Read Ebook: The Review Vol. 1 No. 6 June 1911 by Various National Prisoners Aid Association Publisher

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Page The National Conference 1 Report of Committee on Lawbreakers 2 The Suppression of Moral Defectives 7 The Abolition of the Jail 8 Mental Defects and Delinquency 9 Treatment of the Mental Defective who is also Delinquent 13 Placing Misdemeanants on Probation 14

THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE

The national conference of charities and correction was held in Boston from June 7 to June 14. The committee on lawbreakers had the opening session, on Wednesday. Three section meetings were held by the committee during conference week.

The REVIEW prints in this issue many of the papers prepared for the sessions of the "lawbreakers," as they were facetiously called. Other papers will be printed next month. This is a small monthly, and some papers have been crowded out.

The keynotes of the "lawbreakers" sections were: Need for the abolition of local and county jails as prisons for convicted offenders and the establishment in their places of state district workhouses or houses of correction; full and impartial consideration by the national conference of the problem of prison labor; more rational and adequate treatment of the mentally defective delinquent; the imperative need of a change in our treatment of misdemeanants, especially vagrants, inebriates and offenders under the age of 21; the necessity of standardizing the methodology of probation work; the need of far greater organization of parole work; the necessity of developing crime statistics and statistics regarding offenders so that records may be of real value.

Many other notes were struck. The spirit of the sessions was optimistic, but questions and comments were frank and searching.

The committee on lawbreakers has a very definite place on the program, even though, as this year, the name of the committee may be changed, the committee for 1912 being called "committee on courts and prisons."

During the conference strong sentiment was developed in accord with the recommendation of the committee on lawbreakers that prison labor be made an important part of the program of the conference for 1912. It was stated by members of the committee on organization of the conference that the matter was thoroughly discussed in the committee, and that the understanding was that the title of the committee for 1912 admits of the introduction of this subject at the next national conference. It remains now for the members of the committee on courts and prisons to see that this subject is placed on the program.

The conference as a whole was characterized by the excellence of the papers, the fundamental nature of the topics discussed, the high-water mark in attendance reached, and the hospitality of Boston's representatives at the conference. Year by year the conference departs more from the technical discussion of institutions and methods, concerning itself increasingly with the problem of the general improvement of social conditions. The next conference will be held in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1912.

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON LAWBREAKERS

National Conference of Charities and Correction, O. F. Lewis, General Secretary of New York Prison Association, Chairman.

The Committee on Lawbreakers presents to the National Conference of Charities and Correction a partial survey of needs not yet met in the field of the treatment of the delinquent. In October, 1910, the eighth international prison congress met for the first time on American soil. Never before had this country been under so comprehensive or so discriminating a scrutiny by foreign criminologists. As one newspaper man put it: "The world's spot-light was turned on American prisons and American treatment of prisoners."

This is not pleasant reading, yet the question with us tonight is not whether this criticism makes us as Americans pride-sore, but as to the truth of this friendly but stinging criticism. On our program this evening we have a distinguished gentleman, son of the eminent American founder of the international prison congress, who will testify that the English comments of Sir Evelyn are mild as compared with the American reality.

Rome was not built in a day. As in Chicago you find still in immediate context the mansion and the hovel, we have, in our treatment of delinquents, in close juxtaposition the prison and the jail, the reformatory and the workhouse, children's courts and lynch law, probation and short term sentences, the indeterminate sentence and industrial prison idleness, parole and definite sentences, prison hospitals for tuberculosis and jail pens for syphilis-infected tramps. Civic pride in great modern prisons exists side by side with civic indifference as to filthy lock-ups or town jails.

At the beginning of the second decade of the twentieth century--the century of hoped-for social justice--let us face frankly certain problems yet unsolved in the treatment of delinquents. Far from feeling that we have reached the thumb-twiddling stage of complacent satisfaction, let us see where our methods still break down.

The case against the average jail seems proved. Has not the time come to make a general national campaign against this "school of crime?"

Mr. F. G. Pettigrove of Massachusetts dissents from the above statements regarding jails as follows:

"I do not approve the unqualified general denunciation of jails. Nobody who is familiar with the Massachusetts jails would make such an attack upon them as is implied by the form of the reference to that subject."

Has the problem been solved? Are prisoners everywhere earning their maintenance? Has any one system proved satisfactory? Is there general consensus of opinion that the prisoner shall not be utilized for private gain? Is there no demoralizing idleness in so-called model prisons? Is there no high tension labor in so-called model prisons?

We learn that in Alabama even the wardens and the guards are employed by the contractors. We find that in Ohio in connection with the discontinuance of contract labor and the development of the State use system the state penitentiary was plunged into the most deplorable idleness. We find in Pennsylvania an archaic legal compulsion to utilize only hand power machinery, and but thirty-five per cent of the prisoners at any one time. We find under the present status of the state use system in New York that the State prisoners earn only about one-fourth of the cost of their maintenance, and a nominal sum of not more than 2c. a day, which earnings can be radically reduced by fines. We find loud protests in Rhode Island because the State lets the services of able bodied prisoners to contractors at 30c. a day, and we find in Maryland under the contract system a penitentiary which is said to have returned to the State treasury in 1910 a surplus of thirty-five thousand dollars from the earnings of prisoners, while the over time work earned for the prisoners themselves ,928. We find the Detroit House of Correction on the State account system earning a profit in 11 years of 8,000, paying its prisoners from ten to twenty-five cents a day wages, and planning to distribute to the families of prisoners, through the city poor master, ,000 during the year 1911 in addition to the surplus which it expects to turn over to the city. We find the Minnesota State prison under the State account system making the following report for the last ten years:

The binder twine plan in the ten years has made a profit of ,653,290, of which 2,553 was paid to the support fund for convict labor. Quoting again from Dr. McKelway, we learn that in Texas the convicts are worked on the leasing, contract, public account and public works system. "But a legislative investigating committee has recently discovered horrible abuses in all these systems. A number of convicts were found who had been literally beaten to death during the last year and the prisoners seemed to dread the prison farm as much as work within the prison wall, if not more."

We find Warden Gilmour of the Toronto Central prison stating that on the prison farm of that institution the inmates work cheerfully and without guards. And so, ladies and gentlemen, your Committee on Lawbreakers resp ctfully suggests that the general subject of prison labor, in its various phases, be made the chief subject of this committee at the next national conference. Prison labor is not simply an administrative problem; it is an industrial problem and a health problem, and concerns vitally the training and efficiency of scores of thousands who, leaving prison, are potential subjects for charity of a public or private nature. It is a vital problem for the national conference of charities and correction as well as for the American prison association. The problem of the proper utilization of prisoners is a fundamental problem in every American state.

The fact that a separate organization, the National Committee on Prison Labor, has been established to study the prison labor problem, and the further fact that the newspaper and magazine press has manifested much interest in the field which this committee occupies, are evidences of the extent and importance of the field.

Frank L. Randall, General Superintendent of the Minnesota State Reformatory and a member of the Committee on Lawbreakers, makes the following suggestion:

"If the recommendation of the Committee on Lawbreakers be adopted to make the subject of prison labor a feature of the next conference the leaders of organized labor should be invited to participate. We should ask the labor representatives, if they urge the state use plan, to concede to the prisons the field, so far as the products are paid for with public funds."

There are undoubtedly thousands of feeble-minded persons in correctional institutions. In recent annual reports, of Elmira Reformatory, it has been stated that about 35% of its inmates are mentally defective. The presence of the feeble-minded is a detriment to many plans that have been adopted for the instruction and training of prisoners. The complete exclusion from the ordinary prison of persons afflicted with tuberculosis has improved the healthfulness of those prisons and has also supplied a better and more hopeful means of treatment for the unfortunate sufferers. The same treatment--segregation--should be applied to all those to whom special treatment would be a benefit, or whose ailments are of such a nature as to endanger the welfare of others. Dr. Henry E. Goddard of Vineland estimates that 25% of delinquents are mentally defective. "All mental defectives would be delinquents," he states, "in the very nature of the case, did not some one exercise some care over them. The mentally defective must be cared for as we care for irresponsibles." Mr. Ernest K. Coulter, for many years clerk of the Children's Court of Manhattan and Bronx, New York City, states his belief that the most important step to be taken by the state in its slow abandonment of antiquated methods of dealing with child offenders and victims of bad environment and neglect must be the establishment of institutions for the special treatment of the mental defectives of this class. In the great state of New York, there is no special custodial institution to which the criminal feeble-minded can be committed and transferred. So important is this matter, that it has been made the subject of one of the section meetings of this Committee on Lawbreakers.

As regards post-prison treatment and aid of the released or discharged prisoner, we find Amos W. Butler in Volume II of the Sage Foundation series on "Correction and Prevention" reporting that only about 24 organizations exist throughout this country for this purpose, though several of these societies spread their activity through a number of states. We find also very varying periods of parole, some of six months as at Elmira, some of seven months, as at Huntington, Pa.; nine months, as at the Illinois State Reformatory, or until the expiration of the maximum sentence, as at Concord, Mass., or at Bedford, or Albion in New York. We find in Mr. Butler's study state after state recorded as follows: "State makes no effort to find work or keep in touch with prisoner after his discharge;" "no provision for aftercare of either paroled or discharged prisoners;" "no parole officers;" "no parole agents;" "no provision for finding work or for visiting prisoners," etc., etc.

A prominent eastern reformatory superintendent recently said: "Why spend nearly two hundred dollars annually to maintain one inmate in a reformatory, and then spend only .50 per inmate during his period of parole to help him not to go wrong?" This committee on lawbreakers believes that the parole period of an offender is barely second in importance to the period of imprisonment. The poorly supervised parole period breeds recidivism, contempt for law, the alienation of the sympathy of judges, the irritation and criticism of the public, unintelligent scorn for reformatory methods, and immense ultimate cost to the state in further loss of property or life.

The improvement of probation methods depends primarily upon the appointment of interested, faithful and competent probation officers. The tendency is strongly in the direction of increasing the number of public salaried probation officers. Although this tendency is inevitable and desirable, it brings in its trail the gravest danger of which the probation system must meet, namely the danger of appointments being made through the influence of partisan politics. Those interested in the probation system should therefore look squarely in the face the question as to how probation officers should be appointed; whether by judges without interference by any outside regulations or authorities; whether through civil service examination; whether upon the approval of some outside body such as a state probation commission, or whether the appointing power should be vested in authorities other than the judges, as in local non-partisan, non-sectarian committees or commissions.

Ex-Attorney-General Julius M. Mayer dissents from the foregoing paragraph as follows:

"I am opposed to the appointing power being placed in anybody except the judges, which, to my mind, leaves open only the question as to whether examinations should be competitive or non-competitive."

In a further letter Judge Mayer writes:

"There cannot be any discussion as to who should appoint probation officers. It is absurd to say that any person outside of the judge should appoint. I personally should refuse, if a judge, to place anybody on probation if the probation officers were appointed by any one but the court or judge. As a matter of fact I doubt seriously whether in New York State there would be any legal power in any other body to make any such appointment. The suggestions, in this regard, are, to my mind, utterly absurd and unworthy of being dignified by being incorporated in our report."

A problem in administrative efficiency that must be worked out is the co-ordination of probation and parole systems. There seem no valid reasons why in general the same persons cannot do both probation and parole work in the same localities. At present parole supervision is usually exercised by persons who are not probation officers and often the parole officers are itinerant officers obliged to travel over wide areas. The effective supervision and aid of those on parole requires that those exercising the parole oversight shall confine their efforts to a comparatively limited area. The efficiency of parole service would undoubtedly be greatly strengthened in communities where it is not practicable to have special parole officers, if the parole work were entrusted to the local probation officers. This combination of work, if properly carried on, can be carried on with mutual advantage to both systems and without any detriment to either of them.

The time certainty seems at hand for a systematic campaign against the vagrancy evil. Drifting methods of alleviation and of passing-on constitute only an aggravation of the situation. Vagrancy and crime are closely akin. The Committee on Lawbreakers raises the question whether the movement partially organized several years ago for a national vagrancy committee should not at this session of the national conference be organized with the aim of furthering systematic methods for the reduction of vagrancy. A problem in European countries sufficiently serious to be called one of the most fundamental social problems deserves systematic and adequate attention in the United States where the problem is still in its earlier stages.

Closely allied is the great problem of inebriety and its treatment. The special United States census of 1904 showed that 54% of all commitments to correctional institutions were due to intoxication, vagrancy and disorderly conduct. A special committee of this national conference of 1911 treats of this national question in a general session and in section meetings. The committee on lawbreakers emphasizes the pressing immediate need of state and national campaigns for the reduction of drunkenness and the rational treatment of the drunkard.

THE SUPPRESSION OF MORAL DEFECTIVES

Abstract of Address of Charles W. Eliot, President Emeritus of Harvard University

The prevention of crime through the isolation or extirpation of criminals offers many analogies to the prevention of disease by the isolation or death of diseased persons. These analogies are obvious, and are based on observed facts and not on any theory that all moral defects originate in, or are caused by physical defects. Opinions might differ widely concerning the bodily origin of drunkenness, inordinate sexual passion, or kleptomania; and yet persons holding different views on this point might agree as to the wisest treatment in practice of such moral delinquents. Let us compare society's treatment of moral defectives with its best treatment of physical defectives. In the first place, a large proportion of the crimes committed in our country are not treated socially at all, the criminals escaping detection and arrest, or being acquitted when brought to trial through the ingenious use of legal technicalities and delays. This is as if victims of scarlet fever or smallpox should be left quite free to move about in the community so far as their condition permitted, society manifesting no active interest in their welfare and taking no precautions whatever against the spread of their disease.

Secondly, in cases in which criminals are arrested and convicted the penalties imposed by courts have, as a rule, no remedial and no preventive effect. Drunkards, for example, brought frequently before courts for sentence, are sent over and over again to jails or houses of correction for terms too short for effectual cure, so that they soon relapse into drunkenness when discharged. Or again, a burglar is sentenced to a few years in prison, acquires while confined no better disposition and no new means of earning a livelihood, and so when freed naturally returns to his former criminal mode of life.

Thirdly, many researches into the history of criminal families have made it sure that the propensity to crime, be it moral, or physical, or both, is eminently transmissible; so that criminals, like imbeciles and other physical defectives, will surely breed their like, if left free to do so. To leave them free is to perpetuate and multiply by inheritance the evils and losses which criminality inflicts on the race. These comparisons suggest strongly that society needs to revise its methods of dealing with criminals. In this revision, what improvements should be aimed at? Better police protection, especially in the detective department, so that fewer crimes should be committed with impunity. This would correspond with the improving registration and responsible social treatment of diseases.

A lessened use of fines and an increased use of imprisonment for convicted criminals of all sorts, a fine being an almost useless penalty for crimes against the person, since it has no improving or instructive quality whatever, is for the well-to-do a matter of indifference and is often impossible to collect from the poor. The habitual use of longer terms of imprisonment, that is, terms of isolation and temporary exemption from temptation to crime. The conversion of houses of correction, jails and prisons into places of instruction and of instructive labor, with incidental confinement, from being places of confinement with incidental labor, which is often uninstructive or impossible of utilization by the individual on his return to the outer world. Through this transformation houses of correction and prisons would become agricultural or industrial colonies, in which most prisoners would acquire the habit of productive labor and some skill available towards livelihood when they should again enjoy freedom.

Every person, male or female, who has been convicted of crime, should be registered at many points with complete means of identification, and should be kept under supervision for a long period after discharge; and the new laws needed to secure such continuous supervision, if any, should be promptly adopted in all the States. With such systematic supervision should go assistance in the giving of employment.

THE ABOLITION OF THE JAIL

Synopsis of Address by Frederick H. Wines, Statistician, State Board of Administration, Illinois.

The average county or municipal jail in this country is a school for crime, a cesspool of moral contagion, a propagating house of criminality, a feeder for the penitentiary, a public nuisance and a disgrace to modern civilization. The public indifference to the situation is attributed partly to ignorance. The county officials do not know what a jail should be and the people do not know what their jails really are. In plain Anglo-Saxon, the truth is that wherever there exists local graft and political dishonesty the county prison is its centre and its stronghold. The sheriff or the jailor makes a personal profit from crime by charging a per diem for board for prisoners and by the receipt of fees for locking and unlocking the jail doors. That profit is a live wire. No local politician, possibly no member of the Legislature or even of the State administration dares monkey with it.

We have substantially won the fight for the reformatory State prison and the indeterminate sentence because we concentrated our fire upon a vulnerable point and made every shot tell. In attacking the county jail system we have pursued the opposite policy. We have addressed our arguments and remonstrances to the county authorities, of whom there are in round numbers, 2,500 sets, instead of to the legislative bodies, of which there are less than fifty. We have pleaded for new jails, better jails, when we should have demanded their replacement by prisons owned and controlled by the State and their emancipation from local political control with its petty and selfish interests.

There was a time when local control was necessary and proper but that was long ago. Today the county prison is an anachronism. We imported it with other institutions from England, but conservative England has outgrown it and dates the dawn of its regenerate prison system from the year of its abolition. There is no good and sufficient reason why the State which enacts a criminal code with its definition of crime, its prohibitions and its penalties should assume the custody and care of the man committed to prison for three years and refuse to recognize its responsibility for the man sentenced for three months, abandoning him to the haphazard mercies of the inferior jurisdiction which is certainly ignorant, often brutal and sometimes dishonest. It is not the majesty of the county but that of the State which calls for vindication. The supervision of crime, let it take what form it may, is the business of the State. The State should name, and it should have exclusive authority over the executive agents to whom it entrusts the discharge of this supreme governmental function.

The one hope of enlightened progress in dealing with the problem of crime is the overthrow of the county jail system. To this end we must direct our energy. With the State once in command, there can be no question but it will find a way to right the wrong and remedy the evils which inhere in the present organization and management of minor prisons.

MENTAL DEFECTS AND DELINQUENCY

WM. HEALY, M. D.

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