train which was half an hour late. A crowd of morbidly curious quickly
rushed to the spot.
“When the train finally pulled in, the prisoners were marched up the
steps of a special car and down the aisles in regular order. Some
difficulty was experienced in getting the men, impeded as they were, up
the car steps, and they all smiled at the bystanders as if they were
enjoying the little trip in the open air. The guards took up their
positions inside the car, the doors were locked, and the train pulled
out, leaving the crowd to comment upon the late spectacle.”
Germany’s methods could teach us much by comparison. Transfer of
prisoners is specially frequent because in Prussia practically all
persons are under a central authority, the department of justice,
which transfers prisoners according as fluctuations of population in
the prisons occur. By arrangement with the railroads--which in Prussia
are under governmental control and operation--specially constructed
railway prison cars are attached to early morning or late evening
trains, the cars being so constructed as not to afford public display
of the prisoners. From the interior of the prison the prisoners are
conveyed in vans to the railway stations. So important and frequent
are these transfers that a small corps of prison department officials
are assigned solely to this special work. This is a “made in Germany”
humane plan that deserves our contemplation.
* * * * *
_A Michigan Prison Farm._--The Detroit (Mich.) News prints the
following editorial, entitled “Prison Farm Redemption”:
The state at large has not heard more encouraging news of progress in
any of its institutions than Warden Simpson sets forth in his report
on the management and operation of the prison farm at Jackson. The
farm is not a big one--only 30 acres in extent--and it admits of
little more than experimenting. But the warden and his charges have
done some important work on it in the summer now ending. They have
grown cabbages, peas, beets, parsnips, carrots, onions, radishes,
lettuce, cucumbers, sweet corn and tomatoes enough of the staples to
supply the prison for a whole year, and enough of the seasonal produce
to give the prisoners fresh vegetables during the summer. One of the
new silos will be filled with the ensilage from the green corn. The
shelves in the fruit cellars hold 5,000 quarts of canned strawberries,
while the memory of seven “feeds” of fresh berries and cream, not to
mention shortcake, still lingers with the prisoners. Fifty bushels of
huckleberries have been picked from the prison farm marsh. When the
tomatoes and apples are ripe, 5,000 gallons of them will be put up
for the winter table. In four months 133 hogs have been fattened and
slaughtered, yielding 22,077 pounds of fresh pork. All this has been
done at a monetary profit to the state. For the bigger profit reference
is made to the warden’s own words:
“The inmate working upon the farm, in addition to
his useful service, is forming for himself habits of
industry, growing fond of his work, perhaps to the extent
of following this vocation at the time of his parole and
release, thus taking him away from questionable haunts and
evil associates known to him of former years in his city
home. In my opinion there is no work, trade or calling
to which men striving for a livelihood may fall heir, so
conducive to the development of health, happiness, honesty
and independence, combined with all the attributes of a
good citizen, as practical and successful farming.”
* * * * *
_The Montpelier (Vt.) Jail._--_The Review_ mentioned briefly the
remarkable success of Sheriff Tracy of Montpelier, Vermont, in allowing
his prisoners to go out to work for farmers and other employers. In the
Atlantic Monthly for August Morrison I. Swift tells interestingly of
the results lately:
“The state of Vermont contains a prison where the inmates are treated
upon a novel plan. They are trusted and treated like other human
beings; they come and go almost as freely as the members of the
jailer’s own family; so far as possible, whatever suggests punishment
or disgrace is banished, and they are made to feel that their
imprisonment is designed to improve them as men and to restore them
to social life not only with full self-respect but with the cordial
respect of the community.
“This great innovation in prison practice was made possible by a state
law authorizing all sheriffs to set their prisoners at work either
inside or outside the jails. In Montpelier, where this prison stands,
the inveterate prejudice against prisoners has been swept away.
“As late as two or three years ago, when the men did not return
promptly to the jail at the time appointed the sheriff would become
nervous and go out to walk the streets looking for them. That is all
past now, not only because of the unsuspected traits of human nature
that experience has unfolded but because of the marvellous practical
success of the system. During the four years, out of 800 prisoners
treated upon the new plan only two attempted to escape, both of whom
were recaptured and sentenced to long terms in the house of correction
for betraying the trust reposed in them. With such a record as this
the sheriff no longer feels perturbed if his entire corps of prisoners
is scattered in every direction during the day, and he is perfectly
assured that at night they will reappear at the jail.
“During the whole period their labor earned above $6,000, of which
a total exceeding $2,600 was kept by themselves. As a rule the men
have carefully saved their money, limiting permitted purchases for
themselves to send it home to those dependent on them.”
* * * * *
_Intemperance and Imprisonment Causes of Poverty._--Just at the time
when a board of inebriety has been appointed in New York, the New York
Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, one of the largest
and oldest relief societies of this country, announces the results of a
statistical study, commented upon thus in the New York World:
“Only two families in every hundred of the 1,573 which have been in the
care of the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor this
summer were brought to poverty through intemperance. The percentage
goes against preconceived notions and is indeed surprisingly small. It
should disturb that prosperous complacency which sees in poverty only
or mainly the penalty of wanton misdeed. The association’s report for
1909 showed that intemperance, imprisonment, desertion, ‘shiftlessness
and inefficiency,’ all told, accounted for not 12 per cent of those
brought to want.
“The figures for that year showed that 65 per cent of the poverty was
due to two causes--sickness and unemployment. This summer the two
causes account for 68 per cent of the poverty noted, and 43 per cent,
or nearly half, was due to sickness alone. Here are causes of misery
which society can abate or largely remove and the economic evils of
which it can provide against through some form of insurance.”
* * * * *
_Prison Labor in District of Columbia._--The establishment of an
industrial plant in connection with the new district workhouse and
reformatory is being considered by the commissioners.
The plan under consideration is to have school furniture, garbage cans
and a variety of articles which the district annually is forced to buy
manufactured at the plant.
With the object of determining the feasibility of the scheme,
Commissioner Judson recently visited the Hampton Industrial
Agricultural Institute, at Hampton, Va., where he observed the
manufacturing methods that are employed as a part of the course taught
in the school.
It is the opinion of Commissioner Judson that the establishment of
an industrial plant by the District, the labor to be supplied by the
reformatory prisoners, will prove both practicable and economical.
In the event of the plan materializing, the District, it is said,
may sell the articles manufactured at the plant to the different
departments of the local government, but may not dispose of them to
outside buyers. It was stated today that the commissioners will soon
endeavor to secure a new reformatory site.
* * * * *
_A “Hobo Army.”_--During the first day of September a much-heralded
army of the unemployed “descended” on Washington. Thousands had been
announced by James Eads How, who for years has been with evident
sincerity trying to organize the vagrants of this country into a union.
Mr. How’s army numbered at the most several hundred in Washington.
The deliberations of the conference furnished space writers of summer
newspaper stories with material. But, as the Elizabeth (New Jersey)
Journal says: “So far as any impression on the national congress is
concerned, the self-styled hoboes might as well have met in Atlantic
City.”
Yet there is a real significance in the repeated efforts of James Eads
How to organize his hobo brotherhoods in St. Louis, Chicago, New York
and elsewhere. His organization efforts seem futile, but his almost
fanatical persistency has attracted more newspaper attention to the
fact of an ever-present vagrant army _that will not work_ than has any
other public event in this field, unless it be the campaign in New York
in 1911 for a farm colony for habitual tramps and vagrants. How is
pushing the vagrancy problem into the foreground, but perhaps not in
the way he imagines.
* * * * *
_The Nemesis of Finger Prints._--An editorial in the New York Times of
September 5th states that the evidence of guilty finger prints has
hitherto been little used in criminal trials. No one has been convicted
upon such evidence unsupported by other proof, although in a case of
burglary a few months ago the corroborative testimony was supplied
by the felon’s confession, made after he had compared the telltale
whorls photographed upon the window pane of his victim’s house with
his confirmatory digits. A grand jury has this week for the first time
returned an indictment upon recorded prints on file at the central
office of detectives which are reported to be identical with the faint
impressions upon a dusty case found in a loft that had been looted by
their stealthy maker. If he is convicted, Captain Faurot of the Police
Department’s Bureau of Identification will have won a notable triumph.
Men have been convicted of crimes upon the disputed testimony of
handwriting experts. There has always remained some doubt that the
chirography of others might be so like their variable hands as to be
mistaken for it. There was the chance, too, that some malicious foe
had carefully forged the damnatory documents. But the convolutions
upon the tactile surfaces of hands and fingers cannot be forged, there
is not one chance in a hundred millions that they will resemble the
finger prints of another, and their identification with the guilty one
is capable of mathematical proof. It would seem that no evidence could
be more exact. As its nature becomes known to those who make up our
juries, convictions upon such evidence will be common.
* * * * *
_Criminal Law and Criminology._--The American Association of Criminal
Law and Criminology held its third annual meeting in Boston early in
September. Governor Foss of Massachusetts in opening the conferences
expressed himself as opposed to the long sentence and in favor of the
indeterminate sentence and congenial labor for prisoners.
“The medical world would rise up as a body to condemn any method of
medical treatment which left the patient more liable to a recurrence of
the disease than he was to its first attack. And yet everywhere men
are being sent out of prison with the prison pallor on them, penniless,
weakened in body by unwholesome conditions and broken in spirit by the
withdrawal of all hope, ambition and self-confidence.
“You are aware that in some places criminals are sent to jail with no
guard, going freely on their honor; and that even when they reach the
jail they find no prison wall, no armed guard waiting to shoot them
down, but only a chance to test their own manhood again; a chance to
live in a wholesome place, with sun and air, fair treatment and every
incentive to regain their own self-respect.
“I realize that these measures are the extreme and radically opposite
to the customary prison methods; and it may be necessary to proceed
cautiously in following them. But they have proved effective, and they
promise the only hope of betterment that I know of. We can begin to
work toward them by gradually abolishing our city prisons, with their
dark, cheerless interiors, and building our future houses of correction
out in the country, where the sun and wind can get in and where all the
men who do not forfeit such right can work in the open fields. There’s
nothing dangerously radical in that!”
Professor Kirchwey, of the Columbia university faculty, spoke of
the new sense of oneness in society as it is related to the problem
of crime. “We can no longer think of society as arrayed against a
group of its so-called enemies,” he said. “The criminal is a part of
society. The motive power that must drive our reforms is not mere
humanitarianism nor sentimentality, but a passion for society as a
whole--a realization that society falls short of its oneness, its
wholeness, so long as one of its little ones shrivels in the fire.”
He spoke of the institute’s work as a three-fold work: first, to reform
criminal judicial procedure; second, to administer remedial measures;
and, third, to study conditions, hereditary and environmental, with
a view to determining the causes of crime. The third is the most
important, he thought, because it is aiming to prevent crime. “It
is,” he said, “a field of sanitation, of preventive medicine, of
anticipating and preventing the social cancer of crime.
“The state has not been ashamed to avow itself the guardian of
the delinquent child. May the time come when it sees there is
no distinction of age in all its erring children. Why limit the
guardianship of the state to the delinquent or dependent child? It’s
impossible to draw the line between the delinquent child and the child
not delinquent. They are all entitled to the care and guardianship of
society of which they are a part. Society as a whole is responsible for
all its members.”
The growing amount of crime among women was discussed. One-seventh of
the number of women committed to prison are old offenders. The growing
activity of women in industry was declared by President MacChesney to
be responsible for a surprising increase in crime.
“In Massachusetts crime among women is much more an economic than
a moral problem,” said Miss Mary Boyle O’Reilly. “The overwhelming
majority of women in industry are low wage earners, often victims
of seasonal trades with their alternate periods of over-work and
semi-starvation.
“These young and unsettled workers, many of them homeless and suffering
from malnutrition, are ignorant of business customs. Working at
machines and trades that are soon learned, they are entirely at the
mercy of their employers.
“In our Massachusetts prisons the population falls as prosperity
increases in the great centers of industry, but immediately there is
a shut-down in the mills of the State we are then forced to note a
pitiable increase in the number of women who fall into evil ways.”
The sensation of the annual meeting (from the newspaper standpoint)
was the scoring of conditions at the Deer Island (Boston) House of
Correction by President MacChesney.
“The buildings are so far behind the times that they must have been
built before my State was established. The sanitary conditions are
very bad. There is no attempt at classification or segregation. Youths
of tender years convicted of minor offenses are thrown among adult
prisoners who have been guilty of serious offenses. Prisoners of all
types are thrown together and this should not be so.”
Referring to the women’s prison, Mr. MacChesney said, “I saw one case
there that is most deplorable. It is that of a little girl but 17 years
of age. She was sent to the institution after being convicted on a
charge of vagrancy. She is there thrown among pickpockets and others
who have committed serious crimes. Two of your own judges, who were
with me, agreed that she should not have been sent there and that girls
of that age should be segregated from older and hardened women.”
The men’s dormitories at the institution were also the object of severe
criticism. The men’s cells, constructed before the civil war, with no
sanitary arrangements at all, were termed barbaric, and, as one member
said, “ought to be dynamited.”
While many Massachusetts newspapers expressed satisfaction that
the conference had raised the Deer Island issue again, the
self-satisfaction or complacency or resentfulness of some of the
editorials showed that not all of the “cocksureness” of Puritan times
regarding the high character of home habits and institutions has
departed from the Bay State.
* * * * *
_Jail Poetry._--Upton Sinclair recently “did” eighteen hours
imprisonment in the New Castle (Del.) workhouse for violating a Sunday
blue law. Seven hours of the time were spent on the stone-pile. The
inside cells and the “doubling up” practices led to the following verse: