In New York City is Waverly House, a temporary home for young women
released on probation by the courts. The principal problem of the New
York Probation Association, which maintains the House, is the
rehabilitation of the young women convicted or arraigned for
prostitution. In the second annual report of the association, Miss
Maud Miner, the society’s secretary, writes:
“Among the girls who have been received into Waverly House this
year, nine per cent have been pronounced deficient when examined
by experts as to their mental condition, and a much larger
percentage, approximately one-third, can be said to be borderline
cases. They have not, except in three instances, been proper
subjects for insane asylums or present institutions for the
feeble-minded, yet they are distinctly below par mentally and not
entirely responsible for their moral conduct. It is useless for
the state and city to spend money for these girls in reformatory
institutions, as has been done in several of these cases, only to
turn them out after one, two, or at most three years, to be
preyed upon in the community. In a custodial institution where
they could have permanent care, a happy life would be possible
and society would be saved from caring for them in prisons and
reformatories, and from having the number of degenerates
augmented by their offspring.
“It is important to study the psychology of the individual girls
and women, and also to determine how far vice or criminality may
be attributed to innate depravity, low grade mentality or a
degenerate inheritance. Psychological and psychopathic experts
should be appointed to observe those who come in conflict with
the law, not only with a view to providing more intelligently for
the individuals, but for the purpose of discovering actual causes
and conditions, so as to prevent others from entering on a life
of vice and to check the increase of numbers in these classes.
“How far immorality and prostitution are the result of work
conditions and the inability to live on the wages paid, how far
these are a primary or a secondary cause, we do not definitely
know. It is true that nearly all the girls have at some time been
employed and that many of them have been working under conditions
which were not favorable.
“Girls who have worked in kitchens, restaurants, offices,
factories, stores, on the stage and in different workshops have
many strange stories to tell, and one realizes that girls going
out into the world of work are subject to many temptations. Girls
crave some fun and amusement, and it is a very natural, normal
thing. They do not seek it in dangerous places, but the truth is
that few others are open to them. To an increasing extent vice is
being linked with amusement and recreation. The men who procure
girls for immoral purposes from city and country, and who send
them to the streets to earn money for their own enrichment, are
responsible, to a great extent, for the constantly increasing
supply of women who enter upon a life of prostitution.”
That the association has work to do is strikingly evidenced by the
following table, showing the nature of the dispositions of cases in
the night court for women.
“During the year from August 1, 1909, to July 30, 1910, 7,896
complaints were taken against girls and women in the night court,
for offenses relating to immorality and prostitution. These
included soliciting on the streets for purposes of prostitution,
accosting men, associating with dissolute and vicious persons,
and violating the tenement house act by carrying on prostitution
in a tenement house.
“The disposition of the cases was as follows:
Discharged 2,648
Fined $1 to $10 3,913
Committed to the Workhouse 1,071
Placed on probation 156
Placed under Good Behavior Bond 71
Committed to N. Y. State Reformatory at Bedford 6
Committed to N. Y. Magdalen Benevolent Society 9
Committed to Protestant Episcopal House of Mercy 3
Committed to Roman Catholic House of the Good Shepherd 12
Committed to Immigration Authorities 7
——————
Total 7,896
“Of the total number, 84 per cent were almost at once returned to
the streets by being discharged, fined, or placed under a good
behavior bond. Fourteen per cent of the remaining 16 per cent
were committed to the workhouse, and in only two per cent of the
cases was some helpful measure tried—probation or a reformatory.
“The association has during 1910 developed a plan for preventive
work to aid more of those girls who are in danger and to seek to
understand better the conditions in the different districts
tending to bring the girls into trouble. Many of this class have
already been referred to the association, and it has been
possible to help them by putting them in touch with helpful
influences in the neighborhood, or by securing their removal from
the district. For the purpose of the preventive and after-care
work, the city has been divided into six districts. Some of the
work in these districts is being done by volunteer workers who
are not able to devote sufficient time in view of the extent and
character of the work.”