WHY PRISONS?
was written by the Chairman

of Governor Horner’s Com-

mission for the Study of Pris-

on Problems. It is not issued

under the authority of anyone

nor at the cost of anyone. With

this in mind, the writer trusts

this pamphlet may prove ac-

ceptable; he even dares to

hope it may be helpful to un-

derstand the weirdly complex

problem of crime, its causes,

cure, and punishment, and is,

therefore, bold enough to ask

you to read it with the at-

tention the problem deserves.



WHY PRISONS?

By

The Most Rev. Joseph H. Schlarman, Ph.D., J.C.D., D.D.

'Bishop of 'Peoria

THE PAULIST PRESS

401 West 59th Street

New York, N. Y.



“I am desirous that every possible

means be employed that the public may

know the truth about any and all

charges against prison administration

in our State. To that end I have deter-

mined upon a thorough and impartial

investigation of all policies and methods

in vogue in the administration of our

penal institutions and their practical

application. It is my hope that the in-

vestigation will be so conducted by men

so impartial and understanding in their

judgment that the people of Illinois can

have faith in their conclusions and

recommendations.”—From the Gover-
nor’s Letter of Appointment .



FOREWORD

Let me state at the very beginning that I know that I know

very little about prisons and prison administration. So far I have

never lived in one, either as inmate or as Chaplain.

February 3, 1936, His Excellency the Hon. Henry Horner,

Governor of Illinois, appointed a Commission for the Study of

Prison Problems and superadded my name to a number of others
representing men who thoroughly understand crime and the

problems of penology; who know the law and legal procedure,

public life, the newspaper business and a lot of other things

relevant to violation of law and its punishment.

The Commission honored me by making me its Chairman.

At all times I found it a genuine intellectual pleasure to advise

and discuss with these honorable gentlemen; they deeply im-

pressed me with their ability, broad experience, and unques-

tionable honesty and sincerity. For myself, the only qualifica-

tion I might lay claim to was the earnest desire to be helpful to

the Governor in an attempt to solve some of the knotty problems

that so profoundly affect the lives of individuals caught in the

meshes of the law, as well as an intense interest in the safety,

soundness, and well-being of society in general. When the Gov-
ernor called me I could not but think of the quickening words of
the Master : “I was a prisoner and you visited Me.”

As Chairman of the Governor’s Commission, I presided at

every meeting of the Commission, at the interviews with war-

dens, subordinate prison personnel, inmates of the most varied

types, two or three days of almost every week, from early Feb-

ruary to June, 1936; and there have been several meetings since

then. During July and August of the same year I visited, with-

out any cost to the State, a number of prisons in Italy, Austria

and England. In addition, I read as many volumes dealing with
prison matters as I could get hold of and find time to study more

or less carefully. I realized I had taken on a great responsibil-

ity. These books are listed in the appended Bibliography.

But, again, I admit I know very little about penology—the
subject is so vast and appears increasingly broader and deeper

and more complex.

I do not wish to trespass on the ground of penologists and

write a treatise on this fascinating subject, for the simple reason

that I know too little about it. If I mention “criminal pedagogy”

and “therapeutic pedagogy” and “characterology” and may seem
to elaborate unduly on them, I am only repeating what I heard



4 WHY PRISONS?
in my conversations with European prison officials or students
of prison problems. The chief reason for the publication of this
report is to bring home to the man in the street the importance
of the crime problem. If it is ever to be solved, it will be done
not by a few experts or specialists, but by cooperation between
safe leaders and the masses of our people. Wise administrators
and trained, understanding and sympathetic officers are re-
quired, but with an indifferent, apathetic, or even hostile public
their work will be largely nullified.

P

The Governor’s Commission asked me to write a report onmy findings, limited as they may be, in European prisons and
pnson administration as compared with ours,—I presume those

lu * „ ?
no^ mean to make odious comparisons or imply

that all is well in European prisons and that all is wrong in our
penal institutions. Such a statement would be wholly unwar-
ranted. I can only record my impressions, colored as they may
be by my own views and unconscious prejudices.

It will be readily understood that such a comparison is not
easy. Conditions here and abroad are so radically different In
each of the three countries mentioned above, Italy, Austria and
-England, the population is largely of one race, and to a great
proportion of one religion, Catholic in Italy and Austria, Church
of England and Nonconformist in England. I mean in pre-
dominating proportions. Horse thieves are rare in this count-
try, because we haven’t many horses. Motor thefts are rare in
Europe for a similar reason.

Qr7 »7

A
?
0ther radi

.

cal difference. In England the Prison Act of
1877 placed all prison administration under one uniform control
In the United States we have 48 independent State Units of
prison administration, and in addition to that the Federal system;
49 in all. Besides that, at least in Illinois, each of the 102 coun-
ties is an independent unit. Add to that the city jails and you
get some idea of the complexity of penal administration. It
will be easily recognized, comparison between our systems and
say, the English system, is not easy. The use of a gun by crim-
inals in England is so rare that the fact that a criminal is found
possessing a gun has news value. Holdup with a gun just means
a sentence of fifteen years. A citizen must have a government
license even to purchase a gun. With us guns are sold almost as
promiscuously and indiscriminately as lolly-pops.

The American phase of the ghastly crime problem is graph-
ically sketched by J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation. “We are constantly confronted with
the realization that crime is costing America a minimum of fif-
teen billions of dollars each year. We cannot forget that 3 500 -
000 persons annually roll up a total of 1,500,000 major crimes.



WHY PRISONS? 5

We know that the crime army of America includes more than
700,000 boys and girls of less than voting age.”

Such figures challenge most serious and conscientious study

and investigation. The American public is very apathetic to

prison administration, but highly sensitive to escapes and crimes

committed by parolees or discharged prisoners.

I am greatly indebted to Dr. Giovanni Novelli, Director
General of Institutions of Prevention and Punishment in Italy;

Dr. Simperich, Director General of Prisons in Austria, and Mr.

Alexander Paterson, M.C., H.M. Commissioner of Prisons for

England and Wales, for their extreme courtesy and uncondi-

tional laissez passer. I must not forget Mrs. Sheed (Maisie

Ward) and Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Ward, whose warm hospital-
ity in their home on the Isle of Wight I profoundly appreciate.

I am also indebted to good old Bishop W. F. Brown, Auxiliary of
Southwark (South London), who searched the bookshops of Lon-

don for me and sent many valuable volumes dealing with prison
life and prison administration. My grateful thanks are likewise
due to the Rt. Rev. Msgr. John O’Grady of the Catholic Univer-

sity, Washington, D. C., and to Mr. Aug. F. Brockland of the

Central Bureau, St. Louis, Mo., who have been good enough to

read my manuscript and make valuable suggestions.
This report is not issued under the authority of anyone nor

at the cost of anyone. With this in mind, I trust it may prove
acceptable and helpful.

P Joseph H. Schlarman ,
February 23, 1937. 'Bishop of Teoria.



Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2016

https://archive.org/details/whyprisonsOOschl



WHY PRISONS?
PRISON ADMINISTRATION

In England the general superintendence, control and in-

spection of prisons is vested in the Prison Commissioners (three

Commissioners and four Assistant Commissioners) . Matters of

policy are determined by the Home Secretary. The Prison Com-

missioners are chosen by the Home Secretary and then appointed

by the Crown. Prison officials are not changed with change of

Home Secretary or Administration. Besides, there are Visiting

Committees (Visiting Justices or Magistrates), appointed by the

Benches committing to the prison. These Visiting Committees

have disciplinary powers in regard to prisoners, but not in re-

gard to staff . 1

The Prison Commission is housed in the Home Office, White-

hall, London. The Commissioners and Assistant Commissioners

are full-time pensionable Civil Servants.

The staff of a prison consists of superior and subordinate

officers. The superior officers (Governor, Chaplain, and Med-

ical Officer) are appointed by the Secretary of State. The sub-

ordinate officers are appointed by the Prison Commission. All

full-time officers, with minor exceptions, are pensionable Civil

Servants.

The responsible head of each prison, whom we designate as
Warden or Superintendent, is the Governor. He is assisted by

one or more Deputy Governors, according to the size of the

prison. The Chief Officer is the head of the subordinate staff.

The officers in charge of floors, the grounds and other respon-

sible posts are known as Principal Officers . Only officers in

charge of parties working outside the prison walls carry fire-

arms. In England no police officer or detective is armed with

a gun. If he feels he needs a gun he must make written appli-

cation to obtain one.

Right here there is a characteristic difference between Eng-

land and the United States. The reason for their police officers

not being armed with revolvers is given by Calvert : “There is a

vicious circle about the carrying of firearms. The criminal who

knows he is in danger of being shot is much more likely to go

armed and shoot the police at sight than to go quietly away. [ !]
The present crime situation demands not the distribution of more

revolvers, but a tightening up of the present regulations concern-

ing their issue and disposal .
,,2

1 L. W. Fox, The Modern English Prison, p. 46.

2 E. Roy Calvert and Theodora Calvert, The Lawbreakers, p. 69.



8 WHY PRISONS?

The Board of Visiting Magistrates call at the prison once a

month. Their function is threefold : 1. They are a link between

the prison personnel and the public; 2. They can deal with bad

offenders, like those guilty of assault on officers; 3. They are the

Board of Appeal for the “lag” (prisoner) who thinks he is “get-

ting a tough break.”

On August 26, 1936, I interviewed Mr. Alexander Paterson,

M.C., 3 Chairman of the English Prison Commission, in the of-

fice of the Home Secretary, Whitehall, London. Mr. Herbert
Ward, member of the Visiting Magistrates, living on the Isle of

Wight, and a brother of Mrs. Sheed, of the Publishing House

of Sheed and Ward, made the appointment and accompanied me.

Mr. Alexander Paterson had considerable experience in social

and educational work in many fields and was appointed to his

present position in 1922. He is one of the three Prison Com-

missioners in charge of all penal institutions in England. As I

understand it, the Chairman is also the Permanent Officer in the

Home Office
;
one member is a physician and has full charge of the

medical work, and the third member is in charge of administra-

tion. In 1931 Mr. Paterson visited the United States and personal-

ly inspected 90 prisons and interviewed the officials of these insti-

tutions. I have reconstructed the interview as correctly as pos-

sible from my notes. As a rule I shall not attempt direct quo-
tation.

The English prison officer is a very good type of average

Englishman. His job does not make him hard-hearted or

wooden. He is a good husband and father, and is just as human

as any other civil servant. There are about 2,000 prison offi-

cers in English prisons. The profession is one with its own pro-

fessional technique.

SELECTING PRISON OFFICERS IN ENGLAND

Announcement is made each year that applications for these

positions will be received. About 10,000 applications come in.

Each applicant is told to give his life history. All applica-

tions are read, and Mr. Paterson or one of the Commissioners

weeds out the list and brings it down to about 1,000. These ap-

plicants are then summoned for personal interview and examina-

tion. They are interviewed at the Borstal Institution or prison

nearest their home. Each applicant must submit to three tests

:

1. Personality Test. If at all possible, Mr. Paterson per-

sonally interviews each applicant, otherwise it is done by one of

the Prison Commissioners.

2. A stiff medical examination by a prison Medical Officer.

3 M. C., t. e.. Military Cross.



WHY PRISONS? 9

3. Education and intelligence test. This test is shaped

specifically for prison officers. The general requirement is sec-

ondary or High School education.

Out of the 1,000 applicants personally interviewed and

examined about 200 are selected. They are then sent to the

Training School for Prison Officers at Wakefield, Yorkshire.

There are four courses of nine weeks each, in each year. They

are sent in batches of 30 or 40 at a time. The men, who are

between 24 and 40 on admission, learn prison rules and regula-

tions, are taught details of prison life by specially selected senior

officers, and attend lectures on the principles of punishment and

other subjects. They also have Swedish drills and learn judo,

a form of self-defense. One of the first things taught is how to

talk to prisoners. The men are told that the voice must be

firm, but not provocative. The officer, of course, expects im-

mediate obedience. The way in which he speaks to the prisoner

goes to the heart of the whole thing.

Mr. Paterson was quite naturally full of praise for the Eng-

lish prison officer—a new type of man that has been brought
into the service in the last 10 or 15 years. He insists that the

prison officer is carefully chosen and trained. I am inclined to
agree with him. Recommendations presented by the applicant

mean little; political influence means nothing. The applicants

are judged on their examinations and their showing during a

year of probation.

Men are accepted between 24 and 40. They serve till they

are 55. Between 55 and 60 retirement is optional, that is, the

officer may request retirement or the State may retire him, on
pension, of course. At 60 retirement is obligatory, and the re-

tired officer is pensioned for life. Commissioners retire at 65.

At the end of the course they are examined. The Visiting

Commissioner receives reports from all the instructors, and if at

all possible, Mr. Paterson sees the applicants again and has a

half hour conference with each. About 75% are accepted,
sometimes only 10 out of 40. The rest are told to run along and

look for another job.

Those who are accepted are allocated to various prisons and

go on probation for 10 months; and only after they have success-

fully completed their period of probation is their appointment

confirmed and are they sure of a job. However, they must still

go on studying because they can be promoted only if they pass

promotion examinations. 4

4 In most communities in the U. S. A. the increase in salary of teachers is conditioned

upon their taking extra courses. Their salary increases with years of service and with ad-

ditional credits acquired by extra courses. The same inducement might be offered to prison

officers.



10 WHY PRISONS?

In England practically all public service has been adminis-

tered on a merit basis for more than 50 years. It is held out as a

career for able young men and offers them opportunities for ad-
vancement based on their achievements. In the United States

we have been slow in extending the merit system to the various
fields of public service.

FUNCTION OF A PRISON

Alexander Paterson writes in Prison Problems of America : 5

“A prison is like a prisoner—never entirely good and never en-
tirely bad. ... It is natural in a free country that a man should
be free within the limits of his economic position. When the
decision of the Court is announced, in a moment of time, the

position of this citizen has been radically altered. His move-

ments are restricted to a few hundred square yards within high

walls, his daily programme must conform strictly to a time-table

of overpowering punctuality, his means of communication with

friend or relative reduced to a bare minimum, he may be forced
into association with a heterogeneous crowd of men whom he
would never have chosen for companions. ... So serious—indeed
so catastrophic—is this upheaval of a freeman's life that his fel-
lows will naturally demand first that it is absolutely necessary,

and if so, it shall occur as infrequently as possible, and thirdly

that the fullest examination shall be made of the conditions

under which he lives in so limited and unnatural an environment.

. . . The duty of a prison as an institution of the State is to per-

form the function assigned to it by the law, and its administra-

tion must therefore ensure that sentence of imprisonment is a

form of punishment. It must, however, be clear from the out-

set to all concerned that it is the sentence of imprisonment, and

not the treatment accorded in prison, that constitutes the punish-

ment. Men come to prison as a punishment, not for punishment.

Common sense suggests that if the prison administration is de-

signed to protect society against its dangerous and mischievous

elements, its first duty, after securing the safe custody of the of-

fender, is to ensure that a man emerging from prison is not more

depraved than when he entered it. Within his cell he may degrade

himself, within the wall he may be degraded by others."

The legal approach to the criminal is that it is primarily con-

cerned with the establishment of the fact of the crime or offense.

The moral, and even the psychological, approach, granted the fact

of the crime, seeks to know the causes and the degree of sub-

jective responsibility in a concrete case, and in the method of

dealing with the criminal, once the crime has been established,

5 Alexander Paterson, The Prison Problem of America, pp. 9, 10.



WHY PRISONS? 11

will endeavor to rehabilitate the offender without, however, ex-

cluding punishment in some form.

Dr. E. B. Strauss
,

6 discussing Borderline Cases and Crime,

writes : “A crime is an action which acts as a social noxus to the

State as a whole, or to the individuals which the State incorpo-

rates. The State has both the right and duty to protect both it-

self and the individuals comprising it against such social noxus.

Crime, then, in corpore sociali, is exactly analogous to disease or

dysfunction in corpore humano. Penal measures, therefore, must,

whilst respecting human rights and ideosyncrasies to the utter-

most possible limits, be regarded as fulfilling prophylactic, cura-

tive and eliminative functions only. ... I admit that the State,

in its exercise of penal authority from the prophylactic stand-

point, may impose punishment as a deterrent measure. But, in

every case, it must take care that the deterrence is effective and

humane. I need really only have said effective, because the

whole history of penology has shown that inhumane punish-

ments are ineffectively deterrent.
,,

And I might quote Macartney : 7 “Suicides, riots, assaults on

jailors are a valid measure of a prison’s discipline. When there

is an absence of these regrettable occurrences, it is pretty sure

that the treatment of the prisoners is as reasonable as it can be

in the gaols of England . . .”

PRISON AN OPPORTUNITY SCHOOL
REHABILITATION A PEDAGOGICAL PROBLEM

The mere mention of the word “Pedagogy” in connection

with Administration of Penal Institutions may seem out of place

to some wardens, certainly to many guards, and more certainly

still to most people outside the prison walls.

Our word “Pedagogy” was made up out of a combination of

two Greek words “pais, paidos,” a boy, and “agogos,” leading.

It means leading a boy, a child, of course, to learning. It means

the science or art of teaching.

The methods used to teach and lead normal persons may be
called Normal Pedagogy. Who is normal? Most persons have
certain anomalies, but these anomalies are still within the broad

plane of health. He is considered to be normal who manifests,

at least in general, a healthy mental life, who is not soul-sick.

Therapeutic Pedagogy8 has primarily a curative and healing
6 E. B. Strauss, M.A., M.D.Oxon., M.R.C.P., A Lecture delivered before a Joint Meeting

of the National Council for Mental Hygiene and The Howard League for Penal Reform on
February 24, 1932.

7 W. F. R. Macartney, WaUs Have Mouths, p. 34.

8 Many points that were brought out in discussion with the prison managers on the
continent were confirmed and corroborated by reading Dr. I. Klug’s Kriminalpaedagogik

and Tiefen der Seele—Studies in Moral Psychology made in the Bavarian State Prison at
Straubing. Klug clearly recognizes that though crimes are designated by a common name,

they are conditioned by an infinite variety of concomitant factors, physical and mental.



12 WHY PRISONS?

purpose. It deals with abnormal human beings and its first ob

jective is to lead these abnormals to reasonable normality. Ab-

normal circumstances and surroundings produce abnormal re-

sults.

The abnormality may be a disorder of the mind, a brain

sickness of some sort ranging from mere intellectual deficiency

to the extreme forms of madness. These abnormals are gen-

erally cared for in public or private Institutions for Feeble-

minded.

There is another class of abnormals whose abnormality does

not affect the mind but the will. They perhaps have no strength

of will, at any rate they lack will power. They may have come

into conflict with the law and have no longer the will power to

check their criminal will, or they may even have set their minds

to force through their criminal will.

Mental wrecks are cared for in our Institutions for Feeble-

minded. The derailed and wrecked whose condition is caused

by weakness of will or criminal will are among the inmates of

our penal institutions.

The law has four9 things in mind when it sends a law-

violator to prison: (1) Retaliation or retribution, which means

to punish the law-violator, to inflict pain of some sort upon him

;

(2) expiation, atonement, to readjust the public order that was

disturbed and violated; (3) deterrence, to frighten others by

punishing the guilty; (4) training, re-training, re-schooling, re-

fitting the law-breaker so he may at some future date return to

human society better fitted to live in it than when he was taken

out of it.

“Punishment,

”

10 writes Albert Crew, “endeavors to prevent

offences by making all wrongdoing, which is injurious to others,

also injurious to the doer of them, by making every offense an ill

bargain to the offender, and by making the way of the trans-

gressor very hard and unpleasant ; in other words, to put the fear

of God and also of his fellowmen in the hearts of those who fall

foul of their country’s laws. The modern view of prison is,

that it should be regarded as a place of reformation rather than

of punishment. The punishment consists of the deprivation of

liberty, the deadly monotony of life and food, the unpleasant

association with other prisoners, and the loss of reputation which

a sentence of imprisonment invariably takes away. Reforma-

tion should be the aim and object of prisons, especially in the

9 According to the mind of the Italian law-giver, a man is sent to prison : 1. to punish

the law-violator ; 2. to rehabilitate him for society ; 3. to protect society. The good of society

stands out very prominently, and Defense of Society is the common denominator of the three

reasons why a man is sent to prison. See Rivista di Dirritto Penitenziario, May—July, 1931,
and July-August, 1934.

10 Albert Crew, London Prisons of Today and Yesterday, pp. 6-16.



WHY PRISONS? 13

case of first offenders. A prison in a way, should be a sort of
hospital rather than a place of punishment. ... A prison prior
to the nineteenth century was merely a place of detention; in

the nineteenth century a place of punishment, and today, in the

twentieth century, a place of reformation.”

Crew points out that there are roughly six classes of persons

who are now sent to prison in England.
“1. The mental prisoner, i. e., one who is mentally affected,

but is not properly certifiable as a lunatic. This person may

probably be sent in the future to some suitable institution other

than a prison, where medical treatment may have a chance of

saving him from a criminal career.

“2. The first offender who will continue to be sent to prisons

like Wakefield and Wormwood Scrubs. . . . These prisons may be

regarded in a way as hospitals for social misfits for cure and

reformation rather than as places of punishment.

“3. The casual criminal, which class comprises those who

commit crime now and again when force of circumstances, e. g.,
unemployment, are against them but are not strictly recidivists.

When the difficult problem of finding work for discharged prison-

ers is solved, casual criminals will probably greatly diminish in

numbers.

“4. The professional criminal, a small but dangerous section

of the community, who appears to regard crime as his occupation,

and prison as a risk on which he gambles. A long term of real
penal servitude appears to be the only method of dealing with

this type of prisoner
;
he is helpless for reformation or cure. In

South Africa a habitual criminal is given an indeterminate sen-

tence of preventive detention11 which is never less than seven

years. His case is reviewed every seven years, and if his con-

duct and industry are not satisfactory he is given another seven

years, which imprisonment continues until his death in prison.

If, after seven years, he is released and relapses into crime again,

he is taken back to prison for a further period of seven years,

subject to review as previously stated.” (Italy, too, has pre-

ventive detention.)

“5. The recidivist, who is not necessarily a professional

criminal, but whose life and work (mostly spent in prison) have

been such that it is almost impossible for him to maintain him-

self without committing crime. Many of these are mental cases,

e. g ., the man who has been stealing boots all his life and nothing

11 Portsmouth, I understand, is a prison for habitual criminals. If my notes are correct,
the following are the provisions of the law. When a man has already had three penal servitude
sentences and is convicted a fourth time, then he may be given from 5 to 10 years of pre-

ventive detention. This is an indeterminate sentence. If this preventive detention sentence

is to be imposed then the State must prove, in addition to the fact that he is guilty of a

crime the fourth time, that the defendant did nothing to improve his character in the mean-

time.



14 WHY PRISONS?

else. In future he may very well be placed in institutions other
than prisons, or in a preventive detention institution, where ordi-

nary prison conditions are not severe, without first undergoing

a sentence of penal servitude as is the law at present.

“6. The Borstal cases of boys and girls.” (Borstal Institu-

tions are Reformatories receiving Boys and Girls from 16 to 23

years and six months.)

If the State in its present-day exercise of penal authority has

in mind chiefly to re-train, re-school, and re-fit the law-breaker

to go back into the free world a better citizen than when he was

taken out of it, then that means that the new inmate, at least the

juvenile and first offender, should be immediately placed under

therapeutic pedagogy. It also means that every officer charged

with the execution of a sentence becomes an educator, a thera-

peutic or curative or sanative educator, an officer of reclamation.

From the viewpoint of penal pedagogy, therefore, a prison offi-

cer has value only insofar as he is an exemplar and a qualified

educator.

It may be objected that Pedagogy is concerned with the

methods of training and educating a child during the formative

years of his life, that, in general, the inmates of penal institutions

are no longer children or even juveniles, but are a finished prod-

uct—in many cases finished and hardened. The question now
is: can the character of men of this type be changed? If your

answer to this question is negative, then you have solved the

difficult prison problem. All that need be done then is build

more and bigger prisons, with higher walls, with more men and

better marksmen on the walls : in brief, make sure that no pris-

oner can escape.

The inmate of a penal institution is quite in the dependant

position of a child : the food is handed to him ; the tasks are as-

signed to him; he must follow directions as a child and he may

even he punished like a child. In a way, you have the classroom

and the pupils
;
the establishment for education and instruction.

How about the principals, supervisors and teachers of this Op-
portunity School of delinquent and retarded children ? Have we

the teachers ? If not, are we training them ?

The men on the walls need not be pedagogues. The system

requires them to be good shots. But all the rest should, in a rea-

sonable degree, have the essential qualifications of Opportunity

School Teachers in the Prison Opportunity School.

That statement brings up the whole question of selecting

and training prison officers. I would suggest that the prison

personnel be known as Prison Officers. The appellation “guard”

connotes something negative. It creates the impression upon

the person who carries this protective or sheltering title as well



WHY PRISONS? 15

as upon the prison inmate that this man's function is to see that

there are no escapes, and when there are no escapes—that is a
model prison. Anyone can be a “prison guard" and do a good

job at “guarding," provided he be a good shot and the walls be

high enough. “Officer" connotes something positive, something

constructive and progressive, something that leads to order and

discipline. There is no need of a Training School for “Guards."

Guards need target practice

!

TEACHERS OF THE PRISON OPPORTUNITY SCHOOL

THE PRISON PERSONNEL

Crew12 very correctly remarks: “There appears to be little

enlightened and intelligent public opinion on prisons and prison-

ers; the attitude of the law-abiding to the criminal seems to be

that of callous indifference or active hostility. The great major-

ity of all classes of society appear to regard the criminal as a

social nuisance who should be sent to prison solely as a punish-

ment to himself and as a deterrent to others who may be like

criminally minded. . . . The public are deeply and keenly inter-

ested in the problems of hospitals for the sick and suffering, but

they are supremely indifferent to the lot of the prisoner, for-

getting that the community to which they belong may very well

be responsible economically, socially or commercially for the ex-

istence of the criminal himself. ... It follows that just as a sick

person in a hospital ordinarily costs more than a sound person

outside, so does a prisoner cost more than a law-abiding person

outside."

The American Prison Association held its Sixty-sixth An-

nual Congress in Chicago, September 13 to 18, 1936. Many in-

teresting and important questions were discussed and discussed

intelligently and fruitfully.

I take the liberty to call attention to the ads in that Prison

Association Congress Program. Men and women who have made

crime, the cure of criminals and the prevention of crime the study

of a lifetime attended that convention. Many no doubt have

studied volumes and volumes to get at the best that has ever been

written. Many others have gone from bookstore to bookstore to

find literature dealing with the many intricate questions of penol-

ogy. My own experience is very limited, but it took me months to
get a line on half a dozen books on penology. My trip to the
continent and to England finally helped me to build up a pretty

good library on this subject.

I must frankly admit I was keenly disappointed when I no-

ticed not a single book dealing with penology was advertised in

12 Albert Crew, op. tit., pp. 193, 205.



16 WHY PRISONS?

the American Prison Association Congress Program. Here are

some of the ads that did appear

:

“Jail and Prison Builders.”

“Fifty Years of Progress and Accomplishment.”

“A Tool Resisting Prison Steel of Superior Efficiency Re-

duces the Hazards of Mechanical Breaks to a Minimum.”

“Builders of Quality Jail and Prison Equipment for 65

Years.”

“Largest Modern Jail Buildings in the United States.”

“Prison Cell Constructors—Penal Engineering.”
“Stop Riots, Insurrections and Attempted Prison Breaks

with . . . ‘Built-in’ Electrically-controlled Tear Gas

Systems.”

“For Business or Pleasure

Travelers gather at . . . assured of gracious hospitalities

and superlative service.”

This latter advertises a hotel and not a prison.

Truly, the main objective of a prison seems to be to keep

the men securely locked in : no riots, no breaks, and no escapes.

I am quite sure that at a convention of dog-fanciers there
would be a lot of literature around concerning training of dogs,

dog’s food, distemper of dogs, dog-kennels and dog’s life and care

and training. Likewise, at a convention of apiarists there would

be pamphlets and books by apiologists telling about bee-culture,

bee-keeping, and rearing of bees. But at a convention of prison

directors and officials, trainers and re-educators of men and

women who suffer from a distemper of some sort, call it what

you will, of tamers of dangerous men we find ads only of penal

engineers and prison cell constructors and no products of penol-

ogists. It just does not seem to have the right balance.

Let us honestly and frankly admit that the problem of prison

administration and prisoners is an extremely complex and diffi-

cult problem. All life is complex, but disease is more complex

than healthy life and is measured by its norms. The rearing of

normal children is absorbingly interesting, but difficult children

may present apparently hopeless and truly heart-breaking prob-

lems. Still, the understanding and trained Opportunity School

teacher does not necessarily become unsympathetic, hide-bound

and tyrannical. “The prison officer of the future,” writes San-

ford Bates, until recently the Director of the Federal Prisons,

“must be resourceful, courageous, confident of his ability to meet

any emergency. He must know something of the purpose of the

modern prison. He must be able to see the problem in its larger

implications. He must be a teacher
,
a monitor, disciplinarian,

and exemplar. Some of the requisite qualities can be acquired,



WHY PRISONS? 17

but the necessary attributes of patience, tolerance, and a humani-

tarian outlook on life must be more or less inborn in the individ-

ual.”
13

It is admitted, of course, not everybody has the aptitude and

acquired training to become an Opportunity School teacher in

civil life or in prison. Such a teacher “requires a wide knowl-

edge of human nature, a scientific understanding and apprecia-

tion of the mental and physical weakness of the human being and

the insistence of firm, kindly and intelligent discipline and treat-

ment.” The exacting duties of prison officers require infinite

tact, patience, and withal sympathy.

To give that sort of service the officer must have peace of

mind and a feeling of economic security. The not unreal degree

of hazard naturally connected with prison life, the uncertainty

of the job, the low salary which makes it prohibitive for many of

them to transfer their families, the worry in case of sickness in

the family far away—all these factors tend to make the officer
restless and less fit to do his best work. In fairness to the men

we should look at their status and employment from their stand-

point.

Training schools for prison officers are long overdue. No

person lacking the proper training should be allowed to work as a

prison officer. It is at all times unfair to assign to anyone a job

for which that person is not qualified, and it is just as unfair to

inflict incompetent teachers upon the inmates of our penal insti-

tutions as upon the pupils of any school. Commissioner Mul-

rooney has recently established a Training School for prison offi-

cers in the prison at Wallkill, N. Y.

The demands on the prison officer are many, difficult, oner-

ous and responsible. He must at all times have complete control

of himself. That is admittedly a very difficult matter. Every

prison officer as penal educationalist should bear in mind a dic-

tum of Galsworthy, “only one man in a hundred can qualify not

to abuse his power.” A revised and practical rendering of that
dictum would be : out of a hundred men there is scarcely one who

would not be tempted as prison officer to abuse his power even in

an apparently lawful manner. The conception of a prison offi-

cer’s duty must be very sublime and noble : the future of many a

man is entrusted to him. Mrs. Lilian Mesurier, leader of the

Women-Workers at the Boys’ Prison, London, keenly observes:

“When a lad feels a dawning admiration and respect for someone

he sees before him in his daily life doing his duty simply and with-

out fear, a dim desire is born in him to be and do likewise.” And

conversely, a prison officer, not understanding, or forgetting, his

sublime obligations towards his charges and the reformative ob-

13 Bates, Sanford, Prisons and Beyond, pp. 168, 169.



18 WHY PRISONS?

jective of prison administration can do untold harm, by his own

evil example, or by conversations touching his sordid escapades,

with inmates deprived of the normal amenities of life. Such an

officer outrages the trust placed in him and should not be toler-

ated.

Evidence would appear to hint that the type of intimate talk

given to Macartney by his warder the first day in prison may be
rather common : “There are two ways of doing a lagging (prison

sentence, stretch)—rough or smooth. ... I mean that you can
either behave yourself, preserve good order and discipline, earn all

your remission marks, and go out on license when you have still a

quarter of your sentence to do, or you can kick up a fuss and give

us trouble. I don’t care what you do. I get my salary just the
same, rough or smooth. If you want trouble, you can have

trouble.” That is all true and in “tough cases” it may be the

proper approach, but criminal and therapeutic pedagogy could

not approve that method as a policy.

PROCESSES OF REHABILITATION

If it is in the interest of progressive prison administration

that their wards be usefully occupied during their incarceration

it is equally in the interest of criminal pedagogy not to allow the

inmate to come to the “stir-bug” stage. Listen to Macartney who

passed through the ordeal : “When things get very bad, one can

hold on to sanity—all that is left—by remaining still and silent,
and trying to let pain pass over you in an unbroken wave. If the

wave breaks as it goes over, then you’re done, and when this oc-

curs the reaction is smash-up. ‘Smashing-up’ is a prison phe-

nomenon, and peculiar to prison. I have not heard of lonely men

elsewhere reacting in the same way.”14

The prison officers must give their inmates an opportunity to

unload, to unbosom themselves of what is on their mind. Psy-

chologists call this unloading catharsis, that is, purification.

Now there may be various means of unloading, of coming to a
reasonable understanding with some one, of unbosoming them-

selves: visit of prison officer to cell; visit of inmate to office of

prison officer
;
visit to Chaplain

;
visit of the sick by the Chaplain

;

confession
;
informal talks between pupils and teacher in connec-

tion with class work, etc.

The Rev. Francis J. Lane, Catholic Chaplain at the New
York Reformatory, Elmira, N. Y., has for the past several years

arranged an annual retreat or mission for the Catholic inmates.

Catholic officers volunteer their services for overtime duty.

Every lad has a chance to hear several spiritual and stimulating

14 W. R. F. Macartney, Walla Have Mouths, p. 94.



WHY PRISONS? 19

talks on each of the three days, to devote a certain amount of

time each day to reflection on the state of his soul, unload all that

burdens his conscience under the seal of confession to a priest

who is a total stranger, and then come out refreshed with the

thought that, no matter what the State-imposed sentence may

be, as far as God is concerned, his offense has been liquidated,

and he can make a fresh start in spiritual life. There is no better

Catharsis.

It would seem that the funeral of an inmate has been in the

past and in most prisons a cold and heartless affair. Even in

death the stigma was upon him. And yet Christ said to the peni-

tent thief on the Cross: “This day shalt thou be with Me in

Paradise.
,,

It is refreshing, therefore, to read in The Summary , the

Elmira Reformatory inmate-weekly, under date of February 13,

1937, that “a Requiem Mass and funeral service were held in the

Catholic Chapel of the Elmira Reformatory for N. N., member

of the inmate population, who had died after an illness lasting

four weeks.” The Summary further states : “This was the first

time in penal history that such a service was held at an institu-

tion affording the population the privilege of attending. The

Mass was conducted in every way just as a Requiem Mass would

be conducted in any Catholic church of our country. . . . Many

tears came to their eyes as they were so much impressed.” And

no doubt those tears blotted out much, and they, too, were an

effective catharsis. One can only congratulate Dr. Christian,

the Superintendent, for thinking such long thoughts and taking

such long views and then endorse the comment of the inmate

writer, “too much commendation cannot be given to the officials

who make such occasions possible.”

An opportunity for this unbosoming, 15 for this catharsis
might be offered by correspondence or by writing all their griev-

ances and all that is on their mind on paper. England has an

institution known as Prison Visitors. Their regular contacts

with the inmate keep up the prisoner’s legitimate interests in the

outside world and thus indirectly furnish an outlet for much

pent-up pressure. The prison correspondence both incoming and

outgoing in our institutions is subject to censorship. Until the

spring of 1936 these censors in the Illinois prisons were in-

mates. Upon the recommendation of the Governor’s Commission

civilian censors replaced inmate censors. From the standpoint
of penal pedagogy and psychology, what a splendid opportunity

to study the characters of the inmates. Both outgoing and in-

coming letters would offer broad opportunities for sympathetic
15 Dr. Edgar M. Foltin, Amerikanisches Gefaengniawesen. In 1927 and 1928 Dr. Foltin,

formerly of the University of Innsbruck, now at the University of Prague, visited 85 prisons
and jails in the United States. His book is a critical survey of our prison systems.



20 WHY PRISONS?

study of the prisoner’s character, his problems and his family

background. And such character-understanding censor should

be present at the staff meetings and should be consulted by the

Parole Board.

The bulk of the population in the State of Illinois is located

in large urban centers. It is but natural that the greater per-

centage of the law-violators should come from these congested,

industrial, urban areas, particularly the younger crop. Quite

a large number are sons of immigrants. All factors producing

a series of problems for the prison administration.

A “guard” coming from strictly rural territory will find it
very difficult, particularly if he lack the proper education and

training, to understand the character of a city lad. It would seem

that prison officers who must deal with this type of juvenile crim-

inals should be chosen from urban areas.

Another problem : it often happens that foreign-born parents

of such youthful delinquents cannot correspond with their sons

except in their own language. Correct penal pedagogy would

suggest that a certain number of officers and censors should be

employed who can read these languages.

SOME TYPES OF PUPILS IN PRISON OPPORTUNITY

SCHOOL

What about the pupils of this Prison Opportunity School?
That suggests a number of questions

:

Are there incorrigible, irreclaimable criminals? The dis-

tressing truth is that there are criminals who are asocial, even

decidedly anti-social, and who by all human calculations will not

fit into the living blood stream of society. As a Christian, believ-

ing in the immortality of the soul, in original sin and in the re-

demption through the Blood of Christ, I should not use the word

“incorrigible” or even “irreclaimable” in an absolute sense. I

should prefer to say there are people who are not fit for free-

dom
;

16 they are not fit to live in free society. They are not fit to

be at liberty and at large as other human beings are. They are

predisposed or preformed (not predestined) to criminal ways.

From certain causes not yet fully understood their free-will power

is reduced to a minimum, and this minimum is too weak to over-

come the temptation. From the standpoint of criminal pedagogy

it must be admitted that there are criminals (permanently) unfit

for liberty—criminals of fate, though in many of these cases they
are themselves responsible for this fateful condition. It is proba-

bly correct to state that there is no such person as an absolutely

incorrigible criminal, but there is quite definitely a certain per-

16 Klugr, op. cit.



WHY PRISONS? 21

centage of criminals unfit for freedom. These, it seems, should

be detained in places or institutions of minimum but sufficient

security for their own protection and for the protection of soci-

ety. Such places of permanent detention should not be known

as prisons.

What about those inmates doing time who are too dull to

profit by the educative influences or who refuse the benefits of

such educative attempts ? The smaller prison of, say, 500 or less

would be a step to a solution. There are legal means regulating

the handling of trouble-makers, agitators and those who are out

to be nasty. With regard to this kind of hardened and dangerous

criminals, Colonel C. E. F. Rich,
17 may have been right, but only

in a limited way, when he wrote some years ago: “When men

behave like wild beasts they have to be treated like wild beasts, and

there is no use denying it either.” There should be special and

smaller prisons for this type. But it should also be remembered

that in the past the theory of curing violence with violence has not

proved successful. Even in the “hard-boiled” prisoner there is

an inextinguishable spark of the soul which God has placed in

every human heart. Some of this type may be permanently un-

fit for liberty. However, most prisoners have a certain amount

of good to their credit; they are “never entirely good and never

entirely bad.” An experienced woman prison visitor writes:

“It depends largely upon their treatment, wise or foolish, whether

they are brought safely into law-abiding ranks of society, or on

the other hand become habitual criminals, a misery to them-

selves, a menace to others, and a costly burden to the community.”

Is it advisable to promote an inmate to a higher stage or

class, even to recommend him for parole, simply because his

external conduct is in accordance with the prison regime, even

though he show no signs of an interior will to do better? There

is nothing gained by such procedure. It would seem the proper

thing to demand from the inmate that he be accessible, approach-

able, open, amenable to the warning, even minatory, and encour-

aging influence of the warden or prison officer, Chaplain, physi-

cian, teacher. . . .

The prisoner must show an honest will to moral transfor-

mation. That should be the minimum requirement. If the in-

mate adds positive indications of his will to conversion to this

aforementioned minimum, for instance, if he comes to a reason-

able and amicable understanding with his prison officer, if he

voluntarily attends religious service, if he shows signs of real

repentance, all that would seem to indicate a real and determined

will to conversion. 18 He must show that he “had got a grip on
himself.”

17 Quoted by Calvert, op. cit., p. 124. 18 Klug, op. cit.



22 WHY PRISONS?

PRISON LABOR AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION
IDLENESS THE CURSE OF PRISONS

The effect of prison atmosphere upon the inmate is hystero-

genic chiefly in the sense of increased reaction to his new and re-

stricted prison surroundings. Macartney graphically describes

his first day in Parkhurst prison: “The sun shone over Park-

hurst Forest green with spring. A wonderful day on which to be
free. I could not grasp the future. This was 1928—April. In
August, 1935, I might hope to be free. It was so far away. It

was like a black curtain hung in front of one in a dark room.”

He who is excitable becomes more excitable; the irritable be-

comes more irritable; the maggotish becomes maggotisher still;

the depressed becomes more depressed; the defiant (insolent)

leans to greater stubbornness, unruliness, rebelliousness; the

simple and aggressive to quite an explosive reaction
;
the dormant

hysterical will come to outbursts of hysteria. . . . “Until it starts,

you never know in which direction it will go.”

It is in the interest of the common good that inmates of

penal institutions be usefully occupied during the period of in-

carceration. It would also seem to be to the interest of every tax-

paying citizen, including the manufacturer and the union crafts-

man, that the prisoners be so occupied. The taxpayer after all

foots the bill.

In general, it may be correct to assume that it is a desirable
goal that our penal institutions should be self-supporting as near-

ly as possible, at least in the sense that nearly all of what is used

or consumed in prisons should be produced in prisons. While it

may be true that the most that can be done for many is to incul-
cate habits of industry and ordered work, it is also true that as

many as possible, particularly of the young, should be taught a
useful trade that will enable them to step into gainful occupation

and earn an honest living upon release. Working at knitting

and weaving machines, for instance, is, indeed, better than being

idle, nevertheless the fact is that such jobs in the industrial

world are mostly taken by women. A thorough survey of market
needs in the various State institutions would have to be made to

provide a market for prison-made goods. The products of con-

vict labor may not be sold in the open market, yet by some quirk
of ill logic certain products of Russian slave labor are permitted

to enter the United States.

One of the many difficulties in prison administration is to

make or persuade the prisoner to do his best, whether in school

or at work. In some prisons a small sum (a few cents a day) is

credited to inmates for certain types of work. There does not

seem to be question of the advisability or inadvisability of paying



WHY PRISONS? 23

public money to the prisoner for his work in prison, but rather of

stimulating habits of industry. If one-half of this money were set

aside to be paid to him on the day of his release, perhaps that

would go a long way to bridge him over until he finds normal

employment. Such a system might cost the State less money in

the long run.

After his visit to American prisons, Mr. Paterson made a few

valuable suggestions based upon his observations. “All work

done in institutions,” he writes, “should be for State authorities,

who should be compelled to give priority to these institutions in

their purchases of manufactured goods. Every offender should

have a daily programme of continuous activity: his waking day

should be filled with work, and physical and educational moral

training. There should be little or no time for idleness or gossip.”

Every prison officer admits that idleness is the curse of prison

life, as of all life. Physical flabbiness, mental stagnation, and

mental and moral deterioration result from inactivity. Euro-

pean prison Managers do not permit inmates to loaf about the

grounds or the cells merely waiting for the next meal. That

means a weakening of vital instincts and vital energies and of

all sense of responsibility. It is a case where the State directly

contributes to the development of misgrowths and misfits and

depreciation of values.

The wardens will say, that’s fine theory but how will you

find the work? Some years ago I was a patient at St. Mary’s

Hospital, Rochester, Minnesota, getting over or getting ready for

one of many operations, I do not remember which, and it does

not matter. Like any other patient who is just emerging from

a long dark night of severe illness, I asked a lot of foolish ques-

tions of the nurse, whether she thought the operation would now

be successful, whether the fistulse would really close and stay

closed and such like queries. The nurse was a Kentuckian. She

was short and so was her reply: “I don’t know; if I did I’d be

the doctor.” I am not a prison Governor.
The inmates of English prisons are busy all day long.

Everyone seemed to be sewing or repairing mail bags for the

whole British Empire. In addition to the work the inmate does

in the workshop he must also do his cell task. Supper is finished

about 6 o’clock and then he has some 18 feet of canvas mail bags

to sew. When he has finished his task he may read books taken
from the library. Nine p. m. lights out. T. Whyte Mountain,19

who knows English Prison Life from the inside writes : “Classes

are held between 7 p. m. and 8 :15 p. m., and all are well attended

;

most men take three per week, while not a few attend four and

even five. . . . The writer feels it his duty to mention that those

19 T. Whyte Mountain, Life in London's Great Prisons, 124.



24 WHY PRISONS?

who put their names down for three classes per week and attend

them are excused from all evening cell tasks whatsoever. To de-

clare that that fact has any weight with these studious ones

would be a grave disparagement of their zeal hardly less than

that the writer would do to his faculties of observation if he said

it had not.”

Wormwood Scrubs is a prison that receives only men who
have never been in prison before and who have been sentenced to

a maximum of two years. It may be of interest to give the
“Daily Round” and the various “Stages and Privileges” grad-

ually granted to the English prisoners.

THE DAILY ROUND 20 IN AN ENGLISH PRISON

“There are four stages in this prison in a man's imprison-

ment
;
each stage except the first having certain privileges. The

first stage covers a period of two months in all cases, and it is in

this first stage that a prisoner may remain during the whole

time, if he does not conform to prison regulations.

“The daily life of a prisoner in this stage is as follows

:

6 :00 a. m.

7 :00 a. m.

7 :45 a. m.

8:35 a. m.

12-1 p. m.

1-5 p. m.

5 :30 p. m.

9:30 p. m.

Rises, attends to his personal ablutions and cleans

his cell.

Drill, if under 40 and fit, for half an hour, an allow-

ance of 2 oz. of bread and cocoa is made to those

only who drill. If over 40, or unfit, he either has

open-air exercise or remains in his cell.

Breakfast is served.

Labour commences, until 12 noon.

Dinner is served.

Labour.

Ten minutes' break from labour morning and after-

noon to make up one hour’s exercise per day.

The last meal, commonly called tea. In some cases,

if on special labour, cheese may also be served.

Lights out.

“In the first stage all meals are consumed in the cell and

from 5 :30 onwards the prisoner remains in his cell until the fol-

lowing morning. During the evening he has 18 feet of canvas

mail bags to sew, and if time permits, as it usually does, he may

read books taken from the library.”

The individual cells in European prisons are much larger

than those in the Illinois prisons. I measured a cell in an Eng-

lish prison and it was approximately 14 feet long, 7 feet wide, and

10 feet high. The cells in the Old Prison at Joliet, occupied by

20 Albert Crew, London Prisons of Today and Yesterday, pp. 120, 123.



WHY PRISONS? 25

two inmates, are 6 feet 11 inches long, 4 feet wide, and 7 feet

high! The average winter temperature in the English prison

cell is, I understand, 60 degrees—not warm enough for our in-
mates and probably not for theirs either.

My impression of the European prison diet was that the
quality and quantity of food were neither as good nor as gener-

ous as in the Illinois penal institutions. In the Regina Coeli

prison in Rome, in the Austrian prison at Stein, at Parkhurst and

in the Holloway prison, and probably in many other prisons,

either all inmates eat their food in their cells, or only certain

classes cat in association. Large trays with food are carried by

inmates, preceded and followed by a prison officer, through the

cell corridors. Each prisoner steps to the door of the cell and re-

ceives his share. The food was served in tin or metal double

deck containers. The soup or liquid food was in the lower com-

partment, and the solid food in the upper. In England inmates

are entitled to a certain quantity of food by weight. If an in-

mate makes complaint that he has not received full weight then

it is immediately weighed by an officer. A scale is available on
each landing. The day I visited the Regina Cceli prison in Rome

the noonday meal consisted of soup with macaroni. I found the

dish quite tasty, but during my student days in Rome I developed
a sound taste for spaghetti. Special diets are served for diabetics

and vegetarians.

THE STAGES

“Every prisoner undergoes imprisonment for the first two

months of his sentence in Stage 1 ; he works in association with

other men, he eats his meals alone in his cell and has two hours’

labour in his cell every night. He may attend one lecture each
week and the Saturday afternoon concert when a sentence of six

weeks or more is imposed.

“After having served two months in the first stage, if of good

behaviour, a well-conducted prisoner is promoted to Stage 2. The

privileges of this stage are:

“1. Meals in association. This is usually a valued privilege.

During the greater part of the year, the tables are adorned with

choice flowers, all provided by the prisoners’ friends.

“2. Use of the library once a week during dinner-hour to

change books.

“3. Attendance at all concerts and lectures.

“4. Attendance at classes in the evening.

“5. Freedom from cell task, if attending three classes per

week.



26 WHY PRISONS?

“6. Recreation in the Hall in association on alternate Satur-

days and Sundays from 5 p. m. to 7 p. m.

“7. A letter and a visit every 21 days.

“These privileges are granted by the Governor, and in case

of abuse or bad conduct they may be taken away and the prisoner
degraded to the first stage.

“After being in the second stage for a minimum period of

six weeks, a prisoner may be promoted to Stage 3, the privileges
of which are

:

“1. An unlimited number of library books (within reason-
able limits).

“2. To remain at the dining-tables in association until 7

p. m. (Sundays 8 p. m.).

“3. Exercise in a separate yard in association (but under

supervision), instead of ‘on the ring’ at week-ends and when

there is no drill.”

Some English prisons have three paths, more or less of ring-

form, in the yard or garden. The healthy and physically fit must

take their constitutional walk in the outer ring
;
those less fit walk

on the intermediate path; the old and physically weak inmates

use the inner or smallest ring. Thus each group can make the

ring in the same space of time according to its physical capacity.

“The minimum period for promotion from the third to the

fourth and final stages is six weeks, and the privileges are as

follows

:

“1. Exercise in association without supervision.

“2. Occupation of front seats at concerts and lectures.

“3. Excused sweeping up (after tea only) provided substi-

tute can be found from second or third stage men.

“4. Bed down any time after tea.

“5. Handball on summer evenings between 6 p. m. and 7

p. m.

“6. Use of recreation room with issue of daily newspapers

and use of games.

“7. Visit and letter allowed every 14 days (the visit is open,

men being allowed to sit with their friends)

.

“There is a committee of table leaders which meets every

Sunday and which can deal with all matters affecting stage privi-

leges. If a prisoner wishes to bring anything to the notice of the

committee he should consult a table leader. Prison amenities are

exclusively reserved for prisoners of ‘the second, third and fourth

stages/
”



WHY PRISONS? 27

CRYING NEED OF SMALLER PRISONS

DELAY COSTLY AND DANGEROUS

The de facto Illinois prison policy of massing thousands of

inmates into one prison, of the consequent mass-management,

mass-operation, mass-everything is extremely costly because it

produces such gaunt results. Personal and individual contacts

and conferences are impossible with our large prison population.

“Ideally, no penal institution should contain more than 500

men,” writes Alexander Paterson. “Certainly it should not be

allowed to grow beyond a thousand. The mammoth prison is al-

most bound to do a prisoner more harm than good. If a simpler

and less expensive type of building could be accepted, it should

be possible to have smaller prisons without adding greatly to the

cost of construction. A prison should be secure and durable : it
need not be splendid or imposing.”

Smaller prisons may be more expensive in the initial cost.

But an insurance policy that does not properly insure is an ex-

pensive policy, no matter how little you pay for it. And the mam-

moth prison that fails to re-educate and re-habilitate the law-

breaker entrusted to its care and even contaminates and corrupts

the young offender by throwing him into contact with vicious and

degenerate men “whose very speech is mud” is an expensive

prison, no matter how low the per capita cost. Mrs. Le Mesurier

opportunely observes: “Classification is the keynote to modern

reform in many matters. Break up a knotty tangle of difficulties

into its component parts, sort out the separate strands, and deal

with them in the different ways they are seen to require when

dealt with separately on their merits, and a great many puzzles

disappear.” It may be possible to carry out proper classification

in large prisons; it can certainly be done more effectively in

smaller institutions as is shown by the English Borstal System.

In a mammoth prison there is a dangerous mob spirit in the air.
That statement needs no proof, but the frequent and bloody prison

riots are the proof.

Penal servitude (serving a prison sentence) is so full of

tragedy for the inmate and his family that it should produce

purifying and chastening results. That at least is the theory of

infliction of punishment—of execution of a sentence. It looks as
though we had penitentiaries where the inmate is not led to re-

pentance. To furnish a species of this catharsis, this unloading

of pent-up feeling, the prison band plays as the men march in and

out of the dining room, or even during the full time of the meals.

This indicates the prison authorities realize there is a real hazard

of an explosion or “smash-up.”

But to achieve this presupposes the spontaneous and very



28 WHY PRISONS?

personal cooperation of the inmate. And here comes the win-

nowing of the wheat from the chaff. Some will be purified and

chastened and others will remain such as they are, and some will

even deteriorate.

Every inmate must be led up to that crisis, to that turning-

point, to that final personal decision whether he wishes to amend,

or whether he decides to continue living in the morass of crime.

The decision (crisis) cannot be forced, but like new (fermenting)

wine it must mature with time and influence, or like grain it

must ripen for harvest time.

The penal pedagogical system must lead up to bringing every

inmate at some time face to face with this realization: in this

penal institution I can exchange my sad lot for something better,
if I make a determined personal effort. 21 This result can be

achieved only in smaller prisons.

Aids to maturing this resolution: all the aids of religion,

which he is free to accept or reject, and the wholesome influence

of the character of the trained prison officers. The inmate must

be able to see in every one of the prison officers unquestion-

ing, implicit, uninfluenced, unbiased, unprejudiced justice, that

even, ever-ready good-will mixed with the accessory tone of seri-

ousness but not haughtiness. Inmates have a highly and deli-

cately developed sense of justice. They are very sensitive to any-

thing that looks like injustice to them. A prisoner once said:
“I am here in the name of justice, and in the name of justice I
demand that no act of injustice and no unfairness be committed.”

In prison men are thrown together, who despite all rivalries

and contrasts feel an inner bond and common interest to a cer-

tain degree. The struggle for life and existence that divides free

citizens outside the prison walls does not exist for the inmates.

The hickory shirt covers all social distinctions. Whether they

left good homes or poor and disorderly homes to walk the way to

crime, in prison they occupy the same kind of cell, sleep on the

same kind of cot and eat the same food. Whatever separates

them is far beyond the big wall in a land from which they may

have been deported years ago. It is not easy to uncover what

goes on in their souls. T. M. Osborne, famous former warden of

Sing Sing, once said : “If the warden were a veritable Solomon he

could not know 1400 men intimately, not even 40.”

The great need of smaller institutions where intimate ac-

quaintance can be had with the inmates and a close watch kept

over them seems imperative. In such an institution the warden

with previous prison training and experience could intimately

know his prisoners. If inmates are merely numbers then it is

21 Klugr, op. cit., p. 130.



WHY PRISONS? 29

purely a matter of chance if he gets to know an inmate thor-

oughly.

There is only one way to make classification and segregation

of criminals and individualization of treatment possible and ef-

fective and that is to build smaller prisons. A few types of in-
mates for such smaller prisons may here be indicated.

1. Young offenders, who will certainly not be improved by

contact with hardened criminals. It seems stupid and criminal

to throw adolescents, mere children in some cases, into the pit of

contamination, the general prison, whether on remand and await-

ing trial or to serve a sentence. Penal institutions of the Borstal

type are long overdue.

2. Borderline cases—mental cases not certifiable as lunatics.
3. Casual criminals.

4. Recidivists and habitual criminals.

5. Professional criminals.

6. Those unfit for freedom.

7. Habitual drunkards—semi-security.
8. Sexual degenerates.

9. The “hard-boiled criminals,” etc.

Concerning this latter group, John P. McCaffrey 22 writes:

“If these men will not obey the officials in the prison, punish them

and not the thousands who have been punished for the revolt of

the few. Build the wall forty feet high if necessary; man the

prison heavily; put in every agency possible to enforce the will

of the State and the law.”

It may be objected that we have the mammoth prison build-
ings

;
what can be done about the theory of smaller prisons under

the circumstances? John P. McCaffrey points to a solution:

“The State Prison at Attica, New York, is the best example of
the crowd control. There are three groups of 500 apiece housed

in separate cell blocks, fed in separate Mess Halls, recreating in

separate yards, but all within the same walls. Perhaps this

points to the solution for the big prison populations. If the

State will not launch the ideal policy of small prisons, then it

should try the group control plan in the big prisons.” I might

add, this method is today followed in some Italian prisons and is

also part of the plan of the Italian Government’s proposed Penal

Colony.

When Oscar Wilde, who today is considered one of England’s
most elegant writers, but who in his day had fallen foul of the

law, was being transferred with two other prisoners, hand-

cuffed and dressed in felon clothes, from a London prison to

Reading Jail and had been kept standing in a drenching rain for

nearly an hour, his fellow prisoners cursed beneath their breath.

22 John P. McCaffrey, The Commonweal, March 13, 1937.



30 WHY PRISONS?

Wilde turned to the warder and said : “Sir, if this is the way Her

Most Gracious Majesty treats her convicts, she doesn't deserve

to have any."

I quote a few stanzas from Wilde's The Ballad of Reading

Gaol:

“I know not whether Laws be right,

Or whether Laws be wrong;

All that we know who lie in gaol

Is that the wall is strong;

And that each day is like a year,

A year whose days are long.

But this I know, that every Law
That men have made for Man,

Since first Man took his brother’s life,
And the sad world began,

But straws the wheat and saves the chaff,

With a most evil fan.

This too I know—and wise it were
If each could know the same

—

That every prison that men build

Is built with bricks of shame,

And bound with bars lest Christ should see

How men their brothers maim.

The vilest deeds like poison weeds

Bloom well in prison-air:

It is only what is good in Man
That wastes and withers there:

Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate,

And the warder is Despair.

And never a human voice comes near

To speak a gentle word:

And the eye that watches through the door

Is pitiless and hard:

And by all forgot, we rot and rot,

With soul and body marred.

And thus we rust life’s iron chain

Degraded and alone:

And some men curse, and some men weep,

And some men make no moan:

But God’s eternal Laws are kind

And break the heart of stone.

And every human heart that breaks,

In prison-cell or yard,

Is as that broken box that gave

Its treasure to the Lord,

And filled the unclean leper’s house

With the scent of costliest nard.”



WHY PRISONS? 31

PSYCHOLOGY, PSYCHIATRY, PSYCHO-ANALYSIS

The prison officer must study the behavior and attitude of

the inmate to his fellow prisoners. In Austria I noticed that

work groups, particularly among the young, are made up in ac-

cordance with pedagogical requirements and dictates—men of
the same mental capacity and requiring the same treatment are

placed into working groups separate from the others. In Eng-

land the medical officer classifies prisoners according to their

physical fitness and carefully notes the effect of imprisonment

on the mental and physical state of the prisoner.

But how are prison officers to study the character of the in-

mates? Should one demand that they all be trained psycholo-

gists or even psychiatrists? No, but a prison officer should have

the fundamental qualifications of an Opportunity School teacher.

Paterson 23 even warns that “we should accept with caution the

findings of psychologists and statisticians. The former science is

still in its infancy and cannot speak with certainty in every case.

For some time it will be more competent to observe than to treat.

Statistics have their value as a guiding rather than a determining

factor. They cannot as a rule prove scientifically that one system

is more successful than another. For such decisions we must rely

on deduction from the fundamental principles we accept, rather

than on induction from such figures as are presented to us.”

On my way to Europe last summer I spent a day at the New
York State Reformatory for Boys at Elmira, where Dr. Chris-

tian has been the clear-sighted warden since 1909. This medi-

cally trained and criminologically experienced warden gave the

following as his opinion. Psychiatry mixed 50-50 with common

sense is a good thing. After all, a psychiatrist’s opinion is mere-

ly an opinion. If he is right 50 per cent of the time he is lucky.

Psychiatry is only one factor in the study of cases. If a surgeon

who has at his disposal all sorts of chemical tests, X-rays and

what not, is absolutely correct in his preoperative diagnosis in

50 per cent of the cases he is lucky
;
then how can a psychiatrist,

who is trying to uncover the unconscious and dig into a man’s soul,

claim that he is right in more than 50 per cent of the cases? A
penal institution run exclusively by psychiatry will hit the rocks.

My advice is : bear his opinion in mind, but test it out yourself.
From autopsies carried out in the famous clinics of Vienna it was

found that the doctors had been wrong in 40 per cent of their

diagnoses. If a psychiatrist can hit anywhere near that aver-

age he is doing well. Of course, Dr. Christian has a psycho-

pathic division at Elmira.

To verify the above statements made by Dr. Christian I dis-

23 Alexander Paterson, op. cit., p. 15.



32 WHY PRISONS?

cussed the matter of all-round correctness of preoperative diag-

noses with Dr. George Eusterman and Dr. Andrew Rivers at the

Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota. In a study made of 700

cases of duodenal ulcers it was found that “in 38 per cent, duo-

denal ulcer was the sole abnormality found at operation. In 62

per cent, some pathological entity not specified preoperatively

was found to be associated with peptic ulcer.” In other words,

a negative error in 62 per cent of the diagnoses. Similarly, in a

study made of 375 cases of gastric ulcer, “in 50.8 per cent, a

lesion other than gastric ulcer was not discovered."24 The per-

centage of negative error was only 49.2 per cent. By analogy

one may conclude that the findings of psychiatrists must be ac-
cepted with great caution.

Dr. Matheson, Governor of London’s well-known Women’s

Prison, Holloway, expressed a similar opinion : Psychiatry is still

in its infancy and psychiatrists claim entirely too much.

Mr. A. E. Scott, Governor of Parkhurst, gave this warning.

Very often responses from inmates are not straight and not hon-

est. If a patient out in the world goes to see a doctor he gives him

honest answers because he wants to get well and he pays for the

examination. Inmates of a penal institution will not act that way.

That clearly shows you must be wary and not give too much

credence to the opinion of the psychologist or psychiatrist.

In a sure and trenchant manner Archbishop Downey 25 of

Liverpool points out the moral dangers and castigates the abuses

of psycho-analysis—the unfolding of the soul.
“Of late years,’’ he writes, “psycho-analysis, or, the new

psychology, as it is sometimes called, has acquired a somewhat

unenviable notoriety. It has been exploited by quacks and char-

latans, just as hypnosis was when first it came to the knowledge

of the general public. . . . Psycho-analysis has acquired a position

of undeniable importance. It is no longer a matter that interests

only the professional psychologist. For good or for evil, it is

used by the pathologist, the neurologist, the educationalist, the

criminologist, and a host of other -ists, with the result that it

calls for careful examination from the moralist. . . .

“Psycho-analysis may be described as the Science of the un-
conscious. . . . Man has been likened by the psycho-analyst to an
iceberg, only one-eighth of which is visible; seven-eighths of it

remains submerged, altogether hidden from view, and constitut-

ing the real danger of the iceberg. The one-eighth of the iceberg

that is visible corresponds with the consciousness of man, the in-

visible seven-eighths with his unconsciousness. . . . Psycho-

24 Pamphlet reprinted from the Archives of Internal Medicine, September, 1929, vol. 44,

pp. 314-338. Howard R. Hartman, M.D., and Andrew B. Rivers, M.D.

25 Archbishop Downey, Critical and Constructive Essays, pp. 165-188.



WHY PRISONS? 33

analysis is concerned with the exploration of the unconscious.

. . . Now, it is a bold thing to criticise psycho-analysis, because,

at once, the psycho-analysts take to analysing the critic and in-

variably discover in him repressed complexes of a very disrepu-

table character, which have led him to react against the new

science.

“However, I venture to say that so far as practical ethics are

concerned
,
what is true in psycho-analysis is not new

,
and what is

new is not true. The earliest Christian teachers understood very

well that there is a constant warfare between the ‘law of the

mind’ and ‘the law of the members.’ It is no discovery of psycho-

analysis that we are prone to evil from our very childhood, and

that our evil inclinations must be checked, sublimated, if you pre-

fer the word. Psycho-analysis can claim many dramatic cures,

but none quite so dramatic as the way in which the vices of the

pagans who were converted to Christianity were sublimated into

virtues. The censor is merely a new name for the voice of the

conscience (the sum total of inhibiting forces). As for transfer-

ence, is not the whole scheme of Christian ethics directed to trans-

ferring our affections from the temporal to the eternal, till we

attain to that blessed state in which there are no material wants

or appetites at all? The analyst, I am afraid, not infrequently
takes upon himself the office of confessor or spiritual director,

and that without the aid of grace.

“Now psycho-analysts insist that during the treatment, in
no case is the patient ever to withhold from the analyst any

thought, however intimate or delicate. Bearing in mind the

great part that is assigned to sex-impulses by Freud and his

school generally, the moral danger of this sort of self-manifesta-

tion is obvious. This danger, I think, cannot be stressed too

much. ... A sane psychology must necessarily join issue with
psycho-analysis as to the everlasting parading of sex-matters. . . .

The policy of unveiled speech in regard to sex-matters, adopted

by psycho-analysts, was denounced by Professor Muensterberg,

as ‘the greatest psychological crime of the day.’
”

This sort of bold and shameless prying into sex-matters is

freely indulged in by certain psychologists in our penal institu-

tions, as though every theft and every violation of the law were

motivated by sex-impulses. I know of one prison where the

psychologist prepared a questionnaire for the inmates so un-

blushing that it outraged every canon of decency. The level-

headed superintendent forbade its circulation and got rid of the

charlatan.

Let this be clearly understood, the writer considers the work

of well-trained, experienced, well-balanced and sane psycholo-

gists and psychiatrists extremely valuable and would not want



34 WHY PRISONS?

the penal institutions to do without them, but with every normal-

minded citizen he does object to the employment of sex-crazy

charlatans, even in penal institutions. Psychiatry is a branch

of medicine, and the psychiatrist is usually a qualified medical

man who concerns himself with the problems of mental diseases.
The psychologist is commonly not a medical man

;
quite often he

is a blind follower of Freud's extreme and senseless exaggera-

tion of the sex theory. Only competent physicians of good moral

character should be permitted to practice psychiatry and psy-

chology in our penal institutions. Not even every physician, but

only the specialist, can practice psycho-analysis with any pros-

pect of success. Paterson quotes a superintendent as saying:

“A psychologist will often give an estimate of a lad on reception,

and a few months later will reexamine him and give a differ-

ent estimate. A good officer, however, has often reached that
second estimate before the psychologist.”

Ruland-Rattler correctly observes: “If psycho-analysis ex-

pects success in healing, it must not stop with its retrospective

explanation, but must do constructive work for the future. A
true psycho-analytic thereapy must bring about a change in the

conduct of life.” A physician does not cure a patient by giving
his ailment a Latin or Greek name, for instance, Freud’s “poly-

morphous perversity.”

At the Diagnostic Depot in the 0. P. at Joliet psychologists

and psychiatrists classify the “fish”—the new inmates. An un-
dermanned staff faces a monumental task. And after they have

classified the men with indications where they might be best em-

ployed—then what? Are their findings merely “locked up in fil-
ing cabinets and the men tossed back into the maelstrom of the

prison yard”?

PRISON OFFICERS MUST STUDY CHARACTER

OF EACH INMATE

All the preceding chapter may have seemed very odd as an

introduction to quotations from a psychiatrist. Nevertheless, I

am going to quote from Allers’ Psychology of Character, 26 Dr.
Rudolf Allers is a foremost savant of Europe, Reader in Psychia-

try at the University of Vienna, and seems to mix psychology

and common sense on the 50-50 basis.

The following is important for the Parole Board as well as

for prison officers

:

“Character in ordinary speech denotes something in a person

that is individual and peculiar to himself. . . .

26 Rudolf Allers, M.D., Reader in Psychiatry at the University of Vienna, The Psychology

of Character, translated by E. B. Strauss, M.A., M.D., p. 6 ff. The original title is : Das

Werden der sittlichen Person.



WHY PRISONS? 35

“In order to appreciate the character of a man, it is neces-

sary first of all to concentrate on what he does . Admittedly we

all more or less assume that the words in which he expresses his

views, aims, and sentiments will conform with his actions. But

experience teaches that many men consciously—and probably a
much larger number unconsciously—fail to act up to their de-
clared principles. That fair words can cover an ugly disposition

is a common enough experience. The ugly disposition will even-

tually express itself in deeds . Hence one has always stressed the

deeds of a man as an index of his disposition, his real thoughts

—

in fact what is ordinarily called his ‘character.' The concept of

an act or deed must be made to include not only deeds in the

special sense of the term, but also all movements, gestures, ex-

pressions, looks, postures, and lineaments, his behavior in vari-

ous situations. In short, all the factors that go to make up the

general term ‘conduct,' form the basis of the estimation of char-

acter.

“There are certainly some traits of character (using the

term in its ordinary sense) that leap to the eye without the ne-

cessity of lengthy observation. Such are sternness or mildness,

determination or weakness, and the like, which often enough can

be read in men’s faces. Often, however, one may be mistaken,

for appearances are sometimes more ambiguous than separate

actions
;
many an act that seems to spring from good nature may

actually be coldly calculated. A deed that may strike the ob-
server as harsh or even cruel may be dictated by love

;
a cold and

aloof manner may conceal over-sensitiveness and weakness; a
wolf in sheep’s clothing may have the most attractive manners.

Long experience, acuteness of observation, regard for apparently

trivial details, may to a large extent obviate such errors, but they
will constantly recur. . . . Character is a unity and a whole

,
not a

mere aggregate .

“We must regard a man's life as a whole, so far as is pos-
sible, if we are to gauge his character. Often enough the under-

standing of the ‘new,’ i. e., the later-manifested, character de-

pends on a knowledge of the original character, from which cir-

cumstances have evolved it. This is the case, for example, when

the new character can be described at least in certain respects as

the antithesis of the old.

“The most impressive evidence of the possibility of such a

fundamental change is furnished by the phenomenon of con-

version."

I am writing this chapter on the 25th day of January, on
which day the Church commemorates the Conversion of St. Paul

the Apostle. Paul, at Jerusalem, was the fiercest adversary of

the infant Church. On his way to Damascus to take Christians



36 WHY PRISONS?

captive and drag them in chains to Jerusalem he is suddenly

changed and begins a new course of life. The bitter adversary

of yesterday becomes the most courageous and enthusiastic apos-

tle of tomorrow. The Church considers this sudden and com-

plete change of his character a wonderful triumph of grace.

“The complete transmutation of character,” Allers con-

tinues, “can occur as the result of religious conversion. It is not

only conversion in the special sense that can bring about such a

change of character, but every similar disturbance of the psycho-

logical equilibrium; there are instances of conversion to evil, if

the phrase is permissible. . . . The principle of psychotherapy is

conversion. In these cases, too, the change is sometimes radical,

as when a man in response to psychotherapy, in a strikingly

short time turns the rudder of his life and reorientates himself

completely. Such cases are rare, but in any case, here we find

a change of character which is a direct contradiction of the thesis

that character is unchangeable—a thesis which is commonly ac-
cepted as self-evident.

,,

Referring to the attitude of the English people to prisons,

Albert Crew writes: “Public opinion in regard to life in prison

is usually ill-informed as to the facts and exaggerated as to con-

ditions. . . . Any place where men or women are kept without lib-

erty of action must necessarily be unpleasant, and prison cer-

tainly is not a comfortable place.” I think that quite correctly

describes the American public, too. In what concerns prison

matters and the much overstated “coddling of prisoners,” the

American public is spoon-fed by the press. There is conse-

quently real danger that prison managers will think their job

was well done (and the public, including the press, will think

so, too) if they can report: no friction, no riots, no escapes

—

and all that at less cost than under the previous management.

Officially betterment of the inmate may be proclaimed, but the

system belies the announced theory. Our prisons are not too

humane, but too unconstructive.

Reform is a conversion, an about-face in the soul of the in-

mate. When you begin to regard an individual character in all

its personal diversity behind the collective name “inmate,” then

you realize that the shortest and most effective means of im-

proving an individual is to treat that individual in a manner best

suited to his personal make-up. That is the work of an Oppor-

tunity School teacher. Certain means of reform may be applied

in mass production in a general fashion as a sort of prophylactic

without intimate and personal knowledge of the character of the

individual : military drill, general education, vocational training,

athletics, music, religious service, etc. All of these have a cura-

tive effect on the average inmate, but they will also become more



WHY PRISONS? 37

effective as they are suited to the needs of the individual inmate.

If the inmate is to be truly reformed, then we must have recourse

to individualization of treatment, for, once we set as the chief

goal of a prison sentence the re-fitting of the inmate, then we

must come down to individualization. Mass-production of any

kind tends to uniform standardization, and mass-treatment is the

direct opposite of individualization.

Here is where the Progressive Merit System and the Inde-

terminate Sentence should set in. But if the inmate is pushed

along in the P. M. S. not according to actual reform (conversion

—beginning a new course) but mechanically, after the expiration
of so many months, etc., then you rob the whole system of its

very essence. In the Indeterminate Sentence the discharge (ab-

solute or on parole) should take place at that moment when in

the individual case the improvement (betterment) has set in, in

as far as the minimum duration of punishment has expired, or

discharge does not follow automatically. Discharge at any other

time seems arbitrary. It would be like absolution without re-

pentance—worthless.
Failures of Parole Boards are largely due to failure on the

part of these Boards to understand the real character of the in-

mate. The basis of parole is really not solid enough—too much
guesswork. The Board settles a matter tremendously important

to the inmate—when he will be released conditionally. The
members should be adequate in numbers and highly qualified in

training. Mrs. Le Mesurier writes: “It cannot be stressed too

clearly that the whole probation system depends for its glorious

success or pitiable failure upon the character and quality of its

personnel.
,,

The same is true of parole. The personal interview

of inmate with Parole Board is shockingly brief—sometimes 3-5
minutes. The inmate is rather the dumb partner. The large

number of cases does not permit penetration and careful study.

The prerequisite for the application of the Indeterminate Sentence

is, therefore, the possibility to determine reasonably the moment

when real improvement has set in in the individual case—when
he has “got a grip of himself.”

Take a thousand colostomies, and who would dare say they

are all to be treated in exactly the same manner, or that each one

of this thousand will close up in exactly the same length of time?

Individualization in this sense can be had only where prison offi-

cers have the ability to understand the individual character of

each inmate and observe his development or conversion. Indi-

vidualization of treatment and release is a corollary, a conse-

quence that naturally follows studying and understanding the

character of the individual inmate. This cannot be done in our

mammoth prisons.



38 WHY PRISONS?

INDIVIDUALIZATION OF TREATMENT

When a new inmate enters the prison he becomes a number
among numbers. The numerical relation of prison officer to in-

mates is such a strain that the vigor and strength of the officer

are exhausted in constant “guarding.” He has done his duty as

“guard or keeper.” The task of studying his man by personal

contact is impossible. It is just not done. Most prison guards

are incapable of studying the character of an inmate except in

relation to the crime he committed. But a man’s offense is not

necessarily a conclusive index to his character. The warden is

generally too much occupied filling in administrative reports to

devote much time to studying the character of the inmates. As

Osborne said, “even Solomon could not know 1400,” and much less

3000 and more.

Individualization—studying individual character of inmate
—individualization of treatment is not possible as a rule because
the officer lacks training and ability to do so and because of the

mass-population of our prisons. The deepest and profoundest

understanding of the inmate’s character is the basis of re-educat-

ing and re-fitting the inmate and of parole. As long as the offi-

cers of our institutions lack understanding and grasp of prob-

lems, all rules for individualization mean little. Few “guards”

realize that discipline can be maintained without bullying. Curs-

ing and vile language may snap inmates into line, may cause

them to fear and dread and hate the “guard,” but it will not give

the guard a pedagogical standing. Here is how a former offender

feels about it : “Although society has a right to protect itself from

those who violate its rules, it has no right to demoralize them to

the extent of shattering their nervous system in this way. . . .

The attitude of officers to the men is such that it preys on the

minds of weak-minded prisoners to the extent that the sight of

an officer reduces them to shuddering and fear.” 27

Model conduct of an inmate is not always proof of reform.

There is such a thing as a “model prisoner with all the typical

prison virtues and vices, who so rarely makes a good citizen in

free life.” “Guards” are chiefly interested in the good conduct of

the prisoners. They are little interested whether the apparently

good conduct really means reform or not, or whether it is merely

a clever deception. The guard is not interested whether the in-

mate reforms as long as he conforms.

It really does not depend on what arithmetic textbook is

used
;
but it does depend on the teacher. It seems to me that if

a dead thing like arithmetic depends on the teacher, certainly

character moulding, dealing with flesh and human will, demands

qualified teachers.

27 The Penal Reformer, April, 1936 : “Prison From the Inside in 1936.”



39WHY PRISONS?

ABOLISH THE SYSTEM

I believe it would be eminently unfair to blame any particular

State Administration, or our prison officers for the obvious de-

fects evident in the handling of penal problems. The system is

wrong, and the system should be blamed. It is the system that

makes penology start at the front bars, end at the rear wall, and

reach its highest perfection in the good shots concealed in the

towers on the walls. Problems of penology? Therapeutic peda-

gogy? Campaign problems! But the system permits and de-

mands it. No riots, no escapes—why it must be a well-managed
prison.—And then the public and the editors sit back in smug
satisfaction. There seems to be only one solution: abolish the

system; establish an enlightened and sympathetic nonpartisan

Prisoyi Commission, say
,
after the manner of England , aided by

intelligent wardens and staffs.

“On the door that leads to the Prison

Is written in chalk this verse:

* Tis here the good man turns bad man,

And the bad man changes to worse.’ ” 28

Lest I be misunderstood, listen to Compton Mackenzie: 29

“We must beware of being too ready to lay the blame for what is

wrong about our prisons on the prison officials. The real culprit

is an unimaginative and unsympathetic public too ready to listen

to talk about coddling prisoners. There is a curious superstition,

difficult to eradicate, which declares that, if prison be made too

comfortable, men will commit crimes in order to enjoy the luxury

of living at the expense of the taxpayer. How many people who
glibly prate about that possibility would accept unlimited luxury

in return for the surrender of their freedom? How many would
prefer ten years behind walls with caviar and oysters to liberty

and dry bread ?”

Alexander Paterson, M.C., H.M. Commissioner of Prisons

for England and Wales, has served under ten Home Secretaries.
Prison officers swear allegiance to the king and his heirs. That

means that the officer cannot be discharged for any political rea-

sons nor as long as he observes his oath and does his duty and

his conduct is good.

The New York State Reformatory for Boys at Elmira has
had only four Superintendents in 60 years, and Dr. Christian

has held the position since 1909.

Since 1900 Joliet has had 9 wardens, Pontiac 8, and Menard

8 or 9.

In practice it means that nearly every change of State Ad-

28 Blanco Fombona.

29 W. R. F. Macartney, Walls Have Mouths, p. 139.



40 WHY PRISONS?

ministration ushers in a new regime of prison managers, and they

cannot be overburdened with professional knowledge and tech-

nique, at least not at the start. And the turnover of the greater

percentage of the subordinate officers is even more frequent.

After his visit of inspection and study of 90 prisons in the

United States, Mr. Paterson gave the following as one of several

constructive suggestions for the betterment of our prison ad-

ministration : “The occupation of men and women in dealing

with offenders against the law should be recognized as an expert

profession requiring the very best human material, and thor-

ough training in every phase of the problem. A larger number
of university men should be attracted to this profession. There

should be training schools for all subordinate officers before they

are allowed to start upon this work. . . . All ranks should be as-

sured that if they acquit themselves worthily they have security

of tenure in their post, the prospect of promotion, and an ade-

quate pension when they retire.”30

With the establishment of security of tenure, prospect of

promotion and adequate pension there would seem to be no rea-

son why High School graduates and College men would not be

attracted to prison work as a career. This is the case at the New
York State Reformatory at Elmira, New York.

THE ENGLISH BORSTAL SYSTEM

INDIVIDUALIZATION IN ACTION

“For the idle lad in his later teens the corner of a street is

even more dangerous than the middle of a street for the aged and

preoccupied
.”

England has three sections of its penal and reformatory

system dealing with juvenile delinquency:

1. The Industrial School, receiving boys between the ages

of 9 and 16.

2. The Reformatory, receiving boys between 14 and 17. The

boy may not be retained there after he reaches the age of 19.
These two sections form the Children’s Division of the Home

Office.

3. The Borstal Institution, receiving boys between 16 and

23 years and 6 months. By the time a young man reaches the
age of 26 he must be dismissed from a Borstal Institution. Bor-

stal Institutions are penal institutions.

Let me quote L. W. Fox,31 Secretary of the Prison Commis-
sion:

“Where a person is convicted on indictment of an offense for

30 Alexander Paterson, The Prison Problem of America, p. 146.

31 L. W. Fox, The Modern English Prison, p. 176 ff.



WHY PRISONS? 41

which he is liable to be sentenced to penal servitude or imprison-

ment, and it appears to the court

—

“(a) that the person is not less than sixteen nor more than

twenty-one years of age (now 23 and 6 months)
;
and

“(b) that, by reason of his criminal habits or tendencies, or

association with persons of bad character, it is expedient that he

should be subject to detention for such term and under such in-

struction and discipline as appears most conducive to his refor-

mation and the repression of crime; it shall be lawful for the

court, in lieu of passing a sentence of penal servitude or imprison-

ment, to pass a sentence of detention under penal discipline in a

Borstal Institution for a term of not less than two years nor more

than three years

;

“Provided . . . that the offender is likely to profit by such in-

struction and discipline as aforesaid.”

Italy has an institution very similar to the English Borstal

—

Istituto di Rieducazione. Austria, too, has adopted a similar sys-

tem. I rather like that designation. It indicates that something

was wrong with the first education of the delinquent boy and that

he must be re-educated. The boys in the Istituto di Rieducazione

do not receive the same schooling. There are three types of edu-

cation: 1. Regular school course, that is, if the boy would have

gone on to advanced schooling had he not come to the Istituto,

he is given this advanced course. 2. Crafts and trades, if that is

what he would have taken up outside. 3. If the boy comes from

a rural section where his future life will be agriculture, he is

taught agriculture.

PAROLE IN THE BORSTAL SYSTEM

“The minimum Borstal sentence is two years, the maximum

three years, and the Prison Commissioners have power to release

on licence at any time after six months (three months for girls)

‘if satisfied that there is a reasonable probability that the offender

will abstain from crime and lead a useful and industrious life/

On the expiration of his original sentence the offender remains

for a further year under supervision of the Prison Commis-

sioners.”

The licensed (paroled) boy is under the care of the Borstal

Association. “Its aim is to make the lads stand on their own feet,

and as soon as it becomes evident that there is a decided preference

for standing on other peoples’, then friendly advice must change

to stern warning : if this is ineffective a report must be made to

the Prison Commissioners, and revocation of license will probably

follow.”



42 WHY PRISONS?

TRAINING IN THE BORSTAL SYSTEM

“A Borstal Institution is in fact many steps removed from a
prison—the gates stand open all day, and neither at work nor at
play are the lads confined within the walls.

“The object of a Borstal Detention is training rather than

punishment. The aim is to give young offenders, whose minds

are still plastic, a new outlook and a new bent, and, by the per-

sonal influence and example of the staff to create a corporate

spirit and a standard of social behaviour which may persist after

release: and to this should be added, the task is not to break or

knead him into shape, but to stimulate some power within to

regulate conduct aright. ... It requires that each lad shall be

dealt with as an individual and shall not be regarded as being

the same as any other lad, requiring the same universal prescrip-

tion. To sum up these pronouncements, the Borstal system aims

to provide a positive training, mental, moral, physical, and indus-

trial, based on sympathetic study of the needs of each individual
,

and aiming at the development, through trust, increasing with

the individual’s progress, of personal responsibility and self-

control. Work of this sort is, above all, personal work. The

Borstal system has no merit apart from the Borstal staff. It is

men and not buildings who will change the hearts and ways of

misguided lads. . . . The foundations of the Borstal system are

first the recruitment of the right men. The greatest care is there-

fore taken to select men of the right type with a definite vocation

for work of this sort. ... A fascinating task, but only to be at-
tempted by the optimist.

On August 26, 1936, I visited Parkhurst Prison and the

Camp Hill Borstal Institution, I. W., again through the kind

services of Mr. Herbert Ward. I interviewed Mr. John Weldon,

the Deputy Governor. His preparation and advancement may

be taken as a typical illustration of an official ascending the

gamut of promotion. Mr. Weldon is 33 years of age and unmar-

ried. He became interested in juvenile work while still at school

and was secretary of a school club that did work in a London

slum. Later he went to Oxford and obtained a degree in psy-

chology. He joined the staff of a Reformatory in 1924 and was

transferred to the Camp Hill Borstal in 1925, first as Assistant

Housemaster; later he became Housemaster.

In 1930 and 1931 he visited a number of prisons in the

United States. A riot that was being staged at Joliet at the time
prevented him from visiting this prison. It will be noticed, the

English prison administration, unlike our own, does not suffer

from inbreeding. Prison officers study and travel and visit many

prisons to gather new ideas. Mr. Weldon was appointed Deputy

Governor at Camp Hill in 1934.



WHY PRISONS? 43

As soon as possible after sentence boy-offenders are sent to

the “collecting center” at Wormwood Scrubs, London. Girls go

direct to the Borstal Institution for Girls at Aylesbury. In the

Boys’ Prison at Wormwood Scrubs the boy offenders are classi-

fied, and not along psychological lines only.

England has seven Borstal Institutions for Boys, and each of

the seven institutions has its own type of boys. Rochester, the

original Borstal, established in 1908, receives a better grade of

boys, the “intermediates”; the more hardened boys with the

worst records are sent to Nottingham and Portland, the older

lads of this type going to Nottingham
;
Camp Hill gets those ap-

proximating the Portland type; the mentally subnormal and

those presenting sex problems, go to Feltham
;
the most hopeful

cases, for whom the full period will probably not prove neces-

sary, are sent to Lowdham Grange.

The population at Camp Hill at the time of my visit was
250; the capacity is 300. Each Borstal Institution has a num-

ber of houses (sections) and a Housemaster for each. There were

50 boys in each house. Upon the arrival of a new lad the Gover-

nor assigns him to that Housemaster whom he considers best
fitted to handle that type of boy. Again individualization. There

is also one matron for each house. The purpose of a matron is

to have a woman’s intuition study the character of the boy. A
good matron is worth her weight in gold. The matron may not

be the wife of the Housemaster. Neither matron nor House-

master live in the house. Most matrons are middle-aged and

they must be well educated.

It may be interesting to learn the names of the five houses
at Camp Hill: St. George; St. David; St. Michael; St. Andrew;
and St. Patrick. The Church of England Chapel is located in

one corner of the enclosing wall and serves the townpeople as

well as the Borstal boys. The Roman Catholic Chapel is almost
in the center of the grounds. Then there is a Non-conformist

Chapel and a Jewish Synagogue. A similar favorable chapel
arrangement may be found in most English prisons. But in Illi-
nois the unfortunate defectives in mind and delinquents in will

must still be content to attend religious services in Recreation

Halls, if they are lucky, and even see funeral services conducted

in a morgue, if the Recreation Hall happens to be occupied

!

The Governor of Parkhurst Prison is a very keen-witted gen-

tleman, Mr. A. E. Scott, M.C., at one time a member of the Prison

Commission in the Home Office. I will mention just a few items
from my notes. The Parkhurst Prison population was 416.
Dartmoor is the prison for felons who can do a hard day’s work.

The other misfits, mental and otherwise, are sent to Parkhurst.

Parkhurst has the brains of the offenders, Dartmoor the brawn.



44 WHY PRISONS?

One cannot fail to notice the ever-present attempt to classify

prisoners and house them in separate institutions of manage-

able size.

Mr. Scott remarked : “Some of our inmates have no idea of

religion. I asked one inmate what religion he professed. The

man replied : ‘Religion, sir, don’t know what you mean.’ Then I

asked him: ‘To what religion do you belong?’ Imagine this re-

ply: ‘Why, sir, I am a potter in a mine.’ He did not even have

an idea what religion is.”

RELIGION AN IMPORTANT FACTOR IN CHARACTER
TRAINING

—
"A GOOD CHAPLAIN”

Mr. Paterson at the Home Office was kind enough to give me
a copy of The Principles of the Borstal System. I quote from

Chapter VIII

:

“It is of vital importance that the lad should come to regard his religion

not as an uncomfortable garment to be assumed at certain moments, and

hung on a nail when it is not required. All teaching must relate the great

truths to the little details of life, so that faith becomes pivotal, the uncon-

scious basis of every act, the colour of life itself . . . Religion touches the

deepest springs of human conduct, for it can furnish to the weak and un-

stable the highest ideals and the sternest inhibitions. It should therefore

be awarded the first place among all forms of character training. The

Chaplains and the visiting Priests, Ministers and Rabbis will be colleagues

not merely welcome, but indispensable. Allowances will be made to meet

their requirements in the matter of service, class or interview. Their con-

tribution towards the common task is not a make-weight, and men extra

demanded by law or convention, but a vital service striking deep at the heart

of the problem of each individual.”

Sanford Bates remarks that traditionally a chaplain was

considered a “man of all work” : he preached and prayed
;
he se-

cured free movie films; he was expected to intercede with the

Governor for pardon, etc. “With the separation of duties it

appeared to us that the ministry of the chaplain in a penal insti-

tution had entirely changed. The prison school had been taken

over by trained educationalists. Family contacts were handled

by the social workers, and the libraries staffed by trained libra-

rians. Apparently there was nothing but religion left for the

chaplain to busy himself about, and that could be done on Sun-

day in an hour or two. But just there we made a mistake. We
have now realized that the chaplain’s job, rightly construed, is an

extremely important job in any institution. ... He must know

something about the social sciences. He must be a man of
strong and attractive personality. ... He must know something

about psychiatry, and he must be able to talk the language of the

man he would befriend. Unless we are to neglect one of the most



WHY PRISONS? 45

important elements in the individual reformation of the prisoner,

some man, not too closely identified with the organization, who

yet understands the pitfalls and the dangers of being attached

to a prison, must secure and maintain the confidence and friend-

ship of the individual and thus exert upon him a truly religious

influence. . . . Again, I say, we have supplied the paraphernalia

of reform. The chaplain of the new order will have to be relied

upon to stimulate the ivill to reform.”32

The last question I asked of Mr. Alexander Paterson of the

Home Office was this: “What, to your mind, is the most potent

factor in the betterment of an inmate?” In typical British officer

fashion he snapped out: “A good chaplain
.”

And while I am on this subject, let me quote Albert Crew33

once again

:

“Religion often plays an important part in the spiritual and moral

regeneration of the prisoner. Attendance at religious services should be

and is entirely voluntary subject to the proper regulation that a prisoner

is expected to attend a religious service unless he has any reasonable

ground, of conscience or otherwise, for staying away. . . . The Chapels too

often are ugly and uninspiring

;

philanthropists who help to beautify

churches outside might well consider the desirability of providing for the

decoration and adornment of prison chapels. A prison chapel should be
beautiful and should appeal to the prisoner as something not belonging

to or a part of the prison buildings. It should be a joy whilst he is in

prison, and more or less a thing of beauty and a stimulus for spiritual

devotion, not as it invariably is at present, an ugly reminder that he is a

sinner of a deeper dye than those outside. The occasional practice of using

the same chapel for holding services of different faiths or using a chapel

for the delivery of a secular lecture does not seem a fit and proper use of

an edifice specially set apart for divine worship.”

Considering the important function of religion in the better-

ment of law violators it would seem that the State of Illinois

could well afford to follow the example of England and erect spe-

cial chapels at a cost of, say, $25,000.00 to $50,000.00. The sev-

eral religious groups would gladly furnish the chapel assigned to

their use.

A GOOD LIBRARY A POWERFUL AID TO
REHABILITATION OF INMATES

Mr. Paterson said : “Imprisonment leaves no visible scar to

shock the eye, but it may well have done damage to a human
character that nothing can repair. There are cases where it is

kinder to break a man’s neck in a second than to spend twenty

years breaking his heart.”

32 Bates, Sanford, Prisons and Beyond, pp. 163, 164.

33 Albert Crew, op. cit., pp. 202, 203.



46 WHY PRISONS?

Macartney writes: “In Parkhurst prison the library is the

most incompletely run part of the prison—that is, if the function
of a library is to supply people with the books they desire to

read.” I do not know whether that statement is correct. Macart-

ney is embittered against all prison officers. But I do believe it

is a criticism that can be launched against most prison libraries,

including those in Illinois. When I visited Portsmouth prison,

accompanied by Mr. Ward, a Visiting Magistrate, an inmate

came up to him to complain about the books in the library : that

there was a lamentable dearth of new books, that the old ones

had been read so often they did not even care to see the covers

of them, etc. A chaplain in an Austrian prison (Garsten) told
me the library in that particular prison consisted of some 7,000

to 8,000 books, mostly junk, and that the prison administration

purchases books by the hundredweight.

Now, the inmate spends a minimum of 13 hours a day in his

cell and on Saturdays and Sundays vastly longer hours. It is evi-

dent, therefore, that much of the inmate's physical, mental and

spiritual status or progress depends on the condition of that cell

and the life in it. Reading matter, light, air and ventilation, com-

panions, etc., all have a tremendous influence and may leave their

scars not visible to the eye. The cell thus becomes a substitute

home and it would seem that to supply wholesome and abundant

reading matter, to grant permission to give that cell a certain

home touch by hanging up pictures of relatives or other decent

pictures, to have canaries, if he wishes, to amuse and distract

him, would be a great factor in restoring mental equilibrium and

peace of soul.

NATURE OF OFFENSES AND PUNISHMENTS

The nature of the offenses varies, of course, according to

countries, temperament of people, economic conditions, etc. Most

offenses in Italy are emotional in origin, proceeding from love or

hate, or from indifference to violent antagonism. In Austria

sneak-thieves furnish the largest number of offenders. L. W.

Fox34 provides the latest available figures (1931) for England

(Indictable offenses) : “Crimes of violence against the person,

395; sexual crimes (including bigamy), 809; crimes against

property with violence, 2,304; crimes against property without

violence, 10,626; forgery and coining, 148; other offenses, 270.

Total, 14,552.” The general proportion of male offenders to

women offenders in England is this: 20 men to every woman

and 20 boys to every girl. I understand that this is the general

average in Europe.

34 L. W. Fox, op. cit., p. 201.



WHY PRISONS? 47

In England disciplinary measures or punishments “may be

ordered only by the Governor or by his Deputy or other officer

appointed to act for him, following a formal written report which

must be made forthwith by the officer witnessing the offense.”

It is admitted that in rare cases unauthorized punishments oc-

cur. I follow L. W. Fox: 35 “The Governor adjudicates on reports

every morning, except on Sundays and public holidays: he has

before him both the prisoner and the officer making the report,

and the prisoner is entitled to know the precise offense for which

he is reported, to hear what the officer has to say, and to speak in

his own defense, before the Governor comes to a decision.” Ex-

tremely serious cases are referred back to the Visiting Com-

mittee.

The following are the types of punishment dealt out by the

Governor or the Visiting Committee:

1. Restriction of diet; diet No. 1 is more restricted than

diet No. 2.

2. Forfeiture of associated work. This means that the

prisoner works in his cell. The Governor may inflict 14 days of

the punishment, and the Visiting Committee 28 days.

(In Austria a prisoner’s whole term may consist of cellular

labor, but in that case one day counts for two and the sentence is

thereby reduced one-half.)

3. Deprivation of mattress, for men only, and for a period

not exceeding 15 days.

4. Cellular confinement in his own cell or in a separate cell.

The prisoner works in the cell and forfeits his library books, let-

ters and other privileges. Refractory or violent cases are re-

moved to a “silent” cell, known among prisoners as “chokey,”

and equivalent to our solitary. A prisoner may be kept there
only till he has calmed down, because it is considered a precau-

tionary measure and not a punishment.

Absolute cellular separation and confinement by night and

by day was originally prompted by the thought that the criminal

would thus have ample time and opportunity to reflect on his

crime and repent. It was practiced in the Pennsylvania System

and also in Coldbath Fields prison, England. The underlying

principle of Punishment in Solitary today is to make the conse-

quences of wrongdoing in prison so disagreeable that the of-

fender will be deterred from a repetition and that others be like-

wise deterred. The prisoner so punished is generally alone with

the night-slop bucket as his only companion.

In the following lines Coleridge36 burlesqued Solitary as far

back as 1799

:

35 L. W. Fox, op. cit., p. 81 ff.

36 Quoted in Calvert, op. cit., p. 98.



48 WHY PRISONS?

“As he went through Cold-Bath Fields he saw

A solitary cell;
And the Devil was pleased, for it gave him a hint
For improving his prisons in Hell.”

Corporal punishment may be inflicted for the offense of
mutiny or incitement of mutiny or for gross personal violence

to an officer. “If corporal punishment is ordered, the order must

be submitted to the Secretary of State for confirmation, with the

evidence.” Only prisoners convicted of felony may be thus pun-

ished. The “cat” is applied on the back and is the more painful

;

the birch is applied to the posterior, is less painful but more hu-

miliating. A prisoner under 18 may be given 18 strokes with
the birch; a prisoner over 18 may receive a maximum sentence
of 36 strokes with cat or birch. Public opinion seems sharply

divided as to flogging. It seems, however, that it is but rarely ap-

plied : during 1931 there were 13 cases of corporal punishment.

In England I heard there are those who advocate that flogging

be inflicted upon motor bandits. I have it on the authority of

Mr. A. E. Scott, Governor of Parkhurst, that there was only

one major prison riot in the history of English prisons, the one

at Dartmoor, in January, 1932. It was quelled without even one

prisoner being flogged. Fox maintains that “an outstanding

feature of the English Prison Service is the absence of brutality,

or of the manhandling of prisoners by warders.” Many will

agree with Compton Mackenzie: 37 “For the infliction of the cat

in prison no argument is sustainable under realistic criticism.

Discipline is not preserved by it, and most assaults on warders

are more likely to be the fault of the warders than of the convict.”

DISCHARGED PRISONERS' AID

It may safely be stated that every inmate of every prison

longs for the day when he can return to the world outside. To

many it is a competitive world utterly devoid of anchorage. The

discharged prisoner goes out with a suit of new clothes, a ticket

to his home town, if he has any, and a $10.00 bill in his pocket

to bridge him over. His farewell consists of a few words of

banter, perhaps encouragement and wholesome advice—and then
out into the world where he was a nuisance and a law-breaker

—

and then what?

The stigma of prison is upon him. A world where thou-
sands of good men wear out the soles of their shoes in discourag-

ing endeavors to find employment will not come rushing up to

offer a job to an “ex-convict.” But one might ask: Is it fair to

“lay to the charge of the delinquent so much of the moral respon-

37 W. F. R. Macartney, Walla Have Mouths, p. 170.



WHY PRISONS? 49

sibility which should more properly be borne by the community

as a whole”? Besides, “with so many avenues of employment

which are open to the honest man irrevocably closed to him, what

possible further hope or aim could the discharged prisoner have

in life if, in addition to the penalty imposed by the law, he is to

be condemned to a further indeterminate and perhaps lifelong

sentence of social ostracism?”38

If we consider that approximately 90 per cent of the prison-

ers will sooner or later return to society, then the problem looms

up in its full bulk. In addition, we must consider the attitude of

police departments towards the discharged prisoners. While a

change for the better may have taken place here and there, it

seems that in general the attitude is still quite unenlightened and

far from being intelligent and social.

The after-care of the discharged prisoners is admittedly an

extremely difficult problem. England has attempted a solution

through the “Unofficial Prison Visitors,” whose purpose is to

maintain even the slender links between the inmate and the world

outside during the period of incarceration, and through the “Dis-

charged Prisoners’ Aid Society.” This Society functions on the

principle that “it is indispensable to any scheme for the reclama-

tion of criminals that there should be effective means of super-

vision and rehabilitation in honest life after discharge from the

Institution.”

I believe some religious denominations have found it diffi-

cult to raise the funds required for aid to discharged prisoners.

Several years ago they joined the general Prisoners’ Aid Society

(non-sectarian) and now receive reasonable assistance and aid.

My impression was that the aid extended is still quite insufficient.
The method of raising the necessary funds seems to be akin to

our Community Fund Drives. I think the government makes a

contribution in some cases.

It would seem advisable that such “Discharged Prisoners’

Aid Societies” should concentrate their efforts on “delinquency

areas” in our urban centers. Crew gives it as his opinion that

Jews usually make excellent unofficial visitors and states that “it

is not uncommon for a Jew who has retired from a lucrative

business career to take up this difficult work. He is usually emi-
nently practical and is most assiduous and successful in finding

work for Jewish discharged prisoners.”39 It should be noted,

however, that the Jewish case-load in proportion to capacity to

extend aid is comparatively small. It would also seem that here

is a very complex and difficult and involved problem challenging

the profoundest talent of social-minded optimists.

38 Albert Crew, op. cit., p. 254.

39 Albert Crew, op. cit., p. 188.



50 WHY PRISONS?

The Book of Daniel records that Daniel was in prison at

Babylon (in the den of lions), forgotten, at least temporarily,

and unfed. Habacuc was told to bring him food, but gave the

excuse, “I never saw Babylon, nor do I know the den.” The pub-

lic is somewhat that way. Then something happened: “The

angel took him by the top of his head and carried him by the hair

of his head and set him in Babylon, over the den,” to deliver the

food. At any rate, some one took him by the head and made him

do something for the inmate of the Babylonian prison. Private

social agencies should consider very seriously the possibility of

fostering special programmes for the care of discharged pris-

oners.

To ransom the captives is one of the seven corporal works

of mercy. Who but the mother, or wife, or sister, or father (per-
haps the brother) of an inmate does anything, or ever says a

prayer for those in captivity, whether they be prisoners justly or

unjustly. And there are some who are innocent in whole or in

part; there are others whose sentence is relatively severe inas-

much as they got a “bum rap”
;
there are many more who have no

friends at court and must languish in prison, whereas those with

influential friends outside have their terms shortened. This is

not even imputing malicious intent to anyone. No one has ever

claimed that law enforcement from the police officer making the

arrest, through the court-trial, prison administration, parole

board, and down to the least prison officer is infallible. If the

public would only remember that to do something to help re-

educate, re-fit the unfortunate inmate for life in free society
;
to

do something to help the prisoner “get a grip of himself”
;
to do

something to aid the prisoner on release is one of the seven

corporal works of mercy, it is probable that the attitude of the

outside world would change, from one which is now a very un-

enlightened lack of sympathy, one of apathy and even hostility,

to one of sympathetic understanding, of helpful good-will, and

even of constructive mercy, for “blessed are the merciful, for

they shall obtain mercy. ... I was in prison, and you visited Me.

. . . Amen, I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these My
least brethren, you did it to Me.”

CAUSES OF CRIME AND THE CURE

There is no single cause of crime. To state that would be to

oversimplify the problem.

Poverty is often given as a chief cause of crime. Poverty is

not always an unmixed evil. “Blessed are the poor in spirit.”

Some even seek voluntary poverty to be better able to serve God

and their neighbor by works of charity. But they are not the



WHY PRISONS? 51

ordinary run of men. It might be questioned what has done

more harm in the world, poverty or the extreme forms of wealth.

Great wealth has generally been the cause of the extreme forms

of poverty. No doubt, poverty is a generative cause of crime.

This is probably true of every country. Judge Atherly Jones40

of England writes : “The great mass of crime in this country is

based upon poverty, and it is certainly true that the large ma-

jority of those who come before the criminal courts are poor

people. But it is equally true that the large majority of people

who do not come before them are poor people.” Some poor peo-

ple have become saints; but many more have become law-

breakers.

On July 1, 1936, I happened to be in Boston. About noon of

that day I was in a taxicab on my way to the South Station.
There was a big traffic jam at the corner of about 200 Boylston.

Two ragamuffins, about 10 or 12 years old, and poorly clad, stood
on the curb watching for a chance to get across the street. All at

once I heard something so edifying I shall never forget it as long

as I live. One of the little fellows had stepped off the curb and

was ready to dive through the jam of cars. He shouted to his

pal: “Come on, Jimmie, make the Sign of the Cross.” And the

two of them crossed themselves and slipped through the traffic

jam. Those boys were poor lads, and to all appearances lived in

poor homes, but they must have a good mother, and that means a

good home. A poor home and a bad home are by no means
synonymous. It is not likely that those lads will ever become

juvenile delinquents or adult criminals.

Overcrowding goes with poverty. Usually associated with

overcrowding is the absence of the most primitive necessities of

home life and nearly always of those facilities for recreation

which should be a part of normal life, and which are particularly

needed in an urban civilization.

It is but natural that where living quarters, if they may be

called such, are so cramped that whole families are born, live and

grow up in one or two miserable rooms; where persons of all

ages and both sexes are huddled together, with perhaps a boarder

taken in to help pay the rent—it is but natural that under such
housing conditions there would be frequent cases of friction,

quarrels, sex offenses, thieveries and above all a desire on the

part of the growing boys and girls to escape from the wretched

discomforts of such “homes” and fall in with undesirables and

criminals.

In The Catholic World41 of May, 1936, Lawrence Lucey draws

a heart-rending picture of the warped and twisted young lives

—

40 E. Roy Calvert and Theodora Calvert, The Lawbreaker, p. 38.

41 The Catholic World, May, 1936.



52 WHY PRISONS?

the product of unwholesome hovels and neighborhoods. Dr.

Sheldon Glueck of the Harvard Law School, in a study covering
housing and neighborhood conditions in Massachusetts, investi-

gated homes that had produced law-breakers. For the sake of

clearness and simplicity he divided the homes into three classes

:

“wholesome/' “unwholesome," and “fair." A “wholesome" home
was clean, well-lighted, not more than two adults to a bedroom,

while the furniture supplied the minimum needs. The “un-

wholesome" home was poorly lighted and ventilated
;
it was also

filthy, and had rickety furniture. A “fair" home was partly
good and partly bad. Of course, it should be remembered that

poverty and filth are not necessarily synonymous. But it is also

true that the really poor often find no incentive to cleanliness.

The Glueck study, which covered 743 juvenile criminals who

appeared before the Boston Juvenile Court, showed that 97

came from “wholesome" homes; 184 from “fair" homes, and 462

from “unwholesome" homes. Total 743.

A similar study of 1,000 juvenile delinquents revealed the
following relation to neighborhoods: good neighborhood ... 25

delinquents; fair . . . 104; poor . . . 782; unknown ... 89. Total

1
,
000 .

Such figures certainly furnish a powerful argument for slum-

clearance to be undertaken by somebody—by private groups, by
City, State, or Federal Government, or by all or several. The

Howard Journal remarks: “As citizens we are all accessories

before the fact in every crime begotten of slums and squalor and

poverty." And Calvert42 correctly observes : “In some instances

true justice would place not the offender but Society in the dock

for denying him decent conditions of life. To realize these facts

is not to deny the existence of free will, but to recognize that

the individual’s degree of responsibility varies in relation to his

past inheritance and experience." In other words, there is a

difference between absolute morality and concrete morality; the

latter is determined by the degree of understanding, temptation

and free will, and these in turn, determine the degree of moral

responsibility in the particular person and case.

Defective family relationships of various kinds, and espe-

cially “the broken home," may be responsible for much crime.

“Shidler has estimated that 25 per cent of all the children in the

United States live in homes broken by death, divorce, or separa-

tion, while studies of groups of delinquents show that from 40

per cent to 70 per cent of them come from such homes."
43

There may be physical and psychological causes of crime.

“The ordinary normal man is not easily provoked into crime by

42 Calvert, op. cit., p. 9.

43 Calvert, op. cit., p. 41.



WHY PRISONS? 53

adverse circumstances. Neither does the subnormal person, in

favorable circumstances, as a rule become a criminal. It is only

when he is faced with adverse environmental conditions that he

finds himself unable to compete with his normal neighbors and

lapses into various types of crime.”44

And Lilian Le Mesurier, a highly experienced social worker

and prison visitor, remarks : “It must be steadily borne in mind

that though the number of defectives among young criminals is

a very serious matter, needing constant and vigilant attention,

and deeply significant when we try to analyse all the different

factors which produce crime, yet it is a very small proportion of

the whole ...” A careful analysis of the boy-offenders received
at the Boys' Prison, Wandsworth, shows “that when all the in-

sane, mental deficients, and inefficients were added together, they

amounted to slightly under 15 per cent of the whole group of

boys received that year (1925-1926) in prison. No one will un-

dervalue such a figure, but it brings into striking prominence

that important fact that 85 per cent of these delinquent boys

were found to be normal in body and mind” From the wealth of

her experience she warns : “It is possible to overestimate the im-

portance of the exact ‘mental age.’ . . . The relation of mentality

to environment must be constantly borne in mind. . . . The mental

age is a very useful guide and indication of what we may expect

to find in certain respects. But what may be called the boy's

general make-up depends on many factors, of ivhich the mental

age is only one . . . . The fact is that the enormous majority of

young offenders are not defectives in any normal sense of the

word, but just ordinary boys who have taken a wrong turning.”45

No doubt there is some correlation between unemployment

and crime. Still, the sharp increase, particularly in juvenile

crime, observed in Illinois, took place before a depression was

even considered possible. The beneficent influence of employ-

ment on the decrease of crime may perhaps be reflected from the
following figures given by Col. Henry Barrett Chamberlin,46

Operating Director of the Chicago Crime Commission: “During

1936 the records show only 195 verdicts of murder returned by

coroner's juries in Cook County as against 230 during 1935; 337

in 1934; 388 in 1933; and 399 in 1928, which year had the larg-

est number of murders during the past eighteen years. In 1936

there were 5,524 robberies reported by the police as against

9,531 in 1935
;
13,436 in 1934

;
15,157 in 1933

;
and 15,943 in 1932,

which year led in records for robbery. In 1936 there were 12,789

44 Ibid., p. 48.

45 Lilian Le Mesurier, Boys in Trouble, pp. 39-50.

46 Henry Barrett Chamberlin in Criminal Justice, February, 1937. See also Kalmer and

Weir, Crime and Religion, p. 150.



54 WHY PRISONS?

burglaries reported by the police as against 17,331 in 1935;

20,691 in 1934; 21,976 in 1933; and 22,791 in 1932, the record

year in that class of crime.” The influence of unemployment

would seem to be indirect. Idleness saps the morale. Yet, “the

ordinary unemployed man does not drift into crime; he has gen-
erations of moral principles behind him, and stands with his

back to the wall fighting the demoralizing influences of enforced

idleness year after year without resorting to crime.”47

Every now and then, in relation to crime, we hear voices that

cry “foreigner.” They would have us believe that the greater per-

centage of crime in this country is committed by foreigners. In

this connection it is interesting to note that in England the de-

cline in emigration is considered one of the causes for the in-

crease in crime in that country. The number of our criminals has

not noticeably decreased since the almost complete stoppage of

immigration. The Commission's Report shows that the percent-

age of foreign-born criminals is very low.

It is safe to assume that during the 13 years of the Volstead

Act, a federal law was violated in approximately 85 per cent of

the homes in the United States. In the vastly larger percentage

of cases it was not a malicious violation. But it was an objective

violation just the same. When drinks were served in the home,

mother or father would issue the warning: “Now Harold (or

Jane)
,
don’t you dare tell anybody where we got this,” or some-

thing like that. The implication in the child’s mind was that it

was perfectly all right to violate a federal law, provided you

weren’t caught. Now, if it is true, as psychologists tell us it is,

that character is formed mainly between the years of one and

six, then the juvenile delinquents of today got their first incen-

tive to disrespect for law in those tender, formative years and in

the years immediately following. It would seem that it cannot

be denied that disregarding a federal law begot a disrespect for

all law. Today we have the opposite extreme of the loose tavern,

which, too, had its origin in prohibition days. Sheriff Toman of

Cook County may be largely right when he blames the wide-

spread disrespect for all law, characteristic of so many present-

day young people, on the era of popular-law-disregarding prohi-

bition.

Kalmer and Weir quote figures to prove that Prohibition wTas

responsible for trebling the number of prisoners at the Joliet peni-

tentiary, “while the Government Census of Prisoners (1923, p.

4) says: ‘The ratio of the commitments per 100,000 population

for 1923 as compared with 1910 increased 326.2 per cent for vio-

lating liquor laws, and 2,066.7 per cent for violating drug laws.’

The general rule, however, is not affected by this anomoly. The

47 Ibid., p. 62.



WHY PRISONS? 55

axiom still stands : hard times increase crime, prosperity reduces

crime.”48

The late G. K. Chesterton wittily remarked, “at the beginning

(of Prohibition) even those who disliked it believed in it; at the

end even those who liked it disbelieved in it.”

We live in the motor-car age. Nearly every boy knows
something about automobiles. Stolen pleasure is tempting, and

even boys whose parents own an automobile will steal a car for

the thrill of a ride. There is an incredible and perplexing lack

of respect for law. The spiritual and moral inheritance of pre-

vious generations seems to have been largely squandered, and it is

not replenished with religious and moral teaching. Millions of

the youth of our country have never even heard of the Ten Com-

mandments. “Thou shalt not steal” means nothing to them as a

moral precept, nor even as a social precept or criminal law, but

only as an officer of the law who can drive faster and shoot more

accurately than they can.

There are many other morally deleterious factors leading

youth astray; such as movies depicting gangster life (the crim-

inally-minded youth will usually figure out where the gangster

made his mistake)
;
the shocking details of crime appearing in

the daily press
;
the unspeakably bad “literature” in drug stores

and on newsstands; the cheap tavern and the high-priced night

clubs that have degenerated into dens of infamy, and so forth.

All these have infected the air the youth of our land breathe wTith
crime-breeding germs.

Our boast of the American standard of living, of the Amer-

ican home, of the American educational system, which, in a nega-

tive sense, excludes religious and moral training, “seems almost

a mockery when in the background we hear and see the ceaseless

tramp of this multitude of men, women, and children, finding no

rest but behind prison walls, and only issuing thence to re-enter

again.”49

Crime springs from a complexity of causes and many factors

may contribute to the cure of crime. But the analysis of our
failure shows that the most potent single preventive of crime is

sound religious and moral training in the schools combined with

intelligent character training in the homes, and that is also the

most effective cure. Calvert writes: “The first line of defense

against crime is religion, education and moral training. When
that fails, Society next relies upon a well organized police sys-

tem.” 50

48 Kalmer and Weir, op. cit., p. 155.

49 Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise, The English Prison System, Introduction, p. XIX.

60 Calvert, op. cit., p. 62.



56 WHY PRISONS?

RELIGION, EDUCATION, MORAL TRAINING

I am going to quote Alexander Paterson for the last time:
“The problem of crime and its causes is inevitably associated

with the greater problem of education. . . . Deeper indeed, and

more cogent, lies the question of religious education in schools.

Experience alone can reveal how much is lost when this is miss-

ing.” Nowhere have I found this “greater problem of educa-

tion” set forth on a sounder basis than in Practical Psychology in

Character Development . 51 To quote

:

“The very earliest years preceding school age are the most

decisive for a man's development, his behavior in after-life, and

the moulding of his character. On persons concerned with the

upbringing of children during their first six years devolves the

greatest . . . responsibility for their spiritual and moral develop-

ment. School, later life, and the efforts of the doctors and the

clergy, can do much by way of improvement
;
but that which has

to be ‘improved’ comes from the hands of those who had the

fashioning of it up to school age. The foundations for later de-

velopment are laid in the early years of childhood, which as a

rule are spent in the home circle. . . .”

THE FOUR REALMS OF BEING

“In order to understand man’s relation to all that is outside

himself, that is, the environment which will have such a far-

reaching effect on the child’s character for good or ill, it is neces-

sary to grasp the fact that man exists in four different realms

of being.

“As a physical organism he belongs to the realm of organic

and inorganic nature.

“As a human being he belongs to the realm of persons, to the

community—family, social class, nations, and so on.
“As an intelligent being he has his part in the realm of

mind (ideas, ideals).

“As an immortal soul he belongs to the spiritual realm.

“He belongs to these various realms not as a divided but as a

complete being. That is, he is not a member of the realm of or-

ganic nature simply by reason of his body, nor a member of the

spiritual realm only in virtue of his soul. He belongs to each as

an undivided whole.

“Though it is objectively impossible for an individual to

make himself absolute, subjectively, however, his self-assertion is

unconsciously aiming at this. The tendency of self-assertion and

self-preservation is the beginning of the will to power.

61 Rudolf Allers, Practical Psychology in Character Development, Abridged and re-arranged

by Vera Barclay, pp. 4-16, 181-189.



WHY PRISONS? 57

“This will to power is unquestionably a fundamental trait of

human beings. We constantly encounter its presence in the lives
of individuals and of groups of peoples in history, although, ad-

mittedly, it may be strangely disguised as to be apparent only to

the most wary observer. . . . The will to power is a primitive tend-

ency of human nature which, left to itself and in the absence of

restricting forces, would overstep its bounds.

“In point of fact this will encounters a two-fold limitation.

On the one hand it comes up against obstacles arising from its

environment—the competition of the will to power of other men,
the resistance of inanimate nature, the law of value laid down by

custom, tradition, law and economics.” There are also bounds

set to the will to power by natural law and by the commands of

supernatural origin, for instance, the Ten Commandments. The

second obstacle to the will to power lies in man himself, that is,
his second primitive tendency, the will to community.

“Obviously we must aim, not at the destruction of the indi-

vidual’s will and his tendency to self-assertion, but at its guidance.

... If one forbids too much one gains nothing at all, for children

have a very delicate sense of the reasonableness or unreasonable-

ness of the orders given by adults. . . . The upbringing of children

is not like the training of a dog, to sit motionless with a piece of

sugar on his nose without snapping at it.”

WILL TO COMMUNITY

“Socialization, or the tendency to it, is not only a fundamen-

tal feature of human nature, but peculiar to it; man not only ex-
hibits a will to community

,
but is distinguished by that will.

Aristotle thought he could not describe man better than as a
‘political animal,’ a term taken over by scholastic philosophy and

rendered as sociabile, that is, ‘capable of forming a community,

and regulating existence in accordance with it. . . .’

“We do certainly maintain that these two primal tendencies
and their equilibrium play a decisive role in the formation of

character.”

WILL TO COMMUNITY AND THE UPBRINGING OF
CHILDREN

“It is not the business of education to enroll a man as a mem-
ber of the community

;
he is already a life-member from the mo-

ment of his birth. It is its task to help him to become aware of

this membership through his own experience and to make his

personal acceptance of this fact possible. . . .

“The essential and primal communal formation is the family.

No other educational environment, however skillfully constructed,
can equal a rightly directed family upbringing. Unfortunately



58 WHY PRISONS?

it is only too often directed along the wrong lines. Consequently

it is sometimes desirable to remove children from their home

environment
;
but it must always be borne in mind that all insti-

tutional upbringing is in itself only makeshift. . . .

“On persons concerned with the upbringing of children dur-

ing their first six years devolves the greatest responsibility. . . .

There, in his own family, the little child must acquire his com-

munal experience. The bond of community is love; only where

that prevails can community exist
;
it is only in an atmosphere of

love that the child can experience community.

“Community is the living relationship of the self to others.

The ‘self' is represented in four forms, and there are four variants

of this relation
:
parents and children, husband and wife, the indi-

vidual and his fellow man, myself and God. . . . Mutual confidence

must govern the relations between children and parents. . . . The

relationship of husband and wife should by its very nature take

the form of mutual devotion. . . . The form taken by the relation

of myself to God is humility, and it is the root and source of

everything else. It is pride that dissolves the relationship, pride

which is the original source of disturbance in the other relations

of life. . . . The correct formation of the will to community is

hampered if the type of community which is experienced by the

child appears in an unfavorable light. Inconsistency on the part

of elders, tyranny, oppression, hate and enmity [broken homes]

—where such prevail a genuine will to community cannot de-
velop.”

A MISTAKEN THEORY

“An easy way out of the difficulty of upbringing may occur

to people and attention may be redirected to an idea that was

greatly in vogue in the recent past and regarded as an educa-

tional panacea. In view of our inevitable ignorance of a man's

potentialities, it seemed logical to bring him up in such a way

that the ‘development of his own personality' was set before him

as his own business. . . . Plausible as this may sound to many ears

it is wrong from beginning to end. . .

.

“If all restrictions that might be supposed to check the ‘free

development of the personality' were removed, the primitive

urge of the will to power would obtain the upper hand. . . . The

idea of a free, unrestrained education with the object of develop-

ing an all-round, complete personality is thus shown to be self-

contradictory and to nullify its object by its own procedure.

Experience teaches us that the regulation of his life in accord-

ance with such an ideal sooner or later brings the person into

conflict with the laws of reality and ultimately renders him more

or less incapable of facing life.”



WHY PRISONS? 59

In technical language it is often stated that anti-social de-

sires even in children need to be, not repressed, but changed or

sublimated. Many a parent has done a good job of sublimating

with an early and reasonable use of the rod.

RE-ESTABLISH THE HOME

Ella Frances Lynch, 52 a teacher of very broad experience, re-

minds us that discipline in the home means control with the defi-

nite purpose of establishing a reasoning self-control; that among

the physically and mentally able there is no such thing as a born

criminal; that criminals are not born but made; that neither

morals nor manners are hereditary, and that right and wrong

have both to be learned. If every child were taught at home to

be orderly, punctual, honest, truthful, were taught to reverence

God, would learn to work and how to work, and to know the dif-

ference between “mine” and “thine,” between Mary's toys and

Jimmie's playthings; “if each home were the center of law and

order, we would have a happy, orderly state. There would be

neither prisons nor poorhouses. ... In the olden days when reli-

gion was placed first instead of second, third, or nowhere, in

education, the responsibility was placed on the parents.” And

they did a pretty good job of rearing their children.

One hears thousands of mothers, well-intentioned mothers,

mothers who had perfectly reasonable parents, yet mothers who

are deluded by the radically false philosophy of education, re-

peat the silly cant : “I want my children to have things easier than
I had them. My parents were too strict.” And what is the de-
plorable result of this frightful breakdown of parental authority

and of the character-building and restraining influence of reli-

gious and moral training? Read on a few lines. A veritable
Frankenstein

!

The comparatively small number of felons in English prisons

I mentioned in the Foreword. There are approximately 50,000

prisoners incarcerated in all the various types of Italian penal

institutions and about 20,000 of them serve prison sentences.

Italy has a population of 42,000,000. Illinois has a population of

7,200,000, and last spring there were 10,500 men and 229 women
in the prisons of Illinois, not counting those in county and city

jails and other penal institutions.

Truly, “the ill-guided home is mainly responsible for the

lowering of moral standards and the decay of national con-

science. . . . Nothing will carry boys and girls safely through

moral perils except faith in God, who punishes the breakers of
His law and rewards the observers.”

62 Ella Frances Lynch, Bookless Lessons for the Teacher-Mother.



60 WHY PRISONS?

Mr. John Edgar Hoover, Director, Federal Bureau of In-

vestigation, United States Department of Justice, is certainly in

position to evaluate the spuriousness of this “development of his

own personality” educational theory:

“It is all very well to say that youth should have its fling, but statistics

show that the way of youth is tending too swiftly toward the path of crime.
There is no excuse for the fact that 700,000 American boys and girls were

enlisted in the army of crime prior to reaching voting age. There is no

suitable explanation which the fathers and mothers of America can make

for this outrageous situation. They have allowed the reins to slip from

their hands; they have allowed their own personal pleasures to become

uppermost; they have allowed the spirit of family discipline to become

weakened and they have allowed youth to malinger along roads of life which

lead all too often to the disillusionment. Parents have become too con-

cerned in enjoying the fleshpots of the age to give proper attention to their

offspring.

“This parental indifference in America tends to create a weakening

even of our political structure. Instigators of subversive activities against

our form of Government recruit their army of revolt from the ranks of
youth. And they win these tragic, misguided young zealots because parents

have been too lazy or too ignorant of existing conditions, or too enamored

of false philosophies to attack teachings foreign to our ideals and repugnant

to the solid American wisdom and common sense which should exist in

every home. No boy or girl will be a recruit to subversive activities against

our traditions if he or she has been correctly reared and taught by responsi-

ble parents that America can exist only as a community of God-fearing,

sober-minded, and liberty loving free men and women.

“Discipline must be re-established in the American home. The father

who thinks too much about golf to care what his son is doing; the mother

who is so eager for bridge that she pretends to believe that her daughter

in, a parked car beside the roadway is merely indulging in a bit of harm-

less petting, must re-cast their ideas, or realize that they are unable to

govern the human beings for whose existence they are responsible.” 63

And I might add: you cannot rear God-fearing and law-

abiding children by dragging them around from one movie to

another, from tavern to tavern, nor can you rear your children

properly on cocktail parties.

Experience has sadly shown that the problems of character

development cannot be satisfactorily solved by the mistaken “de-

velopment of his own personality” theory; that natural means

are limited and that they “must eventually break down unless co-

ordinated with religious knowledge and principles
”

“Let the wicked forsake his ivay, and the unrighteous man

his thoughts
,
and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have

mercy upon him.”—Isaias lv. 7.
63 J. Edgar Hoover, Address, September 19, 1936.



WHY PRISONS? 61

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The following books have been read or consulted, and the writer is in-
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Allen, Fred C.: Extracts From Penological Reports and Lectures. (The

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Allers, Dr. Rudolf : Practical Psychology in Character Development.

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1934.)

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&

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62 WHY PRISONS?

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,
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