[Under this heading will appear each month numerous
paragraphs of general interest, relating to the prison
field and the treatment of the delinquent.]
_The Disgraceful Jails of Iowa._—Rev. Charles Parsons, of the Iowa
Society for the Friendless, is on the warpath. He says that “the jails
of Iowa have been condemned and relegated to the junk pile many times,
and yet they go on doing business at the old stand in the same old way,
as if they were the most scientific institutions possible.
“I have spent enough time in the jails of our State during the past
five years to almost entitle me to membership in the jail fraternity.
If the jail has anything to be said to its credit, I have been unable
to find it, though I have searched diligently for it in most of the
jails within our borders.”
“One step in the program for betterment would be to avoid imprisonment
through inability to pay a fine, but give the opportunity to pay the
fine upon installments. This plan would save the culprit his employment
if he has any. It would save his family humiliation and disgrace and
help to save his self-respect.
“Another step in the line of progress would be to parole all offenders
where the penalty is less than 30 days. If they fail to make a right
use of the parole, give a work-house sentence.
“A third step in the program for progress would be the establishment of
district custodial farms with work-house facilities for all prisoners
serving 30 days or more. These district institutions must and should be
under the management of the State.
“Farming, gardening and diversified industries should be followed most
suited to the location of the institution, but such industries must be
used which are most easily acquired. That the labor of short term men
can be profitably utilized in such institutions has been demonstrated
in a number of instances.
“The work-house of Minneapolis is a financial success with men whose
average terms is only 17-1/2 days.
“That such labor can be used outside of prison walls with perfect
safety is shown by the success of the prison camp which has been in
operation for several months past, at Ames, and the hay pressing gangs
that have been working from Fort Madison.
“During 1912, 3,739 inmates passed through the Minneapolis work-house.
All the men worked in the open without walls, yet during the year there
was only one escape.”
_Warden Scott of New Hampshire Retires._—Many are the caustic
criticisms directed at the Governor of New Hampshire, who recently
removed Warden H. K. W. Scott of the State prison, and who appointed in
his place a man of no equal prison experience. Warden Scott held office
from 1905, and has served under five governors of the State, receiving
his appointment from Governor McLane.
The Concord Evening Monitor has published a large number of scathing
criticisms from the State press on the action of the Governor in
removing Warden Scott.
Warden Scott, during his connection with the institution, has abolished
the striped suit, lock step, downcast eye, dark cell and corporal
punishment, which were practiced before his coming, and has instituted
a night school. Instead of a candle each man now has an electric
light in his cell, a grade system has been established and during the
last summer a prison baseball league was organized, in order that the
inmates might have outdoor exercise. Four teams were in the league and
games were played Saturday afternoons.
During the last session of the Legislature Warden Scott worked for the
passage of an act to provide for pecuniary assistance of prisoners and
their families, whereby a certain per cent. of their earnings is laid
aside. The warden had submitted to the Governor and council a plan for
the carrying out of this act, which went into effect September 1, but
as yet no action has been taken.
Charges preferred against him by Rev. Claudius Byrne, a former chaplain
of the prison, were investigated by Legislative committees and proved
groundless.
Warden Scott says that for the present he will remain in Concord, N.
H., as his two sons are attending school.
_Sterilization Law Unconstitutional in New Jersey._—Upon the grounds
that she was denied the equal protection of the laws to which, under
the constitution of the United States, every person is entitled,
the Supreme Court of New Jersey, in an opinion by Justice Garrison,
has set aside the order of the Board of Examiners of feeble minded,
criminals, Epileptics and other defectives providing for the operation
of salpingetomy upon Alice Smith, an inmate of the State Village for
Epileptics.
In reaching this conclusion, Justice Garrison holds that without
regard to the power of the State to subject its citizens to surgical
operations that shall render procreation by them impossible, the
statute creating the Sterilization Commission is invalid because it
denied to the victims of the law the constitutional protection to which
they are entitled.
In the syllabus of the opinion Justice Garrison holds that the
artificial regulation of the welfare of society by means of surgical
operations for the prevention of procreation, being based upon
the suppression of the personal liberty of individuals, must be
accomplished, if at all, by a statute that does not deny to the persons
thus injuriously affected the equal protection of the laws guaranteed
by the fourteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States.
Commenting on this decision, the Springfield Republican says
editorially:
It is constitutional to sterilize defectives and criminals in the
State of Washington, but it is unconstitutional to sterilize them in
New Jersey. The United States Supreme Court will have to settle the
question finally. To the lay mind it would seem that, if the State has
power to break a man’s neck by hanging, or to kill him by electricity,
it would have the lesser power to subject him to a surgical operation,
not in the least dangerous to life or limb, for the protection of
society. The question of constitutionality aside, it is to be observed
that sterilization involves various social questions whose seriousness
should compel caution on the part of Legislatures in authorizing its
practice in public institutions. It cannot be said that the problem
has yet been completely thought out and all the consequences fully
considered. A recent article in a medical journal by one of the
foremost advocates of sterilization was notable for the physician’s
frank admission that the objections to the operation, in their broadest
significance, were very weighty. An operation that leaves the subject
physically as fit as ever for the sex relationship, yet eliminates the
danger of the conception of children, would have very deplorable moral
and social results if it should become in the least common. It is a
question that may easily involve large classes of people outside of
prisons and asylums for the feeble-minded.
_Farm Work in Minnesota._—From the near northwest comes the tale that
twenty-five convicts are to be sent to the State lands near Walker,
Minn., from the State penitentiary at Stillwater, to begin a system
of intensive State farming and land reclamation, according to plans
announced by the State Board of Control, which is compelled to find
employment for more than two hundred men after January 1.
The new laws prevent the prison from taking contracts, and the shoe
contract will accordingly be dropped.
The announcement of the new plan was made after the board had bought
160 acres adjoining the prison farm at Stillwater. This land will be
farmed.
The board has other land adjoining State institutions and owns a large
tract near the State sanatorium at Walker. The men prisoners will be
sent there to clear the land and put in crops. Only the prisoners with
best records will be sent to the farms. If the first detachment makes a
success of the venture others will be sent out.
_Alumni Day at a Reform School._—It does happen! This was what occurred
at the Lyman School for Boys, Westboro, Massachusetts, on November 15,
1913.
The trustees of the School, Superintendent E. L. Coffeen, and
Superintendent of the Parole Department, Walter A. Wheeler, sent
letters to all of the 144 boys who have become twenty-one years of age
the past year, inviting them to a dinner and celebration in their honor
at the school. About one fourth of them attended, and as many more sent
letters of regret, containing remarks of warm appreciation. Some of the
boys were in the Army and Navy; others had moved out of the State. For
any one of the boys to attend, meant the sacrificing of a day’s work
and the cost of carfare.
The program included a football game between the present inmates and
an outside team, a reunion of boys with old officers and teachers, an
inspection of the new features of the school, which they had not seen
in the last five or six years, and finally a banquet.
The usual speeches were made by the trustees, superintendents and
invited guests, but the feature was the voluntary address in behalf of
the boys made by one of their number. After thanking those present for
what the school training and the friendly oversight of the parole board
had done for him, he pledged the old boy’s interests in doing whatever
they could to help the younger brothers “make good” when released from
the school.
It is intended to have a Home Coming Celebration every year, of which
this was the successful experiment.
_After Forty-Three Years._—Pardoned after forty-three years—the best
years of his life—in a State penitentiary! Seeing the new world for the
first time at sixty-six—such is the experience of John Taborn, pardoned
by Governor Cox, of Ohio! Why, it’s like coming to life again after
half a century of death, says the Bay City (Mich.) Times.
When Taborn entered the State prison at Columbus in 1870, Grant was
President. The telephone was unknown; electric lights were not dreamed
of; there were not electric cars; skyscrapers in the largest cities
were four or five-story buildings; Edison had not conceived the
phonograph, while flying machines and wireless telegraphy were the
dreams of madmen. The United States navy consisted of a few iron-clad
and many wooden ships.
When he was pardoned, Taborn was taken about Columbus by Warden Thomas’
secretary to see that he was not confused by the traffic and injured.
He gazed in awe at the electric cars; he got lost in the revolving door
of an office building, the height of which astonished him; he enjoyed
his first ride in an elevator; he smoked a good cigar, but was puzzled
by the safety matches, which would not ignite when scratched on his
trouser leg; he heard a phonograph and talked over the telephone for
the first time in his life.
Despite his sixty-six years, Taborn is active and has keen sight,
reading without glasses. In the prison he learned three trades—that of
machinist, shoe-maker and molding—and plans to begin his last span of
life as a machinist.
When he left the prison he had about $100. The prisoners took up a
collection and gave him $30; the State turned over $20 and Taborn had
about $50 himself. He was placed upon an electric car for a trip to
Delaware, O., from which town he was sentenced for killing a man during
a quarrel. Then he will go to his old home in Cass County, Michigan,
and later to Hillsboro, N. C., where employment awaits him.
_Social Surveys of Delinquency and Vice._—The Russell Sage Foundation
Library publishes the following useful summary:
_Chicago._ Vice commission. Social evil in Chicago; a
study of existing conditions, with recommendations. 399
p. Chicago, the Commission, 1911. (50 cents)
This report may be obtained through the American
vigilance association, 156 Fifth Ave., N. Y.
_Cincinnati_ (Ohio). Bureau of municipal research. (The)
Juvenile court of Hamilton county. Cincinnati, O. The
Bureau, 1912. (2 cents).
_Elmira_ (N. Y ). Women’s league for good government.
Vice conditions in Elmira. 76 p. Elmira. The League, 1913.
_Hartford_ (Conn.) Vice commission. Report, July, 1913.
90 p. Hartford, Conn. Woman suffrage association, 1913.
(25 cents)
_Kneeland_, G. J. Commercialized prostitution in New York
City. 334 p. N. Y. Century Co., 1913. ($1.30 net)
_Minneapolis._ Vice commission. Report. 134 p.
Minneapolis, Byron and Hillard, 1911. (40 cents)
_New York_ (City). Committee of fourteen for the
suppression of the Raines law hotels. Social evil in New
York City; a study of law enforcement by the Research
committee. 268 p. N. Y. Kellogg, 1910. (Out of print)
_Philadelphia._ Vice commission. Report. Philadelphia,
The Commission. (40 cents)
This report may be obtained through the American
vigilance association, 156 Fifth Ave., N. Y.
_Portland_ (Oregon). Vice commission. Report, January,
1912. 216 p. Portland, The Commission, 1912. (Out of
print)
_Potter_, Z. I. Delinquency, in Russell Sage Foundation,
Department of surveys and exhibits. (The) Newburgh
survey, 1913. Also in Russell Sage Foundation. Department
of surveys and exhibits. (The) Topeka improvement survey,
1914. (in preparation)
_Seligman_, E. R. A., ed. Social evil, with special
references to conditions existing in the City of New
York: a report prepared in 1902 under the direction of
the Committee of fifteen. 303 p. N. Y. Putnam, 1912, c
1902-12. ($1.75 net)
_Syracuse_ (N. Y.). Moral survey committee. Report on
the social evil. Syracuse, N. Y. Moral survey committee,
1913. (40 cents)
_The State Use Problem in New Jersey._—The Newark News has a plain and
clear statement of the difficulty. New Jersey is finding in going over
from the contract system to the State use plan.
The State Economy and Efficiency Commission is to-day investigating
State prison conditions. The problems before it should concern every
tax-payer, not to mention those who are interested in the great problem
of prison reform. The need for their investigation was indicated
yesterday by the report of the prison inspectors.
The prison of this State is operated under the law of 1814 as it has
been amended from time to time. Its operation is based upon an obsolete
idea of prisons and their purpose: the idea that prisons are places of
confinement under the control of a keeper whose business is, as his
title implies, to _keep_ the prisoners.
To secure revenue for the State, and incidentally, to preserve the
mental and bodily health of the prisoners, provision was made for
hiring out their labor and for this purpose a supervisor was appointed.
The State wards then fell under the jurisdiction of the keeper
and supervisor, whose duties were regulated by statutes requiring
interpretation by the courts.
Then a Board of Inspectors was appointed to see to it that the keeper
kept the prisoners and that the supervisor kept the contracts for their
labor; but the board has neither authority nor responsibility. Finally,
a Labor Commission was appointed to devise a scheme for carrying out
the State-use system of keeping the prisoners busy; an undertaking that
it has proved unable, so far, to carry out.
Two years ago the Legislature decided to put an end to the exploitation
of prison labor as fast as the existing contracts expired. The
contracts bring the State a revenue of practically $100,000 a year,
two-fifths of the cost of running the prison. By abolishing the
contracts, the State forfeits this revenue without decreasing the
expense of the prison.
Employment for the prisoners must be found, and the State is committed
to the principle of employing them for State use, and, at the same
time, of providing healthful employment under the honor system in the
hope that it will prove reformatory as well as physically and mentally
beneficial.
Immediately two difficulties arise. One is due to the fact that
the State law divides without clearly defining authority and
responsibility. The attorney-general has decided that the keeper is
responsible for keeping the prisoners, and the keeper demands that
whether they are kept in the Trenton prison, at the State road camps
or farm, they shall be attended by a greater number of guards than the
inspectors think either necessary or for their moral good. There is
here a question of expense, of the extension of outside work, of the
moral effect of modern prison methods.
The inspectors are hampered, also, in the expansion of the State farm
and road making experiments by the supervisor, who is responsible
for keeping the contracts for prison labor; for the supervisor may
requisition as many of the prisoners as he wishes for contract proviso
of the law, of course; and the keeper must deliver them.
The second difficulty is that existing plans for their work offer
employment for only a small percentage of the prisoners. At the
expiration of the contracts—very soon—the great majority will be forced
into idleness unless the contracts are temporarily extended. To meet
this situation, the inspectors confess they have already broken the law
in order to keep the prisoners at work.
No plan has been devised, no equipment has been installed, for
furnishing labor to this great majority of prisoners. For this there
are several reasons, none greater, perhaps, than the fact that the
Trenton prison is not fitted for this employment unless the congestion
there can be relieved very materially. It might be necessary to make
provision elsewhere for two-thirds of those now confined there.
The Legislature has failed to make appropriations for installing a
plant where the prisoners can make articles used by the State because
no definite plan has been presented to it upon which agreement could
be reached. The working out of the transformation of prison methods
contemplated by the law of 1911 must be evolutionary. It will take
time, and, meanwhile, contracts, it would seem, must be temporarily
extended, regrettable as it is. What is needed, first and foremost,
however, is a clear definition and concentration of authority and
responsibility.
_The First Woman Commissioner of Correction. New York City._—Miss
Katherine B. Davis, formerly superintendent of the New York State
Reformatory for Women at Bedford, took office on January 1, 1913, in
New York City as Corrections Commissioner. She has thus been appointed
by Mayor Mitchell as the director of the Tombs, the penitentiary,
workhouse, three branch workhouses, the Brooklyn city prison, the
Queen’s County jail, and a number of district prisons—enough of a
task even for Miss Davis’s recognized ability. She also has the
construction to attend to of the city reformatory for misdemeanants.
She has associated with her as deputy commissioner, Burdette G. Lewis,
a “social worker at City Hall.” Heartiest congratulations are being
extended to the new heads of the Department of Correction. The readers
of the “Delinquent” know Miss Davis well already.
“Was it as big as my fist?” asked the judge, concerning a stone which
was responsible for a broken window.
“It ban bigger,” replied the Swedish witness.
“Was it as large as my two fists?”
“It ban bigger.”
“Was it as big as my head?”
“It ban about as long,” said the imperturbable Swede, “but not so
thick.”
STATEMENT OF THE OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, ETC. of THE DELINQUENT.
Published monthly at New York, N. Y., required by the Act of August
24th, 1912.