5" . ..Iffl'^-M HV W» F. Willcox Ja 1 9 '40 NOV 3|lW? AUG 1 611944 SEP 1 6|944 .^/niX .^T37^ T952 Cornell University Library HV9471 .R66 Penology in the United States / olin 3 1924 030 385 391 Cornell University Library The original of tinis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030385391 PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES By LOUIS N. ROBINSON, Ph.D. Author of "the history and organization of criminal statistics in the united states" Philadelphia THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY 1921 Ho kSzz^^'^ C«»RyH^ 1921, by Thb Jomr C. Wmsmm Compact W*D£ IM DEDICATION To those early Friends of Philadelphia whose deep concern for prisoners brought prison reform to the attention of this nation and to the nations of Europe. (iiii PREFACE The preface is the author's review of his book. It is a very happy custom which allows him to pen the fu-st review, since it gives him an opportunity to tell the public some of the hopes which have animated him and some of the troubles which he has had in writing the book and thus to gain at the start a little sympathy. Unlike nearly all other writers on criminology, I have confined my attention almost entirely to our institu- tions of punishment, omitting from the discussion, in so far as possible, any mention of those agencies which society has provided for dealing with the offender prior to his conviction. For example, I have not written of the lock-ups and the houses of detention other than the jails. In Chapter II will be found a presentation of the underlying assumptions of the theory of punishment. However, I have not wasted words on this subject, for it has been my feeling that for the most part the changing concepts of piuiishment as well as our chang- ing point of view in regard to the criminal himself could be adequately seen in the evolution of the various institutions of pimishment sketched in the separate chapters. No doubt there will be many to quarrel with me over the use of terms. I have made the word "prison" to include all institutions, both for adults and juveniles, in which an individual is imprisoned or held following his conviction. I have also used the phrase "penal institutions" in a broad, comprehensive way, feeling that the old double term "penal and correctional insti- Iv] PREFACE tutions" is a clumsy phrase, difficult to define. I have likewise used the word "punishment" to include all forms of treatment, knowing of course that it is difficult to pour new wine into old bottles, yet not find- ing any new word that suited me as well. My object in writing the volume has been to produce a book useful first of all to the students of social insti- tutions in our colleges and universities. I have had in mind, too, that perhaps some time our law schools would find it worth while to teach to their students the meaning of punishment as it actually works itself out, in order that they may properly evaluate in the Hght of the whole their future part in stamping out crime. But my real concern has been to offer to the general public a means of becoming acquainted with a definite part of our great social machinery. Unless our citizens are famiUar with the workings and results of their in- stitutions, and unless they take the time to readjust some institutions and to cast aside others as obsolete, we can not expect the orderly and progressive develop- ment of society for which we all hope. Appalling is the ignorance of all but the few executives and the few students who have been led by some chance fancy to study the problem of punishment. They and the great army of almost inarticulate criminals are alone in- formed. No one who is at all conversant with the facts will deny that the fable of Sisyphus and the rolling stone can be matched on an enormous scale in the tale of wasted effort which society is constantly putting forth in its endeavors to reduce the volume of crime. In writing the book, one of the greatest difficulties I have met with has been the great variety of practice. Each one of the forty-eight states is a law unto itself [vi] PREFACE in dealing with crimes and criminals. With the ex- ception of a few general provisions governing the sub- ject in the constitution of the United States, each state may do as it pleases. And while common traditions have made for uniformity in the choice of institutions of punishment, there is nevertheless a great divergence in the use of these institutions and in the actual treat- ment of the offender. There is progress and develop- ment everywhere, but, taking the United States as a whole, the effect is uneven. In order to obtain anything like a truthful picture of several of the institutions of punishment, I have found it necessary to resort several times to the use of a questionnaire and to read the reports of nearly all oxir state institutions as well as those of a local character which go so far as to publish reports. Had there been other careful surveys of types of penal institutions, such as those by Bye and Snedden,* my task would have been very much simpler. With regard to footnotes, I wish to say that I have been as chary as possible of their use. I am not of those who beUeve that in order to be scholarly, it is necessary to prove by a footnote that every statement in the book has been made some time or other by some one else. To one who wishes to go deeper into the subject of penology, may I suggest that there are excellent collections of books along this line both in the Public Library of New York City and in the Con- gressional Library at Washington. The Index of Eco- nomic Material in Documents of the States, prepared 1 Raymond T. Bye, Capital Punishment in the United States (Phila- delphia: Committee on Philanthropic Labor of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends, 1919). . _ , , . David S. Snedden, Administrative and Educational Work of American Juvenile Reform Schools (New York: Teachers College, Columbia Univer- sity, 1907). [Vii] PREFACE by Miss Adelaide R. Hasse, shows not only what can be had in the way of reports from institutions and boards of supervision and of control, but also the reports of commissions or special committees of legislatures appointed to deal with some phase of the subject. The National Probation Association publishes an annual report of proceedings, so also the National Prison Asso- ciation and the National Conference of Social Work, formerly the National Conference of Charities and Correction. The Survey, the Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology and The Delinquent contain from time to time excellent articles bearing on the questions raised in this volume. Like Paul, I may say that I am indebted both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians, that is, to the uncon- victed and to the convicted. I record therefore, first of all my debt to the criminals from whose scattered writ- ings and chance conversations some little insight into the problem of punishment has perhaps been gained. I want also to express here my deep appreciation of the pubUc officials who have so kindly and sometimes so humorously answered my niunerous requests for information. To all my former students, with whom I have discussed practically every idea in this book I wish also to make grateful acknowledgment. Like many another writer who has depended on his wife for that hateful but necessary criticism of the manuscript, I, too, make due acknowledgment to my wife. Louis N. Robinson Swarthmore, Pa. [viii] CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. Introduction 11 II. Theory op Punishment 17 III. The Jail. . . 32 IV. The House of Correction and the Workhouse . . ^i- 53 V. The State Prison or State Penitentiary 66 V^I. Institutions for Juvenile Delinquents 92 VII. Reformatories . . "^ 120 VIII. Prison Labor. 153 IX. Compensation of Prisoners 178 X. Probation 194 XI. The Parole System 217 XII. Other Forms of Punishment 242 XIII. Management of Institutions for Of- fenders 283 XIV. Summary and Conclusions 309 Bibliography 327 Index 337 fix] CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION PENOLOGY (from the Greek noLvij+Koyta) is usually defined as the science of punishment/ but so little of what is called scientific method has been used in determining the proper kind of punish- ment that the definition may be said to be rather an expression of one's hopes than a name for the hetero- geneous mass of information concerning the punishment of criminals which we now possess. Following the German example, it has become customary to apply the term science to each and every field of human knowledge, no matter how little or how poorly organ- ized it is. The mischievous effect of this is clear. Scientific conclusions become confused with what are mere surmises and guesses, and thus lose — through this process of leveling — ^the moral value which should be theirs as guides to civihzation. Science is too bold a word to use in defining penology. The use of this term presupposes a knowledge of the facts, a rigidity of analysis, and a soundness of deduction which does not exist as yet in this field of study. 1 "In 1834, he (Franois Lieber] mentions in his diary, among the subjects continually in his head, that of 'penology'. He coined this word from his brain; later he defined it in a letter to de Tooqueville, as 'that branch of criminal science which occupies itself (or ought to do so) with the punish- ment and the criminal; not with the definition of crime, the subject of accountability and the proving of the crime, -vi^ich belong to criminal law and the penal process'." Francis Lieber, Prison Reform and Criminal liaw — Correction and Prevention (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, Charities Publication Committee, 1910.) p. 146, [111 PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES Criminals, or more precisely put, criminals and their crimes, constitute the subject matter of criminology. Penology, which has to do with the punishment of criminals, is then only a part of this larger field of knowledge. Though it is difficult to see how the whole can be more scientific than the sum of its parts, the claim is also made that criminology is a science. The truth is that all our information concerning criminals and crimes is still in a chaotic state, which, whether considered by parts or as a whole, bears little resem- blance to a true science. Since our knowledge of criminals and our manner of regarding crimes deter- mine on the whole our attitude toward punishment, it would, manifestly, be impossible to treat of penol- ogy without constant reference to the many facts and ideas lying within the general field of crimi- nology. Penology might indeed be thought of as a corollary to the main propositions about criminals and crimes, which when they are once proven give us the key to many, at least, of the problems in penology. At no time has the interest in penology been greater than it is to-day. The general social awakening has led to an overhauling of the machinery of punishment, and some of it is now being cast aside because it has been found impossible to adapt it to what seems to be the needs of the present. For example, "separate and solitary confinement," once a phrase with which to conjure, is no longer accepted as a principle of good prison administration, and yet it still accounts for the architectural features of many of our prisons. Uncon- sciously the public has absorbed some excellent pro- gressive ideas in regard to criminals and crimes which [12] INTRODUCTION are utterly at variance with much of the established machinery of punishment. The shock which has come through a realization of this discrepancy has set in motion forces which are slowly changing the entire plan of punishment. Again, the very magnitude of the problem has aroused others to an interest in penology. Something of its size may be imagined from the figures published by the United States Bureau of the Census. In the year 1910, the latest year for which we have figures for the country as a whole, there were discharged or paroled from the various penal and correctional insti- tutions in the United States 474,939 persons.' This number is larger somewhat than the actual number of different individuals, since some were counted twice owing to the fact that many short sentences are given which would make two or more imprisonments within the year quite possible.^ But allowance must also be made for those who are punished in other ways, for example, by fines or through being placed on proba- tion, a method of handling criminals which has come to be extensively used. The total number of juvenile offenders committed to juvenile reformatories during the year 1910 is given in the Report of the Bureau of the Census as 14,197.^ During the calendar year 1919, 1,242 juvenile offenders were placed on probation by the • Prisoners and Juvenile Delinquents in the United States (Bureau of the Census, 1910), p. 310. 8 The statement is made [Ibid. p. 18] that there is good evidence to show that 34,979 individuals were counted a total of 87,257 times. The total number of those who are committed to a prison of some kind more than once within the year is undoubtedly very much larger than this, for since first offenders are usually let off with lighter sentences, the concealment of former imprisonments ia a matter to which the offender gives considerable care. [13] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES Municipal Court of Philadelphia alone,* a little more than one-twelfth of the total number committed in the United States to juvenile institutions during the calen- dar year 1910, and more than any one of the forty- eight states, with the exception of New York, com- mitted to institutions during that year. If all were counted, making due reduction for the repeaters, the total number of criminals who are let loose each year on society would run well over half a miUion. An army of half a milUon is large even in these days of gigantic armies. A city of that size has problems that tax the brains of its best men. And this, it must be remembered, is but a cross section of the great stream of humanity which passes yearly through the filter of punishment. Vast governmental machinery, requiring the labor of thousands and costing millions of dollars, is a burden upon society which could well be spared.' The suspicion, too, that the machinery of punishment may itseK have had something to do with society's failure to shake itself free of this mighty load has led to a serious questioning of the customary methods. A striking feature of modern penology is the similarity in the methods of punishment now employed by the different states of the civilized world. This is not to be taken as meaning that there is only one form of punish- ment. There are, of course, many, depending now on the nature of the criminal and now on the kind of crime. * Philadelphia Municipal Court Report (1919), p. 335. ' The expenditures for maintenance and operation of state institutions for criminals during the year 1915 amounted to $21,244,892; the value of the plants on January 1, 1916, was $115,113,305; and the number of persons employed in these institutions on January 1, 1916, totaled 10,562. Statis- tical Directory of State Institutions for the Defective, Dependent and Delinquent Classes (Bureau of the Census, 1919), pp. 20, 24, 32. The cost of courts, sheriffs, detectives, etc., must also be considered in finding the total sum expended on account of crime. [U] INTRODUCTION The upheaval which has been mentioned in the preced- ing paragraphs has produced strange incongruities everywhere. But the differences in method are found within each state. As between one country and another, the dissimilarity is not marked. True, one nation may have gone farther in a certain direction than has another, but the old foundation institutions are fun- damentally the same and so are the new additions being reared thereon. Contiguity of territory, which once served as abnost the sole explanation of the similarity in practice of ad- joining states, is no longer a necessary condition. The development of all forms of transportation has permitted between distant lands an interchange of ideas impos- sible a hundred years ago, even to neighboring states. World congresses, international scholarships, and ex- change professors show still other ways by which the ideas and the ideals of one state become the property of all. A common poUtical history will often account for the close resemblance in the methods of punish- ment of two states. This is especially marked if one of the states happens to be a former colony of the other. The emigrants take along with them the social ideals and institutions of the mother country and create for themselves an environment that differs only in details from that which they left behind. The trans- planted institutions may thrive in the new soil and, under the influence of changed conditions, may develop faster than those in the mother country. On the other hand, their growth may be checked for years, while those at home continue in their orderiy process of change and development. An interesting example of this latter situation is furnished by England and the United 115) PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES States. Our county jail, house of correction and work- house all came from England. To-day they resemble more closely the English institutions of the seventeenth century than those which England now possesses. The plan of this book is to restrict discussion, in so far as it is possible, to the problems of penology in the United States. One cannot serve the master of com- prehensiveness and at the same time yield due obedi- ence to the exactions of intensiveness. Besides, what is needed to-day to secure improvement in our public life is not so much a general knowledge of general problems on the part of our citizens as a specific knowl- edge of specific problems. Otherwise action is inhib- ited by ignorance of the next step. Any single great nation may be made to constitute a laboratory for dissecting all the complex problems of punishment. A study of penology in the United States soon leads one to theories™and practices which are not native in their origin. Our contributions to penology have been noteworthy, but the punishment which is now being meted out to criminals in this country is — on account of the modern diffusion of ideas — ^by no means wholly the product of American thought or ingenuity. Many of our forms of punishment, too, arise from theories and conditions prevailing centuries ago. Their ancient origin alone accounts for their continued existence — in many instances quite out of relation to present needs. Old forms have been retained out of general indifference or only recently galvanized into a semblance of change by the serious situation. Many of our forms of punishment, therefore, touched upon as they will be from an historical evolutionary standpoint, afford the student a perspective upon penology as a whole. [16] CHAPTER II THEORY OF PUNISHMENT 4 LL machinery for punishing criminals rests on j\ a foundation of theories respecting the purpose and the nature of punishment. Consequently, before subjecting our individual institutions of pun- ishment to any inquiry, we must have at hand at least a slight knowledge of these theories, in order to judge and classify our institutions, and, if possible, to determine the causes of ^their success or failure. Why does society punish men? In the eighteenth, and in the early part of the nineteenth, century — when the thinkers of the world were much more given to formal abstract reasoning than they are at present — the tendency in answering this question was to lay down some general proposition respecting the nature of God, or the constitution of the universe, or justice as an entity, or the inner life of man from which punishment as the logical and necessary aftermath of crime could be deduced. ^ Dissatisfied with these answers, all of which seem to be the result of reasoning in a circle — since from a general proposition anything can be deduced which has been put in it in the &st place — students have turned to the method of histori- cal research for a new answer to this question. The laws of primitive communities have been studied and 'See for example, Heinrich Oppenheimer, The Rationale of Punishment (University of London Press, 1913), Book II, Part I, Chaps. I, II, III, IV, V, VI. 117] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES even the customs with respect to crimes and punish- ments of savage tribes have been carefully observed with the thought that somewhere along the path of civilization would be found the clue to the solution of the problem. Much valuable information has been obtained by this method; but unfortunately the inves- tigators have not all given the same answer to the question. Not one clue but several have been found, each of which has been taken up by its followers with much enthusiasm.* It would not be possible to present these here or to weigh their respective claims. Summed up, however, it would appear that in provid- ing and enforcing penalties, past communities, making due allowances for differences in structure, were actuated by much the same motives that are responsible to-day for the passage in our legislatures of bills creating what are termed "statutory crimes". Hence a review of the general process whereby a certain act becomes by law a crime with penalty attached will enable us to see something of what is behind the punishments decreed by society. All bills arise out of the need, either real or imagi- nary, which an individual or a group of individuals have come to feel for the use of public machinery in the accomplishment of their purpose. If the bill is one providing pimishment for the commission or omisaon of some act, its origin can usually be traced to a movement on the part of the people, or a group of them, to improve their social environment by the elimination of certain acts thought to be harmful either directly to organized society or indirectly through affect- ing injurio usly numerous individuals within the group. 1 Heinrich Oppenheimer, The Rationale of Puniahment (University of London Press, 1913), Book I, Part I, Chaps. I, II, III, IV, V, VI, [18] THEORY OF PUNISHMENT They may have been led to take this step by any one of several things. Direct observation, for example, may have shown them the evils which flowed from the act in question, as in the case of theft or murder; or scientific research may have brought to light conse- quences which had formerly escaped their attention as in the case of food adulteration. We have to do here with the beginning of an idea, and whence ideas come is in many instances as much of a mystery as is the be^nning of life itself. At any rate, the conviction is borne in on them that such and such a thing is wrong and should be stopped. Recourse is had to the law. A bill is framed defining the act and providing a punishment therefor. Newspapers are induced to lend their aid, and an endeavor is made to marshal as large a body of public opinion behind the bill as is possible. Let us suppose that the bill becomes law. What has been accomplished? As a normal thing, a majority of the people have been brought to consider the act as injurious to society; secondly, by providing a pen- alty, the ordinary and usual step has been taken to prevent the commission of the given act. Viewed as a whole, the action is seen to be an effort to protect society, a purpose which a study of the first crimes* punishable— treason, witchcraft, sacrilege, incest, and sex crimes — leads us to beUeve was the dominating motive behind the punishment of criminals by the very earliest societies. Punishment is but a device to enforce pro- tection.2 But how could punishment accomplish this? 1 In addition to these mentioned, there were crimes growing out of hunting rules and some few others. 2 An interesting statement of the purpose of punishment may be found in Bernard Bosanquet, Some Suggestions in Ethics (London: Macmillan and Co. Limited, 1918), Ch. VIII. Punishment according to this author is an annulment of the act; it is to prevent the act from becoming a precedent. [19] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES There is undoubtedly much that can be said for the effectiveness of some punishments which were once used to enforce compliance with social rules. The death penalty, formerly the punishment for all fel- onies, unquestionably prevented a man from repeating ; his objectionable act. Cutting off the hands of a pickpocket would seem to interfere rather seriously ; with that individual's occupation. To brand a man with a letter on his forehead as a common thief would certainly cause others to regard him with suspicion. '; And to pay a man back in kind, "an eye for an eye ' and a tooth for a tooth," or to fine him, ought to con- ' vince him that there was nothing to be gained by a life of crime. Imprisonment, holding a man securely within four square walls, a type of punishment which came into use relatively late, is another method by which all wild beasts have been, since the beginning of time, stopped from preying on society. An examination of the forms of punishment, past and present, shows that society has used them to pre- vent crimes by one of two general methods: (a) By acting on the individual criminal after he has committed the act in one or more of six ways: 1. Putting him to death. 2. Incapacitating him. 3. Making his character known to others. 4. Depriving his act of profit. 5. Shutting him up. 6. Affecting a change in his nature. (b) By making known to all individuals before they have committed crimes the consequences likely to follow, that is, by making an example of a few for the benefit of the rest. [20] THEORY OF PUNISHMENT At different periods in the history of civilization, more dependence has been placed on one device than on another. Imprisonment, for example, as a punishment for crime came into use in the thirteenth century;; and, ' with the exception of the faint attempt that was made with vagrants and untrained_ children, when houses of correction were established, ^ reformation as a prac- tical measure for preventing crTflie received little em- phasis until 1790, when Philadelphia Friends first set about remodelling the old Walnut Street Jail., A strong case can be made out for punishments as a means of preventing crimes, but let us not take pun- ishments for granted. Because they have been used in the past in seeking for protection, or because there is some logical explanation for them, does not mean that j they really do protect, or, at any rate, to the extent ; that has formerly been beheved. Mankind has been I cursed with various superstitious beliefs, from many of i which it has not as yet emancipated itseK. The reme- ;| dies which our ancestors have used in the past for our social, as well as our bodily ills, have been mostly thrown on~the scrap-heap, and some which we are now using will undoubtedly follow. The chain of reasoning which has underlain the pun-js ishment of criminals is by no means so strong as it! appears. ["The proof of the pudding is in the^eating,"! and one has only to study the statistics of recidivism; in all countries to learn that society is by no means shut of the criminal, even after trying many of its pun-; ishments on him. Likewise the enormous army of new\ criminals, which society breeds each year, is a standing \ proof that the preventive force of example is rather ; ' See what is said on this point in Chap. IV, pp. S3-65. [21] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES weak. Research in psychology, psychiatry, anthropol- ogy and sociology has made clear that this whole theory of prevention does not take sufficiently into account the nature of man. Executions, like war, brutalize men ; the more that take place, the greater the number there is to execute. The man about to die becomes a hero. Society has been finally forced to put its criminals to death in private, though now and then some official thinks he can put down crime by allowing or forcing others to witness the execution. ' A man, seemingly incapacitated from committing an act, may perversely turn his whole attention to showing the community that he is still capable of carrying on that particular line of activity. Besides, the real effect may be to incapacitate him also from living as a law-abiding citizen. This is particularly true of those measures which mark him among his fellows as a man to be avoided, for who will wish to employ him or deal with him in any way? Without friends, set apart, must he not continue as an enemy of society? To what extent criminals reason out the consequences of their act before perpetrating it can never be well known; but recent intimate studies of both men and women criminals indi- cate that this balancing of benefits to be derived from the act, over against evils to be expected in case of discovery, is not the determining influence which it has been assvimed to be by ovir theory of punishment. It is amusing to read from time to time of the reformer judge, who insists that punishments shall be made still more severe so that they will be certain to outweigh the benefits of crime. Starting from his premises, ' Recently the sheriff of Cook County, 111., compelled the prisoners in the jail to witness a hanging. [22] THEORY OF PUNISHMENT logically he is right, but his premises are entirely too narrow and too shaky on which to build any theory of crime prevention. An exact and nicely weighed equivalent may have been required from the criminal, and yet this may mean no guarantee of future social security. It may, moreover, mean exactly the opposite. The criminal' is rarely satisfied with the result and may come to feel that he, too, must get even. A long and fruitless struggle between the state and the criminal may then result with no final victory for either. Even if a criminal did stop to reason out the conse- quences of his act, would his conclusion not be gener- ally favorable to the committing of the act? Usually a man thinks he is smarter than the one who did get caught, and the very fact that a man would take time to think out whether the scales tipped more heavily in favor of the act than against it, is rather conclusive proof that his nature or his customary way of life would make his vision warped and his logic faulty. Without denying that there may still be something accomphshed through example, forcibly to make an example of a man is, too, a questionable procedure. Every year shows a gain in the importance that is placed on the individual member of society, and to compel certain ones to under- go punishments that others may be saved is on the whole bad ethics. It can be honestly questioned whether they who force the examples are worth saving by this means. Jesus was the Great Example, a sacrifice vol- untarily made, and one which showed the exact con- verse of what we try to teach by punishment; that is, that a good life, not a bad one, may lead to the cross. Imprisonment, if it is not perpetual, may leave a man in a condition unfit to associate once more with his [23] PENOLOGY IX THE UNITED STATES fellows. Most i)eople forget that — ^with few exceptions — all who go to prison come out again. It certainly can be of little avaU to turn loose on societymen who are more dangerous to its welfare than they were when they went in. But, surely, the reformation of crim- inals has been successful! Yes, in those cases vrhere it has really been brought about, and in this Ues one of the grovrirg hopes of the future. But let us not deceive ouTselv^; the efforts which society has made in this direction have been spasmodic and weak. Inasmuch as this point is emphasized in every chapter which follows, it may be left here as an open quKtion. The more we kncvr about normal and abnormal men, the more delicate and thus the more difficult seems this task of preventing them from doing certain acts which the majority of people wish to see eliminatai. ilany of our criminals are distinctly abnormal indi- viduals, whose acts cannot be accounted for through recourse to any of the ordinary rules of conduct. In evaluating our present institutions of punishment, it is nec^sary to know not only why society' punishes men, but what has determined the kind and extent of punishment. In part, the second qu^tion has been answered in discussing the first. In the past, society has looked for a specific cure, or cure-all. If a man's hand offended, cut it off, was perhaps the first basic; principle in determining the kind of punishment. On the whole, the wish was to hit with the punishment \ the very part or particular portion of the man that offended. The idea of constitutional trouble or disease was slow in coming to the surface. But of course, then as now, it was rmiK)ssible to find a specific remedy for eadi specific offense; and various cure-aDsj such as r o -I "I THEORY OF PUNISHMENT death, fines, whippings and imprisonments were re- sorted to, and a large or small dose given as the case seemed to demand. Over the selection of the penalty and the determination of the amount a great contro- versy has arisen, which has presented in a fresh light the whole problem of the prevention of crimes. Opinion has been crystallized into two schools of thought, the Classical and the Italian, and a presentation of their two points of view will greatly assist us in getting a new angle of vision as to punishment. ^ The Classical School is the older of the two schools of thought and, while no definite date can be given to mark its begiiming, it is usual to point to the publication of Cesare Beccaria's Crimes and Punishments in 1764, as the first indication of a growing revolt against the traditions and practices having to do with punishment which had come down from the dark ages. The move- ment was also a protest against the cruel and inhuman punishments which were stiU at that date imposed on criminals, and it called into question the arbitrary power, which judges then possessed, of imposing sen- tence. Judicial discretion has in it the germ of great abuse, and at that time it had become a crying evil. For- tunately or unfortunately, as one may view it, this was a time when thought was abstract and doctrinaire in theextreme. The matter of punishment appeared, there- fore, to the thinkers of the day as something that could be treated apart from the living, breathing humans in- volved in it. It took the mathematical guise of a problem in exact justice, and the solution which was • For a thorough discussion of the position of the two schools, see Raymond Saleilles, The Indimdualization of Punishment (Little, Brown and Co., trans- lated from the second French edition by Eachel Szold Jastrow, 1913). PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES finally arrived at bore marks of having been determined by men who knew nothing at all of the real nature of the criminal. The power of fixing penalties, it was decided, was a legislative power, and as such should not be exercised by a judge. Punishments must be determined in advance, so that all, including the judges and the criminals, might know what the will of the people was in the matter. Exact justice as between man and man, and as between man and society, con- sisted in punishing in exactly the same manner all men who committed the same crime. This movement in the field of criminal law and criminology was — as can be easily seen from the ideas involved — ^but a part of the greater movement which was taking place in the whole field of political and social thought. In this theory of justice, we see the Rousseau doctrine of equal- ity, and, in the shifting of the power to fix penalties from the judicial to the legislative branch of government, a practical application of the teachings of Montesquieu as to the three-fold division of government and the proper allocation of powers between them. To determine penalties in advance remains a possi- bility only so long as one is willing to close one's eyes to the fact that there is a criminal as well as a crime. Acts may be alike, but men never. No doctrine of equality can eliminate the fact that it is foolish to assume that all men who have committed the same crime are equally guilty and deserve the same punishment. Such a theory would place the minor, the insane individual, the first offender and the old offender, all on the same footing. What justice is, is as difficult a question as tlie^ one which was given Pilate to answer. In no state was the classical theory of punishment actually carried out, [26] THEORY OF PUNISHMENT although the French code of 1791 was accurately model- ed along these lines. It was too abstract to fit in with the everyday facts of life. Juries would not convict. Philosophers might determine with mathematical accu- racy the exact equivalent of every crime, but a jury, con- fronted by the criminal in the court, refused to believe that justice could be considered apart from him. Little by little, codes and laws based on the classic conception of punishment have been adjusted to the necessity of adapting the punishment to the nature of the criminal. Minors and insane individuals were placed in a special category. The notion of extenuating circumstances was introduced and judges were given back a certain amount of the discretion which they formerly possessed in fixing penalties. One interesting development of the classical theory has been the attempt to apportion the penalty to the degree of responsibility of the criminal. This has given rise to what has been called the Neo-Classical School. Briefly, it shifts the question from one of equality to that of responsibility. The equality emphasized by the Classical School assumed a like responsibihty on the part of all, and therefore punished all ahke who had committed the same crime. This is so clearly opposed to all that science has to say on the subject that the weakness of the classical theory seemed already proven. The neo-classicists made no denial of the justice of determining the punishment by the nature of the crime, only now the quantity of that punishment must be measured out in proportion to the criminal's responsi- bility for the crime. Without going further into this offshoot of the classical theory, it is sufficient to point out that this newer theory must be Ukewise regarded as [27] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES a one-sided view of the matter. Looked at from any other angle than that of a sUghtly more precise attempt to even up the score, flaws appear in the theory which render its application futile. For example, an irrespon- sible man would escape punishment but he might be very dangerous to society. The Italian School, unlike the Classical School, began not with a study of punishments but with a study of criminals. Like the Classical School, its beginning may be said to date from the publications of one man, Cesare Lombroso, who in 1876 published a small pam- phlet, entitled The Criminal in Relation to Anthro- pology, Jurisprudence, and Psychiatry. The kind of punishment proposed by this school has little connec- tion with any abstract idea of justice or with any pre- conceived notion of the proper distribution of power among the branches of government; its form depends not on the crime but on the nature of the criminal as revealed by science. If he is ignorant and unskilled, his punishment should be made such that he will return to society able — through the education which he has received — ^to keep in touch with the larger life about him, and competent to earn a living by the skill which he has acquired during his term of punishment. If he is ill and weak, he should be sent forth a strong man who can hold his own in the fierce competitive struggle that is waged in the world of freedom. If he is bound to be wayward and undisciplined, he should be moulded by the laws of habit so that he will be fit to live in a world of order. If it is hopeless to expect that he will improve and cease from crime, he should be segregated for all time. This theory is capable of indefinite expan- sion. Briefly put, it assumes that criminals are men 128] THEORY OF PUNISHMENT who, for one reason or another, are not able to hve up to the standards of conduct set by the rest of humanity. It, therefore, proposes to subject criminals to treatment. When they have improved sufficiently to warrant their release, they are set free; but until that time, they are wards of the state. The crime does not determine the punishment; it is simply an indication that the man should be pimished, or rather, improved in certain respects. This theory of punishment rests undoubtedly on a firm foundation of fact. Crimes of minor impor- tance have been committed by men who never ought to be allowed at large again. But if the pvmishment is to be determined by the crime, these men would soon be given their freedom. It also seems plausible that men can be so changed by the proper kind of punishment that they can be set free, and society need have no fear of their further depredations. The adoption of this plan of punishment, however, would scrap most of the machinery of punishment which the world has evolved up to this time, and call for a radical readjustment of our ideas on the subject of pimishment. A multitude of perplexing questions arise which, because they are concerned with human nature, are more or less insoluble. What part, for in- stance, does fear play in determining the conduct of a man? Is it wise, for example, to hang a man, as a judge once said, not because he stole a horse but because his hanging would prevent others from stealing horses. Is society willing to give up the idea of making an ex- ample of a man? Again there is the question of the time that should be given over to the treatment. Clearly, one man would gain faster than another, and yet both men may have committed the same crime. Is there [29] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES any injustice in detaining the one man longer than the other, as required by a strict conformity with this theory? Then there is the further problem of who is to decide when the man is fit to go forth. What danger to the hard-won liberty of man lies in this seemingly innocent proposal. that at the same time undoubtedly offers so much in the way of protection against crimi- nal violence? Nevertheless, these knotty problems have not prevented progress in substituting this sort of punishment for the opposite kind based merely on the nature of the crime committed. There is too much truth and value in the idea for it to leave no impress on the machinery of punishment. Yet the world has found it hard to follow along the path of the Italian School, giving up the distinction between the sick and the crim- inal. It harbors no grudge against the sick but it can- not wholly overlook the crime while caring for the crim- inal. No moral fault is found with the sick, but would not the world be the loser if it should give up the feeling of moral repugnance to the criminal? The ItaUan School places the criminal rather on a level with the man suffering from a contagious disease. Society must not be further imperiled by him. In making the pun- ishment depend on the nature of the criminal, there could conceivably be some consideration given to the moral guilt of the man, but the Italian School would seem to leave that to the Judgment Day for settlement. It is, perhaps, the wisest thing to do, but moral con- demnation is a force that is not without its social significance. However, it is perhaps only in the immediate present state of the public mind that a man would be less branded if declared mentally sick rather than criminal. [30] THEORY OF PUNISHMENT It may well be that, with the progress of the sciences, particularly of heredity, there will grow up among indi- viduals and among family groups a great horror of admitting that they or any relative of theirs has a tendency towards such degeneracy as would require treatment by the state. Criminality and abnormality by any other name would smell no sweeter. It is evident from all that has been said that there are so many angles from which the problem of punishment can be viewed, that no one is justified in claiming his own way of thinking as entirely correct. The hodge- podge of institutions, which are in existence in most states, is a sufficient answer to anyone who is bold enough to assert that his faith is alone the true one, un- less he is also bold enough to deny that these institu- tions are conscientious attempts to do right as it has been given men to see it. The simple fact is that the problem of punishment is a problem of human nature and, therefore, admits of no easy answer Socrates said that the proper study of mankind was man. Many centuries have elapsed and we still are ignorant of the laws of heredity and know next to nothing of the springs of human conduct. Sometimes it would seem that it is only the criminals that know enough of human nature to bend it to their ends. But great swindlers, for example, though practical psychologists, are allowed no scientific standing. Out of the old must come the new, and, before attempting to plan for the future, let us see what our present institutions of punishment have to offer to society and to the criminal. [31] CHAPTER III THE JAIL FROM many points of view, the jail is the most important of all our institutions of imprisonment. The enormous number of jails is alone sufficient to arrest the attention of the student of penology and to make him realize that the jail is after all the typical prison in the United States. There are in the United States to-day approximately three thousand jails, of which nearly one-fifth are municipal jails and the re- maining four-fifths county jails. ^ From two-thirds to three-fourths of all convicted criminals serve out their sentences in jails. ^ But this is not all. The jail is, with small exception, the almost universal detention house for untried prisoners. The great majority, therefore, of penitentiary and reformatory prisoners have been kept for a period varying from a few days to many months within the confines of a coimty or municipal jail. Then, too, there is the class, not at all unimportant in number, of individuals who having finally established their inno- cence have been set free after spending some time in the jail awaiting trial. Important witnesses also are de- tained m jail, and it is used at times for still other pur- poses, even serving occasionally as a temporary asylum for the insane. The part, therefore, which the jail plays in our scheme of punishment cannot be overestimated. ' Prisoners and Juvenile Delinquents in the United States (Bureau of the Census, 1910), pp. 203-309. s lUd., p. 23. [32] THE JAIL Whether for good or for evil, nearly every criminal that has been apprehended is subjected to its influence. Historically, the jail is far more interesting than either the reformatory, the penitentiary, the work- house or the house of correction. It can be traced back without much difficulty to the reign of Henry II (1154- 1189), and there is some evidence to show that it had been in existence many years before that time.* It is the oldest prison of all. Used at first as a place for the detention of untried prisoners and of those who had not yet paid their fines, or who were awaiting punishment, the jail at a later date, when imprisonment had become a form of punishment for crime, was the prison in which criminals served out their sentence. This double char- acter of a house of detention and of a place of punish- ment — ^which the jail had undoubtedly acquired by the end of the thirteenth century — is still a characteristic of the modern jail in the United States. The jail, too, is a living record of mighty political struggles, for national unity on the one hand and for corporate freedom on the other. At the time when jails first came into existence, the English counties occupied no such subordinate posi- tion in the state as they now do. They had been king- doms; and though welded together to form a state, they had not lost in the process their individual identity, nor had the state— that was thus created— acquired so early a life of its own apart from the counties. The state func- » Pollock and Maitland state that one begins to read of prisons in the tenth century as places of detention for persons not yet condemned. "Henry II had to provide for the erection of a gaol in every county; but these gaols were wanted chiefly for the detention of the indicted who had not yet gone to the ordeal." History of the English Law (2d ed.; Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1903), II, p. 516. And further, "Now so far as we can see, the justices of Henry Ill's reign used their power of imprisonment chiefly as a means of inflicting pecuniary penalties." Ibid., p. 517, [33] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES tioned through the counties, and jails were made a part of the machinery of county government because the state had not developed to the point of satisfying its needs by means of its own institutions. Further, municipal jails existed side by side with the county jails, and some echo of the great contest which the towns waged for the priv- ilege of self-government has come down to us. Not all has yet been made clear, but the right of a town to have its own jail was among the powers of government which the towns finally won for themselves. County and municipal jails are thus no mere accidents of fate, but typical institutions of the political period in which they originated. The EngHsh jail of the sixteenth and the seventeenth century, which may be considered the immediate ances- tor of the local prisons which sprang up in the colonies, has a look of almost uncanny resemblance to the Ameri- can jail of to-day. 1 In charge of the jail was nominally the sheriff, an official appointed in the counties by the ' For the facts in this paragraph descriptive of early English jails, I have depended largely on three sources of information: (a) Statutes of the Realm from. Magna Charta to the End of the Reign of Queen Anne, containing many acts touching the management and upkeep of jails. (b) Contemporary works on local government, such as, the Country Justice, by Michael Dal ton (London: John Walthoe, 1715), and Officium Vicecomitum, or the Office and Authority of Sheriffs (London : Richard Atldns and Edward Atkins, 1682) by the same author; Eirenarcha, or of the Office of the Justices of Peace, by William Lam- bard (London: Thomas Wight, 1599). (o) The studies on English Local Government by Sidney and Beatrice Webb; viz.. The Manor and the Borough, Parts I and II (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1908); and The Parish and the County (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1906.) In writing the paragraph, I have been tempted to make frequent refer- ences to the volumes by the Webbs, but not wishing to devote too much space to the historical antecedents of our jail, I have thought it best to be as sparing as possible of references. Attention is called here particularly to the following pages on which statements of importance are made: The Parish and the County, pp. 296, 297, 307, 308, 332, 365, 442, 481, 485, 486, 497, 525, 605; also The Manor and the Borough, pp. 4, 292, 328, 331, 541, 725. 134] THE JAIL crown, though elected in some cities by the municipal corporation. Occasionally, the bailiff of a municipality served as a sheriff, and when this was the case the jail was in his custody. Actually, no sheriff or bailiff troubled himself very much about the administration of the jail. These were turned over as a usual thing to a keeper who farmed them for life. It is interesting to read in a statute of Henry VIII, ^ relative to jails, that the act should not be prejudicial to a person "having any comen Jayles by inheritance for time of life or for years; but they shall have and enjoye theyre said Jayles and the fites fees and commodities of the same. " No salary was paid the keeper; but as the statute indi- cates through a system of fees, by the sale of goods to the prisoners and in some cases by means of forced labor, he managed to wring a living from the wretched people committed to his care. Jails, though they were called the King's jails, or rather gaols, were built by the counties and municipalities at their own expense.^ Aside from the cost of erecting, the counties and munic- ipalities had little or no financial burden on account of the jails. Prisoners had to support themselves. They were allowed to beg, and friends helped them out when they could. Kind-hearted people left bequests for the support of needy prisoners. Occasionally some small surplus of revenue, which had been collected for another purpose, was turned over by the county for maintenance. Conditions in a jail operated in this fashion can be easily imagined. John Howard, Sheriff of Bedford County in 1773, revealed to the world a state of affairs « 23° Ben. VIII, C. Z; repeated in 11° Gul. Ill C. 19. 2 Michael Dalton, The County Justice (London: John Walthoe, 1715), p. 178. [35] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES that beggared description.* So horrible was imprison- ment in the jail that a severe whipping or confinement in the stocks was looked upon as a merciful form of punishment.2 The inspection of the jail was carried on by means of the grand jury, which could make present- ments to the Court of Quarter Sessions. As a method of supervision, it was inadequate and little good ever came of it. In England, the jail of the seventeenth century is now grown beyond recognition; it has suf- fered but Uttle change in the United States. The relation of our jail to its English progenitor is easily proven by the charters and early laws of the col- onies. Thus the General Court and Assembly of Mas- ' The State of the Prisons in England and Wales with Preliminary Obseroa- iions and an Account of some Foreign Prisons (Warrington : William EjTes, 1777). 2 "The prisoners of the sixteenth century must have suffered great hard- ships. No adequate means seem to have existed for their maintenance. Their friends supported them, and under certain regulations they were allowed to beg. Several statutes made in the reign of Elizabeth provided partially for their support as part of the relief of the poor. By the statute of 1601, prisoners were to be relieved by a county rate. The County Treas- urer, who was responsible for the relief of soldiers and hospitals, also dis- bursed a part of the funds to them, and every county was bound to pay at least twenty shillings a year to the prisoners of the King's Bench and Mar- shalsea. Still the help given was very small; up to 1650 the allowance granted to the poor in the Norfolk prison was only a penny a day, and this sum could barely have sufficed to keep them alive. In Devonshire their allowance was increased in 1608 because 'divers of them of late have perished through want.' We must remember that incarceration in these prisons was the fate of debtors. Charitable people tried to help these people, and bequests were often made for the purpose of granting them some assistance. Thus in the reign of Charles I, George White of Bristol left a gift of five pounds a year to be used for the purpose of freeing or relieving some of the prisoners in the Bristol Newgate, and there are many other bequests of the same kind. Still the amount of these legacies was wholly insufficient for the need. Cer- tainly neither the legislators nor the administrators of the reigns of the earlier Stuarts made the criminal poor more comfortable than the unfortunate poor. If we realize the condition of the prisoners of this time, we can understand why Houses of Correction were regarded as charitable foundations. We can also see how it was that whipping and stocking were so frequently inffioted and that they were comparatively merciful punishments." E. M. Leonard, TAfi Early Bistory of English Poor Belief (Camhiidge: University Press, 1900), pp. 220-221. [36] THE JAIL sachusetts Bay Colony passed acts in 1699 providing prisons in the several counties and giving the custody of the jail to the sheriff, stating also that either he or his lawful deputy, or under-keeper, should have charge of the prisoners. He was, it is true, paid a salary, but there was a fee which went to him for turning the key upon every prisoner committed to the jail.^ In 1754, the General Assembly of the Province of New Jersey author- ized the free borough and town of Elizabeth to raise money for the repair of its jail.^ Twelve years later, Burlington and Middlesex Counties were each granted authority to purchase land and build a jail thereon.^" In South Carolina, the only county that had judicial ma- chinery prior to the Revolutionary War was Berkeley. The intention was, however, to erect courts in every county and equip them, as was Berkeley, with all the necessary adjuncts, such as jails. In this county, whose judicial machinery may be taken as the model designed for the other counties, the chief executive was the Provost-Marshal, who had exactly the same powers and duties as the English sheriff. He was the public jail- keeper and his house or that of his deputy served as the jail until 1770.^ The Duke of York's laws provided for prisons in towns where the several courts of sessions were held. In the laws of Pennsylvania, "agreed upon in England, " it was arranged that each county should • See Ads and Laws passed by General Court and Assembly begun and held at Boston, May SI, 1899, Ch. V, p. 122. 2 Samuel Allison, Acts of the General Assembly of the Province of New Jersey, from the Surrender of the Government to Queen Anne, on the 17th Day of April, in the Year of our Lord 1702, to the 14th Day of January, 1776 (Burlington: 1776) p. 202. ^ See preceding reference. < Edson L. Whitney, Government of the Colony of South Carolina (Johns- Hopkins University Studies, 1895), p. 77. [37] PENOLOGY IN THE UN^TED STATES have a prison.* In 1663, an assembly held in the city of Philadelphia, made it incumbent on every county to build "a sufficient house, at least twenty foot square, for the restraint, correction, labor and punishment of all such persons as shall be thereunto committed by law."= In 1811, Wilham Kilty, Chancellor of Mary- land, published a list of English statutes of the time of the migration to Maryland which had been found appli- cable to conditions in Maryland and proper to be incor- porated in the laws of the state. Among them is a statute of Edward III, giving the custody of the jails to the sheriffs,' and other, which indicate the setting up in Maryland of the English jail of the seventeenth century with as near an approach to the organization and management of the parent institution as the con- ditions in the colony warranted. The Virginia shires were organized in 1634 and sheriffs were then appointed. The prisoners of each county were thereupon placed in charge of the sheriff who fed and lodged them. For this he was paid by the prisoners themselves, and the charge was fixed by mutual agreement of the sheriff and his prisoners. By the laws of 1711 and 1748, prisoners for debt were granted an allowance by the counties if they were not able to pay their own prison fees.* No ^ LaiDs-^Established by the Authority of hU Majestie's Letters patents granted to his Royal Highness. James, Duke of Yorke and Albany; Bearing Date of the 12th Day of March in the Sixteenth Year of the Raiffne of oiir Soreraiffne Lord, Kinge Charles the Second. '1st M", March, 1683. » -1 Report of aU such English Statutes as Existed at the Time of the First Emigration of the People of Maryland, and which by experience have been found applicable to their Local and other Circumstances and of such others as have since been made in England or Great Britain, and hare been intro- duced, used and practiced, by the Courts of Law or Equity, and also such parts of the same as may be proper to be introduced and incorporated into the body of the Statute Law of the State. (Annapolis; Jehu Chandler, ISU), p. 217. • O. P. Chitwood, Justices in Colonial Virginia (Johns-Hopkiiis University Studies, 1905), pp. 108, 111, 112. [38] THE JAIL work seems to have been done in any of the colonial jails as such, and in this respect they also resembled the English jails where it was a rare thing to find prisoners at work. English emigrants did not evolve new ma- chinery of government on their arrival in this country; they established the prisons which they had known at home. Very little change has occurred in the constitution or management of the jail in this country, since the days of our forefathers. The county and municipal jails still exist. The cost of erecting and maintaining the jail is borne by the county or the municipality. The sheriff is usually the official in charge, though in some states keepers are appointed. Prisoners, it is true, do not now pay for their board and lodging; counties and municipalities must meet that expense out of the general taxes. In many counties, however, the board is in the nature of a fee which is paid to the sheriff or keeper on a per diem basis. In several places, there is still the fee for unlocking and locking the jail doors, a political rake- ofl of considerable value. Jails continue to serve as houses of detention and places of punishment. Little or no work is done in any of them, and while the sanita- tion has improved with the general progress of that science throughout the world, there is still the general atmosphere of seventeenth century slovenliness and neglect. Grand juries inspect on occassion with the same result that attended their efforts in the distant past. Most states have, however, now established state inspection, and in some states this poHcy has borne good fruit. The only change of any importance that has taken place has come through the establishment of juvenile [39] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES reformatories and the development of the probation system. Most of the young offenders are now cared for either in reformatories or are supervised on proba- tion.i Formerly, it must be remembered, all were sent to jail with the exception of a few sent to houses of cor- rection. Many adults that would otherwise go to jail are also allowed to remain at large on probation. The system of state prisons or penitentiaries and that of reformatories have not had the influence on the jail population that one might at first imagine, inasmuch as both of these sets of institutions are for those who formerly were put to death. Our jail has been very severely handled by critics. All, foreigners and Americans alike, have proclaimed in no uncertain tones that it is a disgrace to the nation.^ 1 Children are still held in jails pending disposition. "From at least one court in every State in the Union came reports of detaining children in jails. The practice was much more general in some States than in others. Thirty- seven courts in eighteen States reported that no effort was made to separate children detained in jails from adult offenders, though in many of these States such separation is required by law." Evelina Belden, Courts in the United States Hearing Children's Cases (United States Department of Labor, Children's Bureau, Bureau Publication No. 65), p. 13. 2 "Generally speaking, all misdemeanants, if sent to prison, would goto the city or county gaol, and in these gaols it is hardly too much to say that many of the features linger which called forth the wrath and indignation of the great Howard at the end of the eighteenth century. Sex promiscuity, insanitary conditions, absence of supervisiouj^ idleness, and corruption — these remain the features in many places. Even the "fee" system is still in vogue. The gaolers are still paid by fees for the support of prisoners, and commitments to gaol are common when some other disposition of the case would have been imposed had not the commitment yielded a fee to the sheriff, who is usually in charge of the gaol. In many gaols there are no facilities for medical examination on reception, for ventilation, for exercise, or for bathing. In one gaol I conversed with a man who had been twelve months awaiting trial, all that time in association with ordinary convicted prisoners. In another I came across a man held on the charge of murder who was obviously insane and subject to violent recurring fits. He was kept in the corridor of the gaol, in the sight of all the prisoners, and as the fits recurred was strapped down to a bed in the corridor until he recovered. The foreign delegates were amazed at this startling inconsistency between the management of the common gaols and that of the state prisons and state reformatories. The evils to which I refer are well known and deplored by [401 THE JAIL There is abundant evidence to support this view. If even half that is said about the jail is true, it stands condemned as a most vicious institution.^ If society wishes to prevent crimes by evil treatment of the criminal, it has in the jail an ideal instrument for its work. Most jails are insanitary. It is impossible even to keep them clean. Their walls are rough and provide hiding places for vermin. The disposal of sewage is difficult; the insanitary buckets are still that body of earnest and devoted men and women in all sections of American society with whose lofty ideals on the subject of prison reform, and generous aspirations for the humane treatment of the prisoner the Washington congress made us every day familiar, but they seem helpless and almost hopeless. The political forces and interests which favor the retention of the system cannot for the present be overcome. I was appealed to by leading men in more than one state, as British representative, to publicly condemn the system, and this I did, at a risk of giving considerable offense. Until the abuses of the gaol system are removed it is impossible for America to have assigned to her by general consent a place in the vanguard of progress in the domain of 'la science penitentiaire'." Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise, "English View of the American Penal System," Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, II, No. 3 (September, 1911), pp. 365-366. For a collection of comments of a similar character, see Employment and Compensation of Prisoners in Pennsylvania (Report of the Penal Commis- sion, 1915), pp. 72-77. 1 "Whereas the management of our penitentiary and reformatory is not up to the standard of some of the leading penal institutions of the country, our jail system is a disgrace to theetate, and, except as a place of detention for persons awaiting trial, there is not a single excuse or justification for its existence. What is true of Iowa is generally true over the United States." The Report of the Committee Appointed to Investigate the Character of the Warden and the General Management of the Iowa Penitentiary at Fort Madison, together with A Report Concerning the Jail System of Iowa (1912), p. 79. It would be easily possible to obtain numerous excerpts similar in character to the above from reports of oflScial boards and committees in nearly every state. To refer to a few: Fifth Annual Report of the State Board of Charities and Corrections of South Carolina (1919) , and Quarterly Bulletin of same board for September 1918; A Study in County Jails in California, Made by the State Board of Charities and Corrections (1916). Read also. County Jails, by Hastings H. Hart, leaflet issued in 1917 by National Committee on Prisons and Prison Labor; and Review of County Jails in Pennsylvania, by Albert H. Votaw, issued by the Pennsylvania Prison Society, 1920; also article in Survey of 1919, Vol. 42, pp. 806-812, 834, by Winthrop D. Lane, "Uncle Sam: Jailer, A Study of the Conditions of Federal Prisoners in Kansas Jails;" and A Bulletin on the Conditions of the County Jails of Mis- souri, by Charles A. Ellwood. [41] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES used in many jails. The heating is often poor, and as a result the windows are kept closed. Men are thrust into cells reeking with filth and vermin. Some of this wears off or creeps off and is left to torment the next comer who may be, perhaps, an innocent man, not trained in the best manner of fighting fleas and bedbugs,, orversed in the method of remaining clean and unspotted in the midst of refuse accumulated in the gutter. The position of sheriff or keeper often carries with it, just as in ancient times, the prerogative of running a boarding house, and there is this advantage that other boarding houses do not have — boarders are provided; there is no need to attract them by the sumptuousness of the fare.' The food is often inadequate and the rations improperly balanced. As a result, a man comes out of jail little fitted to take his part in the fierce com- petitive struggle which is now going on. In spite of all laws to the contrary, there is often intimate association of the prisoners; juvenile offenders are frequently ' "The fees to be gained by their arrest, detention, feeding and incarcera- tion during the period of sentence, have made the sheriff's office the centre of county politics and in some localities, a more lucrative post than that of president of the United States." Paul U. Kellogg, "The International Prison Congress at Washington," Survey (Nov. 5, 1910), p. 191. "For instance, it was found that the sheriff of Fulton County, Georgia, a few years ago was receiving in fees and commissions around $60,000 a year. After the expenses of his ofiice were paid, his net income was some S20,000 a year, which was three or four times the salary of the governor of the state. The sheriff of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, in 1904 got out of his oflBce $15,000 a year net, the treasurer $23,000, and the auditor over $50,000. The sheriff of New York County in 1916 was receiving a salary of $12,000 and $60,000 more in fees. In Cook County, Illinois, in 1904, it was discovered that interest and commissions in the treasurer's office amounted to more than $500,000 a year, and that the treasurer was getting a net compensation of more than $200,000 a year, or about twice as much as the President of the United States receives." The University of North Carolina Record (Exten- sion Series No. 25, October 1917), pp. 54-55. John E. Orchard, The Fee and the County Jail (Friends Social Service Series, Bulletin No. 23), issued by the Central Bureau of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends, 150 North Fifteenth Street, Philadelphia, Pa. [42] THE JAIL thrown in with adults and hardened criminals. Proper provision for the separation of the convicted and the unconvicted is not made, and in many jails female prisoners are even denied that privacy which every in- stinct of decency demands. Few jails have adequate workrooms. Idleness is thus the rule, and work the exception. Supported at public expense and living a life of vicious ease, is it any wonder that prisoners suffer in health and morals from impris- onment in the jail? In most states there is no fund to provide libraries. Gifts are received from time to time, varying from pub- lic documents to musty tomes on theological dissentions. Few of the books that are found in the jails are either elevating or inspiring. Newspapers and cheap magazines are sometimes allowed within the walls and the prisoner feeds his soul with the rubbish of the outside world. Little or no attempt is made to educate this class of prisoners or to teach them a trade. Here and there a group of ardent reformers start classes in the jails. Something is accomplished but the first enthusiasm is apt to wane and life in the jail soon settles down to its former dullness. Our statistics of crime are so inade- quate that it is impossible to say with any degree of certainty whether crime is or is not increasing in this country. 1 If it is not, it is due to the innate goodness and nobleness of all men and not to the jails which open to receive the fallen. It will be complained that the preceding character- ization of our jails is too severe; that there are jails that are worthy prisons of the twentieth century. With- ' Louis N.Robinson, History and Organization of Criminal Statistics in tht United States (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1911.5 [43] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES out denying that here and there one may find a jail which does not fit the description, one sees from even a cursory perusal of the reports of the State Boards of Charities or other agencies having visitatorial powers, that these better ones are the few exceptions. Let the reader visit those in his own state and decide on first- hand evidence. To one who looks at the problem superficially, the path of reform seems obvious. All that is necessary is to improve the conditions of the jails. Make them sanitary. Separate the convicted from theunconvicted, the adult from the youth. Feed the prisoners properly. Teach them and instruct them in righteousness. True, there are men and women who still have the seven- teenth century (or earlier) view-point, who consider such conditions as have been described as exactly what are needed to instill fear into the hearts of the criminals and thus to prevent crime; but most people feel that we have tried this remedy long enough and would make imprisonment of some real value to the prisoner. All this sounds well, but the difficulty lies in accomplishing it. The incongruities of the jail have long been recog- nized and yet little has been done. Evidently in this seemingly obvious path of reform there are obstacles almost too great to be overcome. Prison reformers are turning more and more to the plan of eliminating the jails rather than reforming them. The reasons which have influenced men to work for the abandonment of jails as places of detention for sentenced prisoners are two in number.* In the first iThis and the three following paragraphs have been taken almost verba- tim from an article on jails in the Report of the Pennsylvania Penal Com- mission, created by act of the legislature in 1913, which the author, as secretary and member of the commission, wrote as a part of the reixjrt. See pp. 66-fi7. [44] THE JAIL place the county is entirely too small a unit of prison administration. The modem conception of a prison is a place that affords ample opportimity for work and exer- cise, where trades can be taught and instruction given to those who need it; an institution, in short, which might be termed an industrial school for adults. The majority of the jaUs are too limited in population. Some indeed have no inmates; others have three or four. It is, therefore, usel^s to expect county authorities to estab- lish a modem prison for the detention and reformation of criminals. Nor would it be wise for them to do so. Such institutions are costly, and for each coimty to think of running such a plant woiild be as foolish a i)olicy as for each school district to have its own high school. One such institution would easily suffice for several counties.^ The second reason for this attempt to replace the jails by state institutions is closely akin to the first. Just as the coimty is not able, on account of its size, to provide the kind of prison which public opinion now demands, so also it fails and wiE continue to fail, to solve the question of management because a good sup- erintendent is not to be had for the money which the county authorities, having in mind the small number of prisoners in the jaU, are willling to offer. No one wiU deny that the man placed in charge of misdemeanants ought to be a cai)able and skilled administrator hav- 1 "With regard to the Municipal gaols, it was primarily in extent that the area of administration was defective. No decent accommodation and service can be provided for half a dozen criminals, except at a prohibitive expense. And now that we realize the highly jirfectioas character of criminality, and the nece^arj- diversity in its treatment, it is plain that the minute classifica- tion indispensable for prison efficiency cannot be mai nta ined except under a system of large administrative areas." Sidney and Beatrice Webb, English Local Government — The Manor and the Borough (Longmans, Green and Co., 1908), Part I and U, p. 75. [45] PENOLOGY IX THE UNITED STATES ing a clear understanding of the task before him and a vision of what it is possible to do under the dr- cumstances. Onlj- the most densely inhabited coun- ties can pay the salary necessary to secm-e a supeiin- tendent of this sort. i\Ioi-eover, such a man could easily take chai'ge of six or seven hundi-ed prisoners, perhaps even more. As it is, the management of most jails is placed in the hands of the sheriff, an oflficial who is chosen for eveiy other reason than his ability to nm a prison. His tenure of office is uncertain, and he makes little or no attempt to develop a policy of reform or advancement. In those coimties where a keeper is appointed the situation is little better. Small pay and little opportimity do not attract big men. As a wle, however, the county probably gets a better man than it deserves to have from the point of view, at least, of the compensation which it offers. Again, ia many counties, there is little public discussion of prison mattei-s and the management gets in a rat. It is fai* easiei- to bring tlie pressure of public opinion to bear on a few state insti- tutions than it is on pei'haps dozens of local jails or prisons which seem to many so imimportant, however gi'eat their possibilities for hai^m may be. The state can secure wide-awake administratore; and, once they are placed in charge of such prisons or industrial farms, not only would the great problem of the proper employ- ment of misdemeanants be solved, but the evils of jail life would be banished once for all. The espeiience, moreover, of England suppoiis this \iew. Nameless abuses in the jails of England were exposed by John Howai-d in the eighteenth centvu^^. Later, Elizabeth Fry took up the work of reform; but even she, in spite of her inmiense influence, felt that [46] THE JAIL reform could only come through centralization of control and a decrease in the number of institutions. And this has been the course of reform there. From her time on, there was a steady growth of supervision and control by the central government which finally terminated in 1878 in the assumption by the state of the entire control of the jails. At once an enormous reduction in the number was made. In the United States the same movement is well under way. New York has created a state industrial farm to which all tramps and vagrants will henceforth be sent. In Indiana, a state industrial farm for misdemeanants has been established by law for all sentenced prisoners having to serve a term of more than thirty days' im- prisonment. The State of Iowa has purchased a site for a new industrial farm for misdemeanants.' Similar movements are on foot in other states, and the time seems propitious for the change. Naturally enough there are some difficulties in the way of this proposed reform, which although not insup- erable make for delay. The tremendous pressure exerted on state leaders to find places for local politicians is by no means to be underestimated. Every reason but the real one for keeping alive these local places of imprison- ment is placed before the pubfic. They are told instead that the prisoners will be better cared for by the local officials who know them; that their friends can come to see them with less difficulty; and that it will cost less. In fact, all the arguments which were formerly used to prevent the change from local to state care of the insane and the feeble-minded have been invoked over again in •At the present time this land ie being used by the State Reformatory and State Penitentiary as no appropriation was made for buildings. [47] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES behalf of the maintenance of these small local prisons. In Pennsylvania, where the county pays to the state a maintenance chai'ge for the cai'e of long-term prison- ers sent to the penitentiary, this spending of comity money outside the county boundai-ies is the bugaboo used, when state care of misdemeanants is mentioned, to hold in line the local contractors, ti-adesmen, farmera and others who do business or hope to do business mth the jail. Some counties ha\'ing gi'own disgusted \\-ith the conditions in their local jails have put up expensive buildings of concrete or stone, fitted up perhaps mth steel cells, and haxing made this lai'ge outlay and rem- edied some of the serious sanitai-y defects, have no further interest in any plans for the ariminal. "W^en analyzed, it will be found that all of these argimients owe their origin, not to any deep-seated desu-e to main- tain an adequate protection of society, but usually to the very selfish wish to benefit special intei'ests deriving a profit from the local institution. But there are two arguments for the local care of mis- demeanants which cannot be lightly brushed aside. Large cities or densely inhabited counties certainly furnish a sufficiently large number of prisoners to make it worth while to build, equip and man a proper insti- tution — and some indeed have set the goal for the proper care of misdemeanants. Cleveland, Ohio, has a work- house on the outskirts of the city, and the District of Columbia has developed an institution at Occoquam, Va., which is, on the whole, a very creditable type of institution.! We may grant that this is true, but it must be remembered that these large cities or counties 'Harris H. Cooley, "The Organization and Development of Our City Infirmary or Colony Farm," Proceedings of the National Conference of Chari- ties and Corrections (1912), pp. 437-439. [48] THE JAIL are relatively few. Furthermore, the effect of trans- ferring to state care the insane and feeble-minded war- rants us in believing that if the prisons of these few municipalities and counties were merged into a state system, better results would be obtained both in the management of the institution and in the care and treat- ment of the prisoner. The state is not so parsimonious as the city and coimty, and its vision is usually broader and more enlightened. The second point of importance is that short sen- tences, of which liberal use is made in this country, would in states as large as our individual states make the transporting of prisoners costly and entirely out of pro- portion to their stay at a state institution. With the development of the probation system and the corres- ponding development of a method of paying fines by installments,! there will probably be a decrease in the number of short sentences imposed. Moreover, it is the universal opinion of those who have studied the effect of short sentences, that a much better result could be obtained by a change to the use of the indeterminate sentence, providing the prisoners were sent to an indus- trial farm or colony instead of to the ordinary jail. If it is worth while to remove a man from his environment at all, it should probably be for a long enough period of time for the new environment to have some effect on him. Moreover, one must not forget that in a larger state institution, the opportunity to work and earn, which does not now exist in a great majority of jails, would be possible, and thus the increased cost of trans- portation would be offset by a lowering of the cost of ' See Chap. XII, pp. 269-277, for a discussion of this scheme. [49] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES maintenance. At the present time, the Indiana State Farm for misdemeanants is entirely self-supporting. In view of the fact that the change from local jails to state institutions will be slow in coming, it will be well to consider briefly some of the schemes for a better utihzation of the present jails and for the care of mis- demeanants. In Washington County, Vt., the prison- ers are allowed to work for private individuals on the outside, going to and from the jail to their work as ordi- nary workmen from a boarding house, without guards and dressed in citizen clothes. They pay to the jail a certain proportion of their wages, sufficient to cover the cost of the institution, and the remainder they are allowed to keep for themselves. ^ A similar arrange- ment is also in force in Wisconsin.^ Through legisla- tion, many states have made it possible to employ jail prisoners on the roads. In the South, this is done almost universally, and the jail serves merely as a house of detention, the prisoners being sent, immediately after being sentenced, to road camps. In the North, it is more customary to bring the men back to the jail at the close of the day's work. Everywhere in the South it has been found that far better conditions pre- vail where the road work is carried on by the state than where it is directly under the oversight of local author- ities, thus indicating the superiority of state control as compared with that of local authorities. Indeed, condi- tions in some of the local road camps have been and are now unspe akable. In addition to road work, the jail • For a brief account of this Boheine read F. H. Tracy, Sheriff of Washington County Jail, Montpelier, Vermont, "Seven Yeara of the Honor System in a, Small County Jail," The Delinquent, III, No. 11 (Nov., 1913), pp. 1-3. 2 J. L. GiUin, "The Paroling of Prisoners Sentenced to County Jails with Special Keference to Wisconsin," Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology (January, 1916), pp. 684-688. [50] THE JAIL prisoners have carried on other kinds of public work of a minor nature, such as caring for public lawns. They have also done some farming. All of these efforts to get the men out of jail at work in the open air are to be encouraged. They do not, however, constitute an ideal solution of the problem. The jail still remains on account of the smallness of its size generally incapable of making any positive contribution to a prisoner's character, and, while its evils may be mitigated, they cannot be eradicated in any of these ways. There is still left the problem of a suitable place for the detention of prisoners awaiting trial, who are now held in the jails. Strictly speaking, this is not a question in penology, but as they have always been confined in the jails, it may not be out of place to finish the discussion with a brief statement of the problem as it concerns them. The jail is no more fit for the untried man than for the convicted criminal. Ultimately the state must provide detention houses in convenient centres of popu- lation. It will probably do this by securing full control of such of the present jails as will serve its purpose. Meanwhile, it is to be noted that reform is moving along the line of having separate detention houses for different classes. It is now the law, though not the observance in all states, to confine juveniles in buildings entirely apart from the jails. Several of the cities now have very fine institutions of this kind. There is also the movement to provide separate houses of detention for women sex offenders. The prevalence of venereal disease among this class of offenders demands the highest type of sanitary accommodations in a building, and most jails are unable to give even a modicum of attention to this problem. Philadelphia converted an [511 PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES unused school building to this purpose and gives ad- mirable care to all the women brought there. With the increasing attention paid to the unconvicted and their gradual removal from the jail, communities may be brought around with less difficulty to see the injury that is done to society through the practice of bringing men down to the level of brutes by confining them when convicted in institutions where there are less of the conveniences and more of the defects than are found in any zoological garden of a modem city. [52] CHAPTER IV THE HOUSE OF CORRECTION AND THE WORKHOUSE THE House of Correction and the Workhouse are considered together in this chapter because the history of each is inseparably intertwined with that of the other. They are both of EngUsh origin and, like the jail, are excellent examples of that transplanting of social institutionswhichtook place with thesettlement of America. They date from approximately the same time and were, on the whole, the result of the same set of circumstances. Moreover, they were planned as complements of each other; each had its own work to perform, but the purpose which it was hoped each would subserve was only a part of a larger purpose which was behind them both. Still more interestingly as time went on, the two institutions came gradually to resemble each other until finally the original distinction was entirely lost sight of. Brought to America along with the jail, the house of correction and the workhouse were established here and there in the colonies, and the confusion in name and function prevailing in England became a part also of our tradition concerning the two institutions. The house of correction was a part of the English plan for the suppression of vagrancy. By the begin- ning of the sixteenth century, beggars had become a ter- rible nuisance in England as well as on the continent of Europe. They swarmed on every hand, and nothing [53] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES was safe from their depredations. Harman describes them as a "rowsey ragged rabblement of rakehelles."' Mr. E. M. Leonard gives four reasons for the growth of this class of people i^ (1) the break-up of the feudal system which did away with the employments of war and service; (2) the growth of large-scale manufac- tures which rendered employment less stable; (3) the rise of prices brought about by the sudden increase in the world's supply of silver, increasing the hardships of the laboring class; (i) the enclosures which drove the people from the land. A fifth reason may per- haps be found in the whole system of poor relief which had been woefully lacking in constructiveness. Indis- criminate charity and repression had been tried, but vagrancy continued to increase. Clearly the time had come for a more enlightened policy which would provide an opportunity for work and training so that none would need to beg. The first house of correction dates from the year 1552, when Bishop Ridley of London, together with the mayor and citizens of that city, petitioned the Privy Council for help in dealing with the "sturdy vaga- bond."' Provision had already been made for dealing with the other classes of the poor, but the plan would not be complete until some systematic effort had been made to care for this troublesome group. To the citi- zens of London, the "sturdy vagabond" meant "the child unapt to learning," "the sore and sick when they be cured" and "such prisoners as are quit at the sessions," all of whom would be looked upon with sus- ' E. M. Leonard, The Early Hietory of English Poor Relief (Cambridge University Preaa, 1900), p. 12. ' Ibid., pp. 14-17. » Ibid., pp. 32-33. [54] HOUSE OF CORRECTION— WORKHOUSE picion when they came to seek work.' Briefly put, their problem was to know what to do with the un- trained child and the confirmed vagrant. They pro- posed to employ these in a hospital, as charitable insti- tutions were then called, to train such of them as were in need of training, and to force all to work whereby they "may be compelled to live profitably to the Com- monwealth. "2 Even in those days the competition of prison labor with free seems to have attracted consider- able attention, for a system of work was suggested in the petition that would be "profitable to all the King's Majesty's subjects and hurtful to none."^ Material was to be furnished by those already engaged in pro- duction which would be made up by the unemployed of the "hospital. " When made up, the goods were taken by those who had furnished the raw material and sold along with their other goods. The " hospital " was paid for the work done. To-day this system is known as the Piece-price System of prison labor and its ancient origin is clearly proven by the documents relating to the first house of correction. The King and Privy Council were prevailed upon to give the palace of Bridewell to the city to serve as a hospital for this class of beggars, and the name Bride- well came in time to be applied not merely to this first house of correction but to any institution of this kind. Sometime prior to 1557, Bridewell was opened to receive inmates. Thus London established the first house of correction as a municipal affair. The London house of correction was a great step in ' E. M. Leonard, The Early History of English Po or Relic/ (Cambridge: University Press, 1000), p. 33. Quoted from petition. » Ibid., p. 33. Quoted from petition. • Ibid., p. 3o. [55] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES advance. First, it supplied the necessary compulsion that had been lacking in the system of poor relief. Though other institutions had destroyed their excuse of lacking work, vagabonds had needed more than oppor- tunity to make them work. Second, the danger of the untrained child was seen and measures taken to divert such from the ranks of vagrants. To-day the folly of thus confining vagrants and children in the same insti- tution is well known; nevertheless this scheme which began thus early has died hard. The London experiment of a house of correction was officially approved by ParUament in the session of 1575-6, when alaw' was passed providing for the erection of one or more institutions similar to the London Bride- well in every county in the realm. The whole matter was placed as usual in the hands of the Justices of the Peace.^ The financial burden was placed upon the county,' with provision that individuals might establish and maintain houses of correction out of their own funds. Here again we see what is continually going on — a shifting to the state of work once considered wholly private. This law, slightly modified, was continued twenty years more until suspended (1597) by another act which in the main merely reiterated that houses of correction should be built in the counties.^ Evidently there was some reluc- tance on the part of the counties to incur the additional financial burden, for we find that Parliament in another 1 18° Eliz. C. 3 — ^An Aote for the setting of the Poore on Worke, and for the avoyding of Ydleness. 2 Michael Dalton, Country Justice (London: John Walthoe, 1715), p. 112; Sidney and Beatrice Webb, English Local Government— The Parish and the County (Longmans, Green and Co., 1906), pp. 297, 298, 344, 355, 443, 449. ' As in the case of the jails, many of the houses of correction were "farmed" out to "Masters" or "Keepers." ' 39° Eliz. C. 3. [56] HOUSE OF CORRECTION— WORKHOUSE decade (1609-1610) grows more peremptory.^ The law which was passed complains that previous instruction regarding houses of correction have not been carried out. Houses of correction must be erected in every countyand a fine of £5 is laid on each of the justices of the county that does not erect a house of correction. Many munic- ipalities, however, are shown in the records to have had a house of correction before 1597, and certainly some counties had taken up with the scheme before this last call in 1609. Such municipaHties and counties as had established houses of correction no doubt pressed upon Parliament the need of compelling other counties and municipalities to take more care of their own vagrants, in order that the burden be shared all around. As may be inferred from the above, the house of cor- rection was at first something of a composite institution caring for several classes of people. It seemed to be a combination of an industrial school for the young, a hospital for the old and infirm, a workplace for the poor who could not find employment elsewhere, and an insti- tution for the punishment and correction of the con- firmed vagrant. There is much, however, that could be said in its defense. The house of correction marked a beginning in the rational treatment of special classes among the poor and was a great improvement over any- thing that had gone before. The United States has yet much to do in the line of segregation before being in any position to throw stones at this early attempt to solve an extremely difficult problem. Early in the seventeenth century the house of correc- tion lost something of its complex character. The stat- 1 7" Jao. 1, C. 4. [57] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES ute of 1609-10 stated that houses of correction were to be used "to set rogues or such other idle persons to work. "I The deserving unemployed were not men- tioned in this connection, and it would seem that this statute might be considered as marking the time when the house of correction ceased to be half workhouse.^ Twenty years later, the Book of Orders of 1630-31 pro- vided that all houses of correction should be built next to common jails.* The institution took on more and more the character of a place of confinement for petty offenders, though it still continued to serve as an insti- tution for the correction and punishment of vagrants, which it has since remained. An exception must, how- ever, be noted. The houses of correction, estabhshed through private funds, retained many characteristics of the early institution. Were it not for the fact that the workhouse and the house of correction are completely confused in the American mind, no discussion of the former would be in place in this volume. Some excuse for this state of mind is found in the fact that, as stated previously, the con- fusion existed in England at the time of the settlements in America. The first house of correction, the London Bridewell, furnished work to the needy, and the majority of all the earlier houses of correction had what might be termed a free division, where employment could be given to those who were unable to find work elsewhere.* » 7 James I. C. 4. ' E. M. Leonard, The Early History of English Poor Relief (Cambridge: University Press, 1900), p. 137. « Ibid., p. 158. » "In 1675 Hobson'a workhouse was still not only a House of Correction but a place where fine combers could be employed if they wanted work, and where all the poor people of the town that desired to have work in spinning and weaving were to be provided with employment and paid the usual wages." Ibid., p. 226; [58] HOUSE OF CORRECTION— WORKHOUSE People had finally come to see that punishment could not cure the evil of vagrancy. There must be work for the unemployed. It is a strangely familiar argument which we are beginning to hear again to-day. The same statute of 1575-761 that called for a house of correction in every county, also made provision for stocks of raw materials in towns and cities and in such other places as the justices of the peace might deem necessary. The goods were given out to the unemployed to be made up. When finished they were returned to the municipal or parish ofiicials who paid the workers for their labor. Much material was lost in this way and work-places or work-houses were finally estabfished in which the work had to be done. Unlike the houses of correction which were county institutions, work-houses were mimicipal or parochial.^ Sometimes these, as has been said, were a part of the houses of correction, often they were not. After the English Civil War, work was not provided for the unemployed. The houses of correction, which had gradually come to resemble common jails, no longer, of course, had anything to do with this problem, and work- houses became almshouses. During this early period, however, which generated the ideas brought to America, the terms workhouse and house of correction were both used to designate pretty much the same kind of insti- tution. An examination of the early colonial laws reveals the fact that the house of correction and the workhouse be- came, just as did the jail, a part of our English heritage through the legislative activity of tTi'^ first settlers. In 1 18° EUz. C. 3. 2 Sidney and Beatrice. Webb, English Local Government — The Parish and the County (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1906), pp. 56, 58, 59, 130, 209. , [59] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES Penn's "laws agreed upon in England, "' we find the pro- vision that all prisons should be workhouses for felons, vagrants and loose and idle persons; and that each county was to be equipped with one. In 1748, the General Assembly of the Province of New Jersey passed an act^ to enable the county of Middlesex to build a poor- house and workhouse, and a house of correction — ^seem- ingly one establishment — for the poor, for children and for vagrants. The colony of New Plymouth provided in 1658 for the erecting of a workhouse or a house of cor- rection for Quakers, vagrants, idle persons, rebellious children and stubborn servants.' No better evidence of the transplanting of the house of correction and the workhouse from England to America is needed than the Act of May 31, 1699,* of the Massachusetts Bay Colony entitled, "An Act for suppression and punishing of Rogues, Vagabonds, common Beggars, and other lewd, idle and disorderly Persons. And also for setting the Poor to Work." The language and theory of the whole act closely resemble the act of 18° Eliz. on the 'Penna. — Colonial and Provincial Lawa (1676-1700), p. 100. 2 Samuel Allison, Acts of the General Assembly of the Province of New Jersey, from the Surrender of the Government to Queen Anne, on the 17th Day of April, in the Year of Our Lord 1702, to the 14th Day of January, 1776 (Burlington, 1776), pp. 179-186. Mr. Harry E. Barnes states (Report of Prison Inquiry Commission, Vol. II, 1917, p. 356) , that this act was re-enacted with slight changes on February 20,1799, and that this later act constitutes the basis for the present work- house system of New Jersey. Still more interesting is Mr. Barnes' statement (p. 49) that Queen Anne in 1702 instructed Lord Cornbury "to endeavor with the assistance of the Council to provide for the raising of stocks, and the building of public workhouses in convenient places, for the employing of poor and indigent people." ' William Brigham, The Compact with the Charter and Laws of the Colony of New Plymouth together with the Charter of the Council at Plymouth and an Appendix containing the Articles of Confederation of the United Colonies of New England and Other Valuable Documents (Boston: Button and Went- worth, 1836), p. 120. * Acts and Laws passed by General Court and Assembly begun and held at Boston, May 31, 1899. Cb. V, p. 110. [60] HOUSE OF CORRECTION— WORKHOUSE same subject. It is not necessary to consider this in detail though it would be interesting to do so. Each county was to have a house of correction and until such time as they could be provided the county prison was to serve as the house of correction. Towns were also to have workhouses and stocks of goods were to be provided. It is worth while in passing to note that the Massachusetts and the New Jersey laws clearly dis- tinguish between the house of correction and the work- house, whereas in the Pennsylvania law the term work- house is used to designate what is evidently meant to be a house of correction, and from the wording of the New Plymouth law, it is clear that the words were used interchangeably. We see likewise in the provision of the Pennsylvania law that all prisons should be work- houses and in the Massachusetts Bay law that the com- mon prisons should serve for a time at least, as houses of correction, the influence of the Book of Orders de- manding that all houses of correction be built next to jails. The individuals for whom the institutions were established are also clearly of the same sort as those for whom the institutions had been originally designed in England. The combined number of workhouses and houses of correction in the United States to-day is not large, but the general allaround confusion which prevails in respect to them is truly comparable with the situation that existed in the seventeenth century in England. In the first place, the two terms are absolutely interchangeable at the present time. One state may have workhouses and an adjoining state may call its institutions — ^which are of exactly the same character — houses of correction. Moreover, one county may have a house of correction [61] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES and another county within the same state may possess a workhouse and both may be aUke in every particular. All are in reality houses of correction; the workhouse as an institution in which free individuals may find work is no more, and yet, even this statement is not entirely true, for individuals who are out of work may by law commit themselves to the Philadelphia House of Correction.' Houses of correction in Massachusetts and workhouses in Tennessee are a part of the jails. In Maine and Virginia there is an alliance with an alms- house; in Pennsylvania, with an inebriate asylum. Not only are there county and municipal institutions, as we should expect, but there is also an occasional state establishment, as in Michigan and Maryland. On the whole, all receive about the same class of individuals. Drunkards, disorderly persons, vagrants, street-walkers and, in some cases, unruly children are the ones usually specified in the acts establishing the institution, though in most cases it has come about as it did in England, that all kinds of petty offenders are committed to work- houses and houses of correction, and the population of these institutions differ not greatly from that of an ordi- nary jail. One interesting exception to this must be noted. In Delaware, the New Castle County work- house serves as a central state prison for the other counties. The number all told of these institutions is, as has been said, not large. A rough calculation based on figures given in the Bulletin of the Census on Prison- ers and Juvenile Delinquents, 1910, shows that there are about forty-five county and twenty-three municipal workhouses, and twenty-seven county and seven munic- ipal houses of correction. In addition there are at least « 1871, June S; P. L. 1301 § 3. [62] HOUSE OF CORRECTION— WORKHOUSE two state houses of correction. Making no allowance for the fact that some of these are at the same time jails or other institutions, we have a grand total of one hun- dred and three. Considering the number of jails in the country, this is a very small number. The reason for this is not far to seek. Though alarming enough, vagrancy in the United States has never been so serious a problem as it was in England when the houses of cor- rection and the workhouses came into being. It re- quired, moreover, in England a great amount of pres- sure on the part of Parliament and the Privy Comicil to compel local units of government to provide these insti- tutions, and the state governments have never exer- cised the same stringent control over local government as Parliament has at times in England. No doubt the action has been prevented by the usual optimism of the American who has all along beheved that a man could always find employment for which in some miraculous fashion he would be ready trained. An optimistic attitude of this kind results in measures of repression only, because vagrancy is thought of com- monly as a fault in the individual for which he should be punished, not corrected or trained. Idleness in the jails is the real reason back of the more recent movement for workhouses and houses of correc- tion. As was pointed out in a previous chapter, the jail through long years of neglect has become something of a vagrant itself in its dislike of work; and people have rather naively jumped to the conclusion that if only the ordinary jail prisoner could be sent to a workhouse (which ought by the way to be called a house of correc- tion in every instance) he could be ipso facto induced to work. To afford better care of the ordinary misde- [631 PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES meanantrather than to eliminate the "sturdy vagabond" or to care for the "untrained child" is the cause of a certain revival of interest in these institutions. It has led, for example, the District of Columbia to establish a workhouse at Occoquan, Va., one of the best in the United States, The demand for state industrial farms is likewise an outgrowth of the same idea. The work feature of both the house of correction and the workhouse is still somewhat of a characteristic of each. It is perhaps the thing which constitutes the greatest difference between the general run of them and the ordinary jails. With the exception of those under state control, they do not in other respects differ essen- tially from the jails, nor is the problem of their future a different one from that of the jails.^ Although in many • "With but few exceptions the county penal institutions afford little or no opportunity to the inmates for work in the open, or for outdoor exercise or recreation, and in many, inmates do not leave the buildings from the day of commitment until released upon expiration of sentence. "With the exception of the Suffolk County House of Correction, no county penal institution in the State causes prisoners committed to it to undergo a physical examination by a competent physician. Jail physicians, for the most part, are not in daily attendance at the institution. In many instances they are compensated for visits made, or receive an insignificant yearly salary and treat only those prisoners who are too ill to be employed. During the past year two cases came to the attention of the Director of Prisons of persons confined in houses of correction for a considerable length of time without it having been ascertained that they were in the last stages of con- sumption. One of these inmates was committed by the court for non-sup- port, was taken ill shortly after commitment, and died of tuberculosis in the house of correction. The other, a young man who was tuberculous, months after commitment to a county house of correction was transferred to the tuberculosis prison hospital at West Rutland, where he lived but four days after his arrival. It is believed that many prisoners committed to jails and houses of correction who are tuberculous, and others who require treatment for venereal disease, are not discovered because a thorough physical exami- nation by a competent physician is not made at the time of commitment. The protection of the community and the protection of other prisoners demand that the presence of disease of a communicable nature be ascertained. Legislation is recommended making mandatory the thorough physical examination of certain prisoners in penal institutions. "This statement of conditions as they exist in county institutions is not made in a spirit of criticism. Commendable efforts on the part of the county [64] HOUSE OF CORRECTION— WORKHOUSE states there are laws which make it possible for any county to have a workhouse or a house of correction, only those as a rule that are densely inhabited have built institutions separate from the jails, and it is probable that under a system of state control and state management some of these institutions could properly be retained and made a part of a complete state system of caring for the misdemeanant. Whether or not they will be solely for a particular class, as vagrants for example, will depend on whatever the prevailing belief happens to be as regards the wisdom of segregation. Reformers have mostly declared for this very thing, but there are signs of a reaction in favor of confining different classes within the same institution in order to prevent the growth of any particular esprit de corps which might strengthen a man in his own kind of way- wardness instead of eliminating it. Witzwill in the Canton of Bern, Switzerland, may be considered a modem house of correction, and there is, as we know, a free colony located near it where discharged prisoners may find work. Possibly the future may see vagrants being taught how to work and compelled to work in houses of correction which will be run in more or less close connection with institutions for the unemployed poor desiring work. If this should come about, the house of correction will appear again in much the same light as it did to the people of England at the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century. officials have been made to improve conditions for the inmates of the jails and houses of correction. The director upon his visits to the institutions has met with most helpful co-operation, and it appears to be the earnest wish of masters and keepers to make their institutions more than mere places of detention." Second Annual Beport of the Bureau of Prisons of Massa- chusetts, for the year 1917, pp. 18-19. Notice that the county institutions are spoken of collectively. [65] CHAPTER V THE STATE PRISON OR STATE PENITENTIARY FROM the point of view of governmental control, the distinction between state and local prisons is one of degree only. The early English jails, it will be remembered, were called King's jails and the sheriff who had charge was appointed by the King. ParHa- ment, too, passed laws affecting the status of the jails. From time to time the Privy Council called on local authorities to perform some act in connection with these prisons. Though this book describes our jails as local institutions, it has already been pointed out that the counties and municipalities are not in absolute control nor entirely responsible for them. Counties and municipalities are self-governing to the extent only that the state allows; and jails constitute part of the machin- ery used by these units of local government under rules laid down by the state. The jails are thus — ^from the point of view, at least, of ultimate control — also state prisons. But this difference in degree of control between the jails and those ordinarily termed state prisons or state penitentiaries is sufficiently great to suggest the need for a separate treatment of the state prisons and state penitentiaries. It happens, too, that the history of these institutions and their problems also have been almost entirely separate from the history and problems of the jail, and the class of prisoners confined in them is sharply differentiated from those held in jails by the greater seriousness of their crimes. [66] STATE PRISON OR PENITENTIARY As is the case with houses of correction and work- houses, state prisons and state penitentiaries are one and the same. There are no observable differences either in control, management or function. It would seem to have been merely a question of euphony that determined the name of the central prison or prisons of each state. Thirty of these fifty-eight prisons in the United States, under the direct control of the various state govern- ments, are called state penitentiaries; the remainder are with one exception' termed state prisons. But in the minds of early reformers the penitentiary or the penitentiary system had a meaning which was quite distinct from that of the ordinary prison or prison sys- tem. The word penitentiary, which is of ecclesiastical origin, was used by Bentham, Eden, and Howard to characterize a prison in which the criminal could expiate his crime and be reformed. It meant to them about what the word reformatory now means to us. De Beaumont and De Tocqueville believed that Americans had completely misunderstood the meaning of the word, for they wrote " — ^the abolition of the punishment of death was confounded in America with the penitentiary system. People said — instead of killing the guilty, our laws put them in prison; hence we have a penitentiary system."^ Naturally enough the Frenchmen saw no logic in such a conclusion, and pointed out that a prison could not be a penitentiary unless its discipline was such as to make a better man out of the prisoner. There is plenty of evidence, nevertheless, to show that the 1 Convict Bureau of Alabama. — Prisoners and Juvenile Ddinguenis in the United States (Bureau of the Census, 1910), pp. 204-309. ' On the Penitentiary System in the United States and its Application in France, with an Appendix on Penal Colonies and also Statistical Notes (Phil- adelphia: Carey, Lea and Blanohard, translated from the French by Francis Lieber, 1833), p. 2. [67] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES prison reformers of Pennsylvania did know the meaning of the word which these men had ascribed to it. They believed, and with good reason, that in establishing the Eastern Penitentiary, they had set up a reformatory system and that they had a right to call the institution a penitentiary. But, as it happened, the movement to establish prisons wholly under the authority of the state came just at the time when the interest in the so-called penitentiary system was at its height, and, as De Beaumont and De Tocqueville say, there was great confusion in the United States as to what a penitentiary was, some inclining to the view that it meant merely a prison for criminals that, under earlier laws, had been put to death. Thus state prisons were called peniten- tiaries, and soon the special reformatory characteristics of the penitentiary were forgotten. Until quite recently no one considered either the penitentiaries or the state prisons as anything more than places where criminals served out their sentences under conditions such that they would be loath to return. Unlike the jail, the house of correction and the work- house, the state prison or state penitentiary was ]not imported from England. Yet the United States, like all the rest of the world, must acknowledge a debt to John Howard and Jeremy Bentham for part of the humane inspiration which ended in inventing these institutions. To the Italian, Beccaria, credit must like- wise be given for ideas which were to bear fruit in far-off America. Philanthropists of the eighteenth century were interested not alone in prison reform, but in mitigating the severity of the criminal law. The one most important event that led to the establish- ment of state prisons in the United States w£is the [68] STATE PRISON OR PENITENTIARY restriction of the death penalty. Of Connecticut, which was the first to have a state prison, Zephaniah Swift writing in 1796,i says that the legislature was unwilling to punish so many by death, and finally erected Newgate after having tried fines and "corporal pains" as substitutes for the death penalty.^ Massa- chusetts found that the jails and houses of correction were not suitable places for the confinement of those who had formerly been punished by death.' They were accordingly placed on Castle Island in Boston Harbor under state control. This was the beginning of the Massachusetts state prison. New York yields about the same evidence.^ Everywhere the change from the death penalty to imprisonment brought up the problem of caring for the long-timer. In Penn- sylvania this class of prisoners was cared for first in the Philadelphia County Prison, This plan proved unsatisfactory and the state institutions — called peni- tentiaries because they were supposed to embody the penitentiary system which had already been established in the Philadelphia county prison^were finally estab- lished.^ Summed up, the facts regarding the origin of state prisons and state penitentiaries may be set forth as follows: State prisons were the result of a reform in criminal law; state penitentiaries— in theory, at least — of a reform in prison administration.' > A System, of the Laws of the State of Connecticut (Windham : John Byrne, 1796), II, p. 295. ' Connecticut, it is to be noted, was still a colony when it began this enterprise. ' An Act making additional Provision for the Punishment of Frauds and Mixdtmieanors, piiased November 1, 1785. * An Act making allirationa in the Criminal Law of this State and Jot (Tccting State Prisons, passed March 26, 1796. « Western Penitentiary, 1818; Eastern Penitontiary, 1821. " Our few Federal prisons arc not treati^d separately in this book. Aside from the fact that they are under Federal instead of state control, they differ [69] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES Prison reform in this country began in Philadelphia. The influence which the reformers of that city had both here and abroad was such that any discussion of the prison problem, to be adequate, must include at least the most important features of that movement. The active interest of Philadelphia in prison reform may be said to begin with the founding in 1776 of the Philadelphia Society for Relieving Distressed Prisoners. Owing to the War of Independence, this society had little influence on legislation until 1790. ^ In that year a law was passed which may be considered as the first great attack on the old system of prison manage- ment.2 Through a provision of that law for the erection of cells in the jail yard of the Walnut Street prison in which "hardened and atrocious offenders" were con- fined, separate and solitary confinement was introduced into America, making the first attempt at classification. This idea of a cell for each prisoner was not new. In England and on the Continent, the evils of herding prisoners together had already been pointed out, and here and there prisons had been built in which the cell system had been introduced.' Nevertheless, the world in no wise from the state prisons. Their problems are the same and theii line of development follow exactly those of the state institutions. Aside from the military prisons, of which both the War Department and the Navy Department have several, the United States has two penitentiaries, one at Leavenworth, Kansas, and one at Atlanta, Georgia. These are under the control of a superintendent of prisons, an official in the Department of Justice. The Federal Government utilizes local state institutions for short term offenders and still continues to board many of its long term offenders in state prisons and penitentiaries, a practice which it followed wholly before the building of the Leavenworth and Atlanta institutions. ' Dissolved in 1778 and refounded in 1787. 2 Chap. MDV, passed April 5, 1790. See especially Sections VIII, IX, XXXIV, p. 534, p. 541. ' Notably at the Hospital of St. Michael in Rome, the prison at Ghent, and the English prison of Gloucester and Horsham, and prisons in Holland and Switzerland. See Frederick Howard Wines, Punishment and Reformation (New Edition and Revised by Winthrop D. Laoe; New York: Thomas Y. [70] STATE PRISON OR PENITENTIARY movement to segregate prisoners received a tremendous impetus from this innovation in the Philadelphia Prison. The Friends had a real religious conviction in the matter which put new life and solid energy behind the movement. Great importance is attached by Friends to quiet communion with God, and this belief led themJ;o see in separate and solitary confine- ment not only a practical device for preventing the further degeneration of a prisoner through contamina- tion but an opportunity for the prisoner to learn to know God through prolonged and quiet meditation. Contrary to the general impression, full provision was made in the law for the emplojonent of all the prisoners. 1 The law, moreover, specified that instruc- tion in the work was to be given where needed. A wage system was also established. Thxis, taking it all in all, Philadelphians were right in believing that they had established a true penitentiary system.^ The interest which people outside of Pennsylvania felt in the Philadelphia experiment was undoubtedly Crowell Co., 1919), pp. 148-152. Also scattered references in the two vol- umes by John Howard, The State of Prisons in England and Wales, with Preliminary Observations and An Account of Some Foreign Prisons (Warring- ton : William Eyrea, 1777) ; and An Account of the Principal Lazarettos in Europe, with Various Papers Relating to the Plague, together with Further Observations on Some Foreign Prisons and Hospitals, and Additional Remarks on the Present State of Those in Great Britain and Ireland (Warrington: WilUam Eyres, 1789). ' Mr. Wines says [Punishment and [Reformation (New Edition revised and enlarged by Winthrop D. Lane; New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1919), p. 152] that no labor was provided for the convicts separately confined. Zephaniah Swift speaks of prisoners [System of the Laws of the State of Con- necticut (Windham: John Byrne, 1796), II, p. 294] working "with as much regularity and good order as the same number of mechanics in a worn, shop." But as has since been the case, it was difficult to get the Philadelphia officials to take advantage of the laws permitting labor. ' For a brief picture of the prison situation as it was prior to this, see Frederick Howard Wines, Punishment and Reformation (New Edition and Revised by Winthrop D. Lane; New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1919), pp. 152-153. [71] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES heightened by the difficulty which they experienced in taking care of the criminals whom the restriction of the death penalty left on their hands. The "hard- ened and atrocious" offenders for whom the cells were built in the yard of the Walnut Street prison were of the same identical class as those for whom provision had now to be made in all states. From an experiment, the Walnut Street system turned into an example to be followed. Visitors from New York and elsewhere came to study the prison. It received the most favorable comment. Zephaniah Swift, whom we have already quoted, says that "the world has never before witnessed such an example of benevolence in the mode of punishing criminals, nor has punishment ever before produced such salutary results."! Many States actually set up the system in their own prisons. ^ Criticism was not long in forthcoming. Though the- Pennsylvania law of 1790 had made ample provision for work, great difficulty was experienced in obtaining the material, and without work the efforts to train and instruct prisoners was impossible.^ The separate and solitary feature became the chief characteristic of the system and as such was copied by the other states. • A System of the Laws of the State of Connecticut (Windham: John Byrne, 1796), II, pp. 294-295. ' The Walnut Street Prison was imitated by others; Maryland, Massa- chusetts, Maine, New Jersey, Virginia, etc., adopted successively the prin- ciple of solitary confinement, applied only to a certain class of criminals in each of these states; the reform of criminal laws preceded that of the prisons." G. de Beaumont and A. de Tocqueville, On the Penitentiary System in the United States and its Application in France, with an Appendix on Penal Colonies and also Statistical Notes (Philadelphia: Carey, Lea and Blanchard, translated from the French by Francis Lieber, 1833), p. 3. ' In 1807 (1807, April 4; 4 Sm. L. 393, Sec. 4) a law was passed penalizing county commissioners who did not furnish materials upon requisitions of the jailer. There was evidently great difficulty in securing the co-operation of local authorities. [72] STATE PRISON OR PENITENTIARY The evils of this system soon became apparent. Coupled to the great expense which the cell plan of construction involved, was the distressing effect which the solitude and idleness had upon the prisoners. Finally, there was evolved^ in the state prison at Auburn, N. Y., another plan of prison management which soon claimed for itself an even better right to be termed a penitentiary system than the now discredited Philadelphia scheme. The outHnes of the Auburn idea were very simple: isola- tion at night in separate cells; work in common shops during the day; common meals, but absolute silence at all tunes when together. Under this system segre- gation was not given up, but it was achieved not by means of the cell alone but by the use of the cell and the ride of silence. Just as the Philadelphia, or, as it afterwards came to be known, the Pennsylvania System had great vogue at the beginning, so now the Auburn system came in for its share of attention. Meantime, Pennsylvania grow- ing dissatisfied with sending convicts from the other counties to Philadelphia, had laid plans for two state prisons or penitentiaries as they were called,' both to be erected on the principle of separate and solitary confine- ment after the manner of the Walnut Street prison. So powerful, however, had become the opposition to the separate and solitary system that in 1827 a Pennsyl- lElam Lynds is usually given the credit for this, but Mr. Barnes ("The Historical Origin of the Prison System in America," Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, XII, No. 1, May, 1921, p. 54) feels that the weight of evidence points to John Cray, deputy and architect. In practice by 1824. 'Western Pennsylvania, 1818, Eastern Pennsylvania, 1821. Edward Haviland was the architect for both. The design of the Eastern Penitentiary seems to have been gotten from the plan of the Ghent prison, while the form of the Western Penitentiary seems to have been inspired by Bentham's Panopticon. In a law passed March 27, 1820, the Western Penitentiary ia distinctly referred to as a panopticon. [73] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES vania legislative committee reported adversely to it and recommended the establishment of the Auburn system in the new penitentiaries. But defenders were by no means lacking, and through precautions to insure the labor of prisoners in cells, the penitentiary system originating in the Walnut Street prison was retained in the two prisons of the state. The conflict between the Pennsylvania and the Auburn penitentiaries systems lasted for years. It was carried to Europe and did much to stimulate there the interest in prison reform. In this country, victory has gone to the Auburn system.^ Even in Pennsylvania^ the separate and solitary system has lost out. In 1869, the congregation of prisoners was permitted by law in the Western Penitentiary, and in 1913 the same privilege was granted to the prisoners in the Eastern Penitentiary. ^ On the continent of Europe, on the contrary, the' Pennsylvania system has gained the supremacy. Strange commentary on the wisdom of reformers is the fact that the separate and solitary features of the Pennsylvania System have become the characteristics of punishment cells in most of our prisons. So great a part have these two systems of prison discipKne played in the history of our state prisons and state penitentiaries that a brief consideration of ' This applies, of course, to the state prisons or state penitentiaries. The majority of jails have been constructed on the principle of separate and solitary confinement, and for reasons that have been indicated in the chapter on jails little work is done on the jails. The result is that where the cell doora are not left open, as often happens, the Pennsylvania system in its worst form, that ia, without labor, is still in force in many county jaila. ' The opposition to the sale of priaon-made goods has during recent years again made idleness the rule in the Eastern Penitentiary. For a complete discussion of this problem, see the Report of the Penal Commission of Penn- sylvania on the Employment and Compensation of Prisoners, submitted to the Legislature, February 15, WIS., pp. 15-20. [74] STATE PRISON OR PENITENTIARY the arguments pro and con which were advanced by the friends of each will do much toward preparing the way for a discussion of the present problems of the state prisons and state penitentiaries. First as to the question of work. Common work- rooms in the prison permit the introduction of the factory system; cell work must perforce be in large measure hand work. It is, therefore, idle to argue the question of which is the more productive. Profit is, of course, not the main consideration; so let us con- sider the question of contamination. The Pennsyl- vania system did, at least, solve this problem. Did the Auburn as well? No rule of silence can prevent men who work together from conversing, but — strictly en- forced as it was at Auburn by threat of severe corporal punishment — ^it constituted a real substitute for sep- arate confinement. There is not, certainly, much choice between the two in this matter. But the argument is by no means finished. The adherents of the Pennsylvania system claimed that their scheme permitted individual treatment which was not possible under the Auburn plan; that it did away with the need for rules and the pimishments for their infractions; that it made impossible blackmailing which released prisoners often practiced upon their former associates in prison; and, lastly, that religious and moral growth was thereby made possible. In reply, the defenders of the Auburn system asserted that separate and solitary confinement entailed the physical and mental ruin of the prisoner; that a man could not be prepared to live in society by taking him out of it for years at a stretch ; that the cost of individual instruction was prohibitive; and finally that the odds [75] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES were more than even that the spirit of the Devil rather than that of the Lord would rule the thoughts of a man condemned to drag out an existence entirely apart from his fellow men. On the whole, it would seem that the Auburn group had the best of it, but there is this much to be said for the Philadelphia Friends: they led the movement for prison reform, emphasizing problems of management and of the individual prison- er's individvMl state of mind. However mistaken they may have been on some points, their contribu- tion to the weKare of prisoners was as great as that ever made by any one band of prison reformers. The movement, which began in the first twenty-five years of our national life, to establish state institutions in which the more serious offenders should be impris- oned, has become a permanent feature of our nation. With the exception of Delaware,* each state^ now has at least one state prison or state penitentiary; several of the states have two, and New York has four.' The total combined number of state prisons and state peni- tentiaries is fifty-eight.* In 1910, the number of crim- inals committed to these fifty-eight prisons was 20,981; the number of prisoners enumerated within the prisons on January 1, 1910, was 56,896.^ Naturally the number 'Long-term prisoners are sent to the New Castle County Workhouse- This plan is an almost exact duplicate of the one tried at first by Pennsyl- vania when the Walnut Street prison served the rest of the state in much the same way. ' Alabama has a State Convict Bureau. ' For a good account of the development of state prisons and penitentiaries, see Frederick G. Pettigrove, "The State Prisons of the United States Under Separate and Congregate Systems," Penal and Reformatory Institutions, Cor- rection and Prevention (Russell Sage Foundation, Charities PubUcation Committee, 1910), pp. 27-67. * This includes three so-called branches. ' The figures for the United States Penitentiaries are not included. They are as follows: committed, 987; enumerated January 1, 1,904. — Prisonera 176] STATE PRISON OR PENITENTIARY that would be found in the institutions on any one day in the year would be very much larger than the number committed during the year, since the population of a prison for long-term men represents at any one time the accumulation of not one year but many years.* Looking at these institutions from the point of view of number and size, the reformers who were responsible for the restriction of the death penalty would have great cause, if they were alive to-day, to rejoice over the almost complete victory of their principle. Most, if not all, the criminals now committed to state prisons and state penitentiaries would in former days unques- tionably have paid the death penalty for their crimes.^ The principle, moreover, of state in place of local care is as stoutly maintained to-day as it was then. But what would be the feeling of those who gave their time and their energy to the establishment within these prisons of the so-called penitentiary system? Great disappointment and sad disillusionment, at least, at first. Both the Auburn and the Pennsylvania group thought that they had established a reformatory system, and the New York law of 1869 which established the Ehnira Reformatory, the first of its kind, would have seemed to them the bitterest kind of irony. This institution and, later, similar ones in other states canje as a recognition that the penitentiary had little or no penitential or reformative influence on the prisoners. and Juveaile Delinquents in the United States (Bureau of the Census, 1910), p. 23. ' For a discussion of the meaning of statistics taken at a point of time see Louis N. Robinson, History and Organization of Criminal Statistics in the United States (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Co., 1911), Ch. III. ' See Raymond T. Bye, Capital Punishment in the United States (Phila- delphia: The Committee on Philanthropic Labor of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends, 1919), pp. 2-3. [77] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES Without doubt, the difficulties of the problem of the proper care of prisoners were greatly underesti- mated by those who first saw the evils of the old regime. The practical appUcation of both systems revealed in the course of time many defects inherent in them from the beginning. Some of these were the ones which had been pointed out by the adversaries of each scheme ; others, however, had been but dimly perceived, or, if seen at all, had been thought of no particular conse- quences. The high hopes, moreover, which animated the early reformers, led them to overlook the cold hard facts of everyday life. Institutions but reflect the life of the whole people. All human beings are full of unper- fections, and very often pubhc institutions seem to gather up and to represent in themselves more of these evil attributes than are possessed by the average individual. Overcrowding prevented and still prevents many of the state prisons and state penitentiaries from attain- ing even a fair approximation of the principle of separate confinement in cells. ^ Legislatures were slow in pro- viding the necessary accommodations for the ever- increasing number of prisoners. Two, three, and even four men have been forced to live in rooms designed originally for one. "Whatever of good there is in separate confinement, there has been Uttle or no chance of putting the practice into effect. The Eastern Peni- tentiary of Pennsylvania, which was for years the fore- most example of solitary confinement, has long housed nearly twice as many prisoners as it has cells. This ' This principle was common to both systems, although common work- rooms under the Auburn system made neeessaty segregation during the day by the rule of silence. [78] STATE PRISON OR PENITENTIARY doubling-up process, which has raised again the prob- lem of contamination, has added also to the difficulties of proper sanitation. The possible evil effect of confine- ment under the Pennsylvania system was foreseen, but the bad results on the health of the prisoner of long confinement under the Auburn system, or under any other system of indoor imprisonment for that matter, were not fully appreciated. Amid the actual conditions under which the systems have had to work, the GreatJ. "White Plague — tuberculosis — made its home.^ For many this dread disease has done what penitential regimes failed to do — ^it has prevented then- ever coming back to attack society again. It is pitiful to read the reports of the physicians, cramped and handicapped as many of them are for lack of proper hospital facili- ties. In the Wisconsin State Prison, even as late as 1918, it is stated that those who become insane are kept in the institution, but as they have no proper accommo- dations for these, they must perforce keep them in solitary confinement.^ The complaint is made in the New Jersey State Prison that they do not have proper facilities for the segregation of the syphilitic and tuber- culous subjects.^ So, too, the physician of the Nevada State Prison speaks of the "crying need for more room, more Hght and more air in the cell-house" and also of the need for a new hospital.* So too, we read of the need for a hospital in the South CaroHna Penitentiary, attention being called to the fact that they have • B. L. Stanley, M.D., "Tuberculosis in California State Prisons," Journal of the Outdoor Life (August, 1919), pp. 225-231; 246-249. ^ Eighteenth Biennial Report, Wisconsin State Prison (Biennial Period ending June 30, 1918), p. 11. ' Annual Report of the New Jersey State Prison (1917), p. 29. * Biennial Report of the Warden of the State Prison (1917-1918), p. 6. 6 [79] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES no adequate operating table, nor proper sterilizing apparatus.' It would not be wholly unfair to say that such conditions as are here depicted are typical of most of the prisons and penitentiaries in the United States. Prison discipline has not prevented the use of drugs and liquor within the prisons. Not openly, but through secret channels, these commodities have been smuggled into the prisons and sold to the prisoners. In the early English jails, it will be recalled, the privilege of running a tap was one of the prerogatives that went with the office of keeper. The pipes have now been put under- ground and concealed where discovery is difficult, but from time to time the country is shocked to learn that the system is still in working order. Probably no one in the beginning imagined that the problem of work would dwarf all the other problems of prison management. Yet it has done so. This subject is so large that it has been reserved for another chapter,^ but it is not out of place here to sketch in a general way the main features of the situation. Every- where people are coming to realize that the conditions imder which men work exercise a powerful influence on their lives. This is especially true in the case of prison work, on account of the absence of other influ- ences which prevail in the ordinary life of freedom. The love of gain and the fierce competitive struggle have scattered abuses broadcast in the field of free industry. Nowhere have these seemed to grow as within the prisons. Exploitations of their labor has embittered the hearts of prisoners and they have come i Annual Report of the South Carolina Penitentiary (1918), p. 13 > See Chap. VIII. [80] STATE PRISON OR PENITENTIARY out of prison more vindictive and more ready to injure society than they were when first placed within prison walls. In some states, notably Pennsylvania/ this selfishness and planlessness has resulted in still another form of injury to the prisoner. His competition has been so feared that he has been prevented from working. If anything, this is the worst situation of all. Unem- ployment and bad conditions of employment are phenomena common enough in the outside world. Alas, indeed, that these evils occur more frequently and are felt more bitterly within the walls of a prison! They ought to loom less, rather than more, in prison life, for has not all-powerful society taken the criminal in charge for a time with the idea of arranging all things for him? It is safe to say that no beginning can be made in bring- ing a prisoner into a better state of being until the work problem has been properly solved. No scheme of prison administration will work of itself. Behind it must be men, and they can mar beyond the possibility of recognition the best system that ever was or ever will be devised. College or university trus- tees search the country over for suitable persons to man the institutions under their charge; yet the prob- lems awaiting them are in no respect more complicated or more perverse than those which arise in a large prison. In the past, when the interest in the peniten- tiary system was great, men of parts did not hesitate to accept the position of warden; indeed, they were glad to have the opportunity of serving in this capacity." • A slight change for the better was made in 1915, and again in 1921. ' "In investigating the organization of the new establishments, we have been struck with the importance which is attached to the choice of individuals who direct them. As soon as the penitentiary system was adopted in the United States, the personnel changed its nature. For jailer of a ■prison, [81] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES But the keen edge of reform and of this particular service to one's country was finally dulled; prison jobs became a part of the spoils of party victory, and men were placed in power who could not measure up to their high calling. Just as in other departments of public life, good men have been appointed under this system, yet the percentage of mediocre men who have held office in prisons is so high that it alone is suflScient to account for the poor showing of the state prisons and state penitentiaries. To the appointment of mediocre officials must be traced in large part the dullness, the monotony, and the deadliness of prison life. Big men see the defects of a system under which they work, and fight to remedy them; little men accept a situation as they find it and continue the routine. Big men in office mean progress; little men mean stagnation or worse. Americans dis- like to face this truth, and turn to laws, new insti- tutions, anything, in fact, which will render unneces- sary any pubUc expression of just indignation at un- worthy appointments. The spirit of man was not meant for unmeasured routine, and a criminal never ceases to be a man. Life in prison has meant a life devoid of expression; it has meant a period of repression and of emptiness with nothing to fill the void. Not all of the tales of prison brutality are true by any means, but there is enough evidence at hand to prove that only pressure of the most severe kind breaks men into such a system o f monotony and void. Much might be par- vulgar people only could be found; the most distinguiehed persona offered themselves to administer a Jjenitemiiorj/ where a moral direction exists." G. de Beaumont and A. de Tocqueville, On the Penileniiary System in the United States and its Application in France, with an Appendix on Penal Colonies and also Statistical Notes (Philadelphia: Careyj Lea and Blanchard, translated by Francis Lieber, 1833), pp. 29-30. t82] STATE PRISON OR PENITENTIARY doned were the end attained desirable in itseK, but the life of freedom demands far other characteristics in an individual than those developed by the average prison routine. These many defects of the state prisons and state penitentiaries have not now suddenly come to light; they have been known for years, and earnest effort has been made to remedy them. Unfortunately, how- ever, in the author's opinion, not enough emphasis has been placed upon securing first-class officials. It has been the details of prison management which have engrossed public attention and while this has made for progress, more could imdoubtedly have been accom- plished had reformers contested the appointment of every weak warden and keeper. Much more real progress, however, has been made in the improvement of the state prisons and peniten- tiaries than in recasting the jails. Indeed, in the light of the present interest in prison reform, there is hope that in them a new penitential regime will be bom again. Here and there in certain states the light is breaking, so that there may yet be a future for prisons and peni- tentiaries. The modifications that have been made in the regime of state prisons and state penitentiaries have been in the main of four kinds. Let us consider first the changes which have taken place in the methods of caring for female prisoners in state prisons and penitentiaries. In the chapter on jails, it was pointed out that even yet in many of these institutions little or no provision is made for the separate care of women offenders. Very often they are confined in the same corridor and in the same tier of [83] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES cells as men. Sometimes they are allowed access to the hall of the corridor along with the men. At the most, one can rarely find in the jails better arrangements than the allocation of a part of a corridor for the use of the women. Not much greater consideration was shown to them in the building of state prisons and state penitentiaries;' and the same abuses, growing out of these conditions of care, or rather lack of care, imme- diately appeared. In 1869, a movement began in both Massachusetts and in Indiana for the establishment of separate state prisons for the women confined not alone in the existing state prisons but for a part, at least, of the women imprisoned in the county jails." In each state the movement was successful. The institution in Indiana was opened in 1873 and the one in Massachu- setts in 1879. Both of these institutions took on at once the characteristics of reformatories, more fully de- scribed in a later chapter, rather than those of the then existing state prisons. Relatively few states have even at this late date gone so far as to provide separate prisons for their long-term women offenders, and in no state have the women been taken entirely out of the jails. Nevertheless, the agitation for this needed ' "UnhappUy, the small number of crimes committed in our country by women has caused a comparative neglect of female criminals. Public attention has hardly turned itself toward this subject, and yet none claims it in a higher degree." G. de Beaumont and A. de Tocqueville, On the Penitentiary System in the United States and its Application in France, with an Appendix on Penal Colonies and also Statistical Notes (Philadelphia: Carey, Lea and Blanchard, translated by Francis Lieber, 1833), p. sdii. Also pp. xvii-xviii, where the translator raises the question whether eeparate penitentiaries for women are not necessary. ' "The scandal growing out of the confinement of men and women in the state prisons was one of the chief causes that led to the provision of separate institutions in both cases," Isabel C. Barrows, " The Reformatory Treat- ment of Women in the United States," Penal and Reformatory Institutions — Correction and Prevention (Rusael Sage Foundation, Charities Publication Committee, 1910), p. 150. [84] STATE PRISON OR PENITENTIARY reform continues. * There is still some confusion as to aim. To anticipate somewhat the discussion on reformatories, let it be said that those for men were established for the purpose of providing for the younger group of adult offenders confined in state prisons and state penitentiaries. Now the number of women imprisoned in state prisons and in state penitentiaries has always been small (in fact, the proportion of women to men prisoners in the United States is only about one to nine), and legislators of those states in which a state institution for women has been established, seem somewhat undecided whether to place in it all those women who would ordinarily have been sentenced to the regular state prison plus certain other selected classes, such as prostitutes, confined usually in jails, or whether to continue sending some women to the state prison as formerly. No woman should be kept in a man's prison and ultimately all the states, it is to be hoped, will come to see this. Mention has already been made of the establishment in 1869 of the reformatory at Elmira, N. Y, This institution will be discussed in a following chapter, but its influence on the state prisons and penitentiaries ' "I cannot recommend too strongly the needs of this institution. First, it is a shame and a disgrace upon the State of New Mexico that a woman's department has not been provided for. It is not in keeping with the progress that this state is making to keep women locked in rooms on third and fourth floors of the main building, with no exercise ground or a yard for amusement, or some industry to give them a chance to better their unfortunate conditions. While it is true, they sew and do a little housework, and are given some exercise by the matron, it is not enough to build them up. I would suggest that a dormitory be erected for the women with an enclosure, and would further suggest that the steam laundry be placed therein so that the women could do this work." Report of the Board of Commissioners and Super- intendent of the State Penitentiary to the Governor of New Mexico, for the Fifth Fiscal Year Ending November SO, 1917, pp. 11-12. See also Kate Richards O'Hare, In Prison (1920). This pamphlet gives an inside story of a woman's life in a penitentiary. [85] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES has been too great to be omitted from this chapter. Besides removing from state prisons and state peniten- tiaries the younger and presumably more reformable inmates, the establishment of state reformatories affected greatly the routine administration of prison life. Briefly, the Elmira reformatory meant the birth in the United States of a third penitentiary system. By a system of grades,^ and instruction in trades and letters, progressive development within the prison was made possible to the prisoner. Under such a scheme there is in the industries a strict subordination of profit to training and an indeterminate sentence is, of course, a necessity to serve as a reward for conscientious work and a willingness to grow. The experiment at Elmira was made with young adults and men who had been supposedly convicted of their first crime and for whom some hope of reform had been entertained by the judges. But the system made an appeal to the public which can only be compared to the first effect of the Penn- sylvania and Auburn ideals. It now bids fair to sup- plant entirely the Auburn system which, as has been said, gained an almost complete victory over the Pennsylvania system in the state prisons and the state penitentiaries. The transition period, in which we now are, is marked by many curious facts. For example, the indeterminate sentence has been extended to state prisons and to penitentiaries where few if any of the factors are present for determining the proper time of a prisoner's release. Prisoners are freed after their minimum time has expired on mere guesswork or favoritism. Growth is, of course, the only thing that • The grading of prisoners had, however, been introduced into state prisons and penitentiaries long before this time. 186] STATE PRISON OR PENITENTIARY should count in the deliberations, but where conditions of growth are absent the calculations are farcical in the extreme. The Elmira system involved instruction, when needed,in both trades and letters, and even though progress in education does not secure an earlier release, the effect cannot be anything but beneficial. ' The same thing may be said of wholesome amusements which have been introduced into the prisons and penitentia- ries. They, too, are a part of the Elmira plan and must be regarded as an improvement which will add to the chances of a prisoner's turning to a normal way of living when finally given his freedom. The third innovation which is gradually chan^g the character of state prison life has to do with the problem of work. It has aheady been pointed out that working conditions in the prisons have been far from" what, according to even elementary notions of right and wrong, would be deemed suitable and fair. The reform in working conditions has taken a some- what socialistic trend. It has consisted of a progressive banishment of outside influences which would affect the production of goods. In the early days when interest in the new penitentiary schemes was at its height, the work was carried on under the direct con- trol of the state. This proved m many cases a problem with which the officials of the prisons were unable to deal; outside manufacturers were allowed to use the prisoners and the chief duty of the prison staff became that of guarding the prisoners. Now manufacturers have quite consistently dissociated then- philanthropic from their business ventures, and such prison con- 1 See A.C.nia,"PTiBonSchoo\B," BuOetin No. B7 of the United States Bureau of Education (1913), for survey of work carried on in prisons. [87] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES tractors have been, for reasons which can easily be adduced, the most determined of all to maintain this tradition of complete severance. Little by little, the state is taking up the work which it at one time laid down, and working conditions will as a result, it is hoped, be based on some other principle than that of private greed. It might be claimed with a great deal of truth that this second change in prison life is also a result of the Elmira movement. In this third peniten- tial system, work — ^it will be recalled — is for training, not for profit alone, and if one might hazard a predic- tion, it seems probable that the element of profit in prison work will be more and more subordinated to this principle of training and development. While the connection with the Elmira plan is clearly apparent it does not seem to the author that the motive force which is bringing about the change can be traced to the Elmira system. Rather is it to be attributed to the desire to prevent the sale of prison-made goods in the open market, and possible also to the greater em- phasis which is being placed upon state activity, or in other words, to the drift toward socialism — or one may call it government control — ^which is apparent everywhere. Fourthly, the increasing control by the state of the employment of prisoners has affected a change in the location of state prisons and penitentiaries. Unlike the population of the country, these state institutions are moving from the city to the country. The drift is unmistakable; so much so that it is extremely doubtful if any new ones will be built in or on the out- skirts of a city. Even those well established institu- tions, now located in a city, are buying large farms [88] STATE PRISON OR PENITENTIARY and transferring to these a sufficient number of trusties to work the place. Minnesota, for example, now has 965 acres; Wisconsin over 2,000; and the new Peni- tentiary at Rockview, Pennsylvania, about 5,000 acres. In the report of nearly every state prison, not already equipped with a farm, there is an insistent demand on the part of the warden for land on which to work part of his men. Though this movement from the city to the country is taking place all over the United States, it has reached its greatest development in the South where climatic conditions make farming the year around a genuine possibility. The huge size of some of the southern prison farms is ahnost beyond belief. South Carolina has 4,168 acres; Florida has 17,000 acres; Texas, 73,461 acres; Louisiana, 15,600 acres; and Mississippi 28,750 acres. The possibilities on these southern prison farms for the development of a first-class penal institution are great. The size of the farms necessitates the break- ing up of the total prison population into groups, and the separate housing of these groups. There is thus the opportunity of providing various degrees of freedom and of varying the conditions of life to correspond to the character of the groups. Further- more, the farms can provide training, not alone in farming but in many of the trades. The nearer they approach the idea of a self-sufficing institution, the greater benefit will they be able to offer to the prisoners. At the present time, in the South, entirely too much emphasis is placed on making these institutions pay financially. The Louisiana and South Carolina institu- tions are entirely self-supporting; and the Mississippi [89] PENOLOGY IN THE U^^TED STATES farms yield a fine profit to the state. The Florida institution has perhaps more features to recommend it than any of the others. An enumeration of tiie various industries which are carried on here, in addi- tion to the diversified farming, will give some idea of what may be found to do on a plantation such as this. A sawmill furnishes the lumber; an electric light plant, the light and power; threshing and grind- ing mills take care of the grain; and a large and well- conducted chicken plant, doing experimental work of the highest order, interlocks with the farming in an admirable way. Here, too, we find the honor system developed in a high degree. The men work without guards, going miles across the plantation to carry on their tasks. In the northern prisons, farming operations will probably never assume the importance that they have in the southern prisons. Not only the shortness of the farming season, but the difference in the class of prison- ers, as well, makes factory work of some kind indispen- sable. A combination of farming and factory work can, however, be worked out in the North where the prisons have been moved to the coimtry. This will be far superior to indoor work alone. These four lines of development, the building of sep- arate institutions for women, the introduction of features of the Elmira system, the increased state control of em- ployment, and the change in location from city to coun- try, are all to be encouraged. They alone will not — as may be inferred from previous remarks — ^make our state prisons and penitentiaries ideal institutions. First and foremost is the necessity of a high-class prison staff ; but given such conditions as are implied in these changes [901 STATE PRISON OR PENITENTIARY and given freedom to move in the direction indicated by our increasing knowledge of human beings, such a staff could make the prisons far better instruments for the protection of society than they now are. [9i; CHAPTER VI INSTITUTIONS FOR JUVENILE DELINQUENTS THE idea of special institutions for juvenile delin- quents or for those about to become such, is neither new nor of American origin. The houses of correction which sprang up in England and on the continent during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had, it will be remembered, departments for young offenders for whom industrial training, now so much in vogue, was provided. In America, also, the founding of houses of correction was based in part on the necessity of giving special care and treatment to young offenders. It is true that other classes were sentenced to these insti- tutions, but they, like the children, had been singled out for special attention and the houses of correction were, in theory, at least, reformatories to which chil- dren, among others, were sent to be corrected. More- over, it is now nearly one hundred years since an insti- tution designed solely to care for juvenile delinquents was founded in the United States. On January 21, 1825, there was opened in New York City a House of Refuge to which young offenders of both sexes under the age of twenty were sentenced. But this institution had likewise its forerunners in Germany which although slightly different in character were yet representative of the same desire to make separate provision for the young offender. Each generation has a habit of depre- cating the work of its predecessors, but enough has been [92] INSTITUTIONS FOR JUVENILES said to indicate that juvenile delinquency and the means to combat it were perhaps as much a concern of thought- ful men and women of the past, considering the general conditions of society, as they are of modem reformers. The New York House of Refuge was started as a private venture in philanthropy and for a number of years contributions were solicited from private indi- viduals for its support. In organization, it was a cor- poration chartered by the state of New York and managed like any other corporation, by directors elected by the stockholders. In 1828 an institution of a similar character,! was opened in Philadelphia, and two years before that Boston following out the theory of the English Bridewells had established in its old house of correction a separate department known as a House of Reformation which, managed independently from the beginning, came nine years later to be housed in another building. In these cities — ^New York, Boston, and Philadelphia — were worked out many principles of management which have helped to revolutionize the treatment not only of young offenders but of adult criminals as well. In the first place, commitment was for no definite term but during minority.^ The institutions thus stood in loco parentis to the child and could place him in a family or bind him out without relinquishing the control over him, whenever this method of treatment seemed prefer- able to keeping him in the institution. This may be ' See G. de Beaumont and A. de Tocqueville, On the Penitentiary System in the United States and its application in France, with an Appendix on Penal Colonies and also Statistical Notes (Philadelphia : Carey, Lea and Blanchard, translated by Francis Lieber, 1833), pp. 108-110. 2 De Beaumont and De Tocqueville state that control ceased at the age of 18 for girls and of 20 for boys. Ibid. p. 123. [93] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES considered the beginning of the indeterminate sentence in the United States. In each of these institutions a school of letters was maintained, and though eight hours of labor in the workshop were exacted from the children in both the New York and Philadelphia houses, in Bos- ton five and a half, four hours each day were spent in intellectual pursuits. The children were graded accord- ing to their age and morality, and the plan of placing a new arrival in a good grade at thestartwas also followed. In the Boston institution, play and recreation were a regular part of the day's routine. In this establishment, and to a much smaller extent in the New York House of Refuge also, a limited kind of self-government was practiced, involving the use of a jxuy system and the machinery of a popular election, thus foreshadowing in some degree at least the plan of governing afterwards worked out by George at Freeville.^ Much criticism has been directed in recent tunes at the prison-like appear- ances of these early institutions and at the system of employing the children under control. It must be remembered, however, that the advance from a prison to an institution, embodjdng such changes as the fore- going, constituted in those days a greater step forward than any since taken.^ For a time the movement to establish separate insti- ' A copy of the early rules in force in the Boston House of Reformation can be found on pp. 216-223, G. de Beaumont and A. de Tooqueville, On the Penitentiary System in the United States and its Application in France, with an Appendix on Penal Colonies and also Statistical Notes (Philadelphia: Carey, Lea and Blanchard, translated by Francis Lieber, 1833). » "We have already spoken of the danger, which is the most difficult to be avoided in this matter, viz., the difficulty of keeping a house of refuge in the proper medium between a school and a prison. In the United States, the houses of refuge approach, perhaps, too much to the former, and this defect may become fatal to them, when children, instigated by their parents themselves, may wish to find advantages denied them in their families." Ibid., p. 130. [94] INSTITUTIONS FOR JUVENILES tutions for juvenile delinquents lagged as slowly as had the movement to set up the houses of correction in early England. Not until twenty years after the New York House of Refuge opened its doors was a foiu-th institu- tion for juvenile delinquents established in the United States. Baltimore, which had made a good start as early as 1831* toward securing a house of refuge, had to wait until 1849 for the final accomplishment of this task. By the end of 1850 there were only eight such institutions in the United States, but since that time there has been steady progress both in the numbers of these estabhshments and in the development of their methods. There are now slightly over one hundred institutions for juvenile deUnquents in the United States,^ and in looking over the reports of these one has the feeling that the seed which was sown nearly one hvmdred years ago in New York has finally, after the long period of incubation covering the years 1828-1845, grown into a plant of splendid possibilities that is already yielding much good fruit. The legal status of these institutions is at the present time a mixed one. Various degrees of relationship to the state are found, running all the way from the privately owned and privately controlled institution which per- haps receives some public support, to the one financed and managed entirely by the state. The Philadelphia House of Refuge, for example, serves not merely the city 1 See note on pp. 110 and 153, G. de Beaumont and A. de Tooqueville, On the Penitentiary System in the United States and its Application in France, with an Appendix on Penal Colonies and also Statistical Notes (Philadelphia: Carey, Lea and Blanohard, translated by Francis Lieber, 1833). * In Bulletin No. ISl of the Census Bureau, an even one hundred are listed. These figures are for the year 1910 and in the Report of the Comn missioner of Education for 1914, II, p. 605, the number is given as 112 with an enroUement of 54,798. The same authority states that during the year 1914 the number committed was 21,665. 7 [951 PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES but receives children from all the eastern counties; two members of its board of twenty-five are appointed by the mayor and three by the Court of Common Pleas; it is supported by the state and at the same time re- ceives large gifts from private benefactors. The West- ern House of Refuge in the same state was started by private individuals but was aided by certain counties which still have a hand in the management, though it has become in every other respect a state institution. The Boston House of Reformation was, as we know, a municipal enterprise from the beginning, and the exam- ple set by Boston has been followed by other cities. We have county institutions also. The Lyman School for boys in Massachusetts, established in 1847, is spoken of as the first state institution in the country, and yet Mr. Lyman, an ex-mayor of Boston, gave the state a large sum of money with which to start this institution. The majority it is true, are now state institutions, but it does not look as if these would crowd out the others. Some of the more recently established institutions rest on private f oimdations, and the growing emphasis that is being laid upon the rights of the church as over against the state may make for a still further resurgence of the idea of private control. The parental schools, to be discussed in a later paragraph, may likewise mark the beginning of a new activity on the part of the cities. They suggest, too, a new relationship which will bear a moment's consideration. Although in 1828 the Su- preme Court of Pennsylvania delivered an opinion that the Philadelphia House of Refuge was a school and not a prison,! the relation between institutions for juvenile ' David S. Snedden, Administration and Educational Work of American Juvenile Reform Schools (New York: Teachers College, Columbia Univer- Bity, 1907), pp. 12-13. [96] INSTITUTIONS FOR JUVENILES delinquents on the one hand and the educational sys- tems of the country on the other has been most regret- ably of the slightest.' The parental school, wherever it has been established, is an integral part of the school system and while the permission of the state has usually been required to enable the cities or counties to establish these schools,^ there seems to be every reason for believing that more and more localities will take up with the idea^ unless some new way is found of meeting the problems of school discipline. Institutions for juvenile delinquents are known under many names. In addition to the older designations of house of refuge and house of reformation, there are reform schools, industrial schools, training schools, republics, protectories, parental schools, homes, and schools which bear the name of some person or place. Ingenious writers have tried to show^ that this galaxy of names is really indicative of changes which took place in the character of the institutions themselves. Thus the house of refuge was a haven for the child who would otherwise have gone to jail. The idea of reformation was next emphasized and they became reform schools. This name in turn became objectionable; the school idea was given prominence, and we then hear of them as industrial or reformatory schools. Finally, it was seen 1 See David S. Snedden, Administration and Educational Work of American Juvenile Reform Schools (New York: Teachers College, Columbia Univer- Bity, 1907), p. 24, in regard to Maine and Oregon. ^ The Boston parental school was closed by an act of the Massachusetts' legislature on September 14, 1914. 3 Moreover, we must not leave wholly out of account various institutions of a private character such as Orphan Asylums not usually included in the group caring for delinquent children. They, too, take a certain percentage of delinquent children. * Homer Folks, The Care of Destitute and Neglected Children (New York: Macnullan, 1902), p. 226. Also George B. Mangold, Problems of Child Welfare (New York: Macmilian, 1910), pp. 394r-396. [97] PENOLOGY IX THE UXTTED STATES that the best place for a child vras in a home and this thou^t was KkewLse given due recognition through official designation. T^lthout doubt, there is a grain of truth in aU this, but one mast not imagine that there is any close correlarion between the changes in prind- ples and methods and the names of the inirtitutions which vrere founded during the dominance of any one of these ideas. On the contrarv, a glance dovm the Hst of iastltutions, arranged in order (rf f oimcing, reveals the fact that not even a resort to the law of probaVjilirles vTould enable one to gue^ befOTehand the name that would be ^ven each succeediiig iartitution. But de- velopment there has been, and this too from an even lovrer plane than the one on which the institutions were started. In the earlv thirties the 7.-annest ad m iration of tordgp. visitors was excited by institutions which aftervards fell pretr." low. The curse of neglect and l^dcsliding makes the history of some instifation-s icar juvenile delinquents as ujipleasant to read as h the similar tragedy of many a state prison and penitentiary. Writers smd spesikears, in calling attention to the really excellent showing of such institutions at present, often drav a very depressing picture of past conditions.' The truth is that, while many of the present day features are rf comparatively recent origin, others may be looked upon as restorations of the old good ardo" which vas lost sight of during the Dark Ages throng whidi it se^ns each institution has to pass. Without doubt, the greatest change that has occurred in iastitutions for juvenile delinquents has been the • See ar^;l%; try Nibeeksr slid O^Asi ■rooted by DaTJi 5. Soeddeii, pp J3-1 ?. of log by-vk, A/imimgtration arti Edrnxitional Work of Atasruxm Jv^j'raie INSTITUTIONS FOR JITVENILES gradual lopping oS of prison features. The early institu- tions were a cross between a school and a prison, and that which De Beaumont and De TocqueviUe foresaw as a possibility has become a reahty — ^the best of them are now wholly schools. The change in public opinion is no less remarkable, for, whereas at that time it was feared that this might happen, we now consider it a matter of principle that it should be. Moreover, the educational system which has been worked out in these institutions might well serve as a model in part for the public school system of the country. Indeed the Gary plan, which a few years ago attracted much public attention, does not differ greatly in principle from the schemes which have been in use for many years in some of the institutions for juvenile delinquents. The all- around character of the education which is furnished, with its correlation of physical, moral, intellectual and vocational training, is the rock of our faith in the posa- bility of remolding yoimg lives. "Within these institutions the physical side of educa- tion has kept pace with tiie progress in the ideas as to the relation of physical development to mental attain- ment. Medical examination of public school children was long preceded by a thorough physical examination of aU individuals committed to institutions for juvenile delinquents, where the possibility of havoc caused by contagious diseases necessitated a careful watch over the health of the inmates. In the b^ institutions, all physical defects are now corrected in so far as this is pos- sible, and by good food and a careful diet, together with a proper amount of sleep and recreation, every effort is made to help the boy or girl to attain and keep a good standard of physical efficiency. To this end many [99] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES other agencies contribute. A fine gymnasium and swimming pool form a part of the equipment of the boys' department of the Philadelphia House of Refuge. Military drill has been commonly introduced and is thought to aid in the development of a correct carriage and a dignified bearing. More important, perhaps, than any other one thing in its relation to health is the kind of work which is carried on. Instead of engaging in work the main point of which is profit to the institution, there is a very strong tendency nowadays to sacrifice profits in the attempt to find tasks which not only offer possibilities of training but are also distinctly favorable to the child's physical development. Location in the country, with plenty of outdoor work, has meant in many cases the sacrifice of needed income, but society canfar better afford to make this up than to pay the price later in one-sided, stunted children of the factory variety. The changes which have been going on within the institutions for juvenile delinquents with respect to the employment of children, may be summed up in thestate- ment that in the beginning work was for profit with incidental training, whereas now it is for training with- out consideration of profit. Gradually it has been borne in upon all, that an institution for the protection of society from crime is a failure if it allows young men and young women to go out from its doors untrained and, therefore, unable to earn a living. From casual labor to unemployment and thence to crime, the descent is easy and rapid.' This theory of the danger to society arising from the economic instabihty of certain of its members has led to the shift, already noted, in the character of the work. For a long time, the customary • B. Seebohn Rowntree and Bruno Lasker, Unemployment, a Social Study (London: Maomillan and Co. Limited, 1911), p. 174. [100] INSTITUTIONS FOR JUVENILES method of employing the children was in the making of brushes, cigars, shirts, shoes, and in cane-seating chairs, under contract with outside firms. De Beaumont and De Tocqueville report that in the houses of refuge in New York and Philadelphia, eight hours a day were given to the contractor while in the Boston institution but five and a half were used in this way.i They also make much of the fact that, unlike the situation in the Maison des Madelonettes in Paris, the child was most carefully guarded from the unscrupulousness of the contractor by very rigid contracts which prevented him from exercising any influence whatsoever in the manage- ment of the institutions. But the visit of these two gentlemen, it must be remembered, took place dming the heyday of reform, when conditions were probably at their best. The actual need for funds with which to run an institution has been assigned as the reason for the importance of profits in the eyes of the superintend- ents. This has been held to be especially true in the case of private institutions, depending on the contribu- tions of philanthropic persons. It is doubtful if this can be looked upon as a satisfactory explanation. Private institutions soon began to receive public support, and it seems more reasonable to attribute the regime of the private contractor to the general indifference and apathy with which people at that time regarded the whole problem of child labor. No definite dates can be given as to the time when the movement away from contract labor began.^ Indeed there are still institu- 1 On the Penitentiary System in the United States and its Application in France, with an Appendix on Penal Colonies and also Statistical Notes (Philadelphia: Carey, Lea and Blanohard, translated by Francis Lieber, 1833), p. 117. 2 In Pennsylvania, contract labor was forbidden in all penal institutions by the law of June 13, 1883. P. L. 112. [101] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES ions where work is carried on under this system. The investigation which was made by Mr. Letchworth in 1883 showed that, while contract labor was in force in most of the institutions, there was a growing opinion in favor of abandoning it for some system which would give more opportunity for training." The solution of the problem has come in large part through changing the location of the institutions from the city to the country. From the first, much of the sewing, baking and cleaning was done by the inmates; but aside from this work, so long as the institutions were situated in the city, there was not much that could be done unless the institutions regularly engaged in manufacture. Migration to the country changed all this. With plenty of tillable land at their disposal, a great part of the living could be produced on the place. On any large farm there is considerable amount of work involving a knowledge of a host of trades such as were practiced on the early Roman estates and on the Southern plantations prior to the civil war. Training in agriculture and in the fundamental trades has thus been m.ade possible in a way that has seemed so satisfactory that it is now being followed in the case of adult prisoners. There is a pos- sibility that the agricultural work will in some states prove as great a handicap to progress as has the con- tract system. It is now possible to find instances of institutions for juvenile delinquents that have been placed on a tract of land by a state and left to starve or grub their living from the soil. About the time when this movement began, interest in manual training took ' See David S. Snedden, Administration and Educational Work of American Reform Schools (New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1907), pp. 69-82, which quotes largely from the report of Mr. Letchworth. [102] INSTITUTIONS FOR JUVENILES hold on public opinion, and classes in Sloyd or in other systems are now offered in many institutions for juvenile delinquents. Institutions for girls have a special work problem, on account of the peculiar position which woman now occupies in the field of industry. So long as manufac- ture was carried on chiefly in the home, the relation of woman to it was permanent. Now that the factory has robbed the home of much of its industrial character, woman goes out of the home to find work but returns to it on marriage. Thus there is generally a break in her career as a producer of goods. Her married life is given over to "keeping house, " a career lacking the industrial features which it once had. From the point of view of the institution, the difficulty comes in deciding whether the training should be for domestic service or for indus- try. Many girls hate service in private families, and the moral dangers of such positions have been proven to be real and hard to avoid. On the other hand, it seems rather a waste of time and money to train girls for positions which they are pretty certain of giving up in a few years for something else. Moreover, most of the positions which are open to girls, especially girls of the type that are sent to these institutions, too often are undesirable because paid on a scale so low that a girl must have a home to live in or else eke out her income by prostitution. The problem is certainly a complex one, and no way out seems to offer so long as the posi- tion of woman in industry remains what it is. At pres- ent the training offered to the girls differs not widely from that open to boys, though there is, of course, far greater emphasis placed upon household work. Even farm work is now carried on by the girls, which, [ 103 ] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES though it may not provide an entry to future economic independence, does at least have a splendid effect on the health, calming the nerves and turning the thoughts to more wholesome subjects than have been the burdens of their minds in the past. Since necessity is the mother of invention, the prin- ciples of formal moral education may yet be worked out by the institutions for juvenile delinquents. Ordi- narily a child gets his moral training through a rubbing- off process with his elders, his fellows, and in a lesser degree from the school and the church. No scientific method of teaching morals has yet been developed, and yet institutions for juvenile delinquents, now that we have got entirely away from the prison idea, are sup- posed to do that particular thing. The very fact that children have been sent to such an institution, testi- fies to the fact that their moral value is below par. Bad homes, bad companions and perhaps a defective hered- ity, have done more to tear down and destroy the child's character than the school or the church has been able to do in building it up. Incorrigibility and juvenile de- linquency, which are charges on which many children are committed, cover a multitude of petty crimes and there is a fair sprinkling who have been sent there for deeds which would have put an adult in the state prison for a long term of years. To change a group of children of this sort into moral, self-respecting and community-respecting young men and young women within a comparatively short space of time, has caused many a superintendent an anxious searching of heart and head for ways and means unknown to the writers of books on education. Out of this stress of circum- stances have emerged a few principles of moral educa- [104] INSTITUTIONS FOR JUVENILES tion which, in a general way, are followed with some exceptions in the institutions of the better class. As a first principle of moral education, it seems to agree that there must be separation of the sexes.' No sooner had the New York House of Refuge been estab- lished than a separate building was put up for the girls. In some states separation has been carried to the extent of having entirely different institutions imder different managements for the two sexes ;2 elsewhere the separation has not been carried so far though the result achieved is the same, as is the case with the Philadelphia House of Refuge where a distance of several miles intervenes between the department for the boys and that for the girls. Classification, a second principle, which was attempted in the first institutions, has been greatly aided by the development of the cottage system of construction, which, origi- nating in Hamburg in 1833 as a scheme for giving the child a normal home life while in the institution, was followed for the first time in America in the building of the school for boys at Lancaster, Ohio, in 1856. Though more costly than the congregate plan, and although the advantages expected from the family life have not altogether materialized, yet the idea has won almost universal approval since it furnishes a physical means for securing a careful classification of the inmates. The basis of classification now varies from school to school and even within the same school there is often more than one scheme in vogue. Age and mental develop- ment, age and physical development, moral charac- ter, color, are all used, and in the case of girls the 1 But see paragraph on the George Junior Republic. * The first separate reformatory for girls was established in Massachusetts 'm 1868. [105] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES nature of the offense becomes sometimes a basis since it is deemed inadvisable to group girls who are there for a sexual fault with those who have not as yet taken this almost irretrievable step. In addition, the cottages can be made to serve as a means of discipline, by having some with more of the prison features; some with special privileges; some in between with neither privi- leges nor hints of prison. More recent classification has proceeded along the lines of mental ability, though it is probable that with a better development of chil- dren's courts less need will remain for this particular sorting at the institution itseK, since feeble-minded children vpill then be sent to institutions for the feeble- minded where of course they belong. The dependence of release on good conduct and proper progress in all- aroimd development is a very potent factor in changing the habits of wayward boys and girls. The Boston House of Reformation had a system of marking, but in later years much more scientific methods of keeping tab on the child have been evolved and a greater effort is made to get him to realize that it pays to do right. Whether by means of marks or through an appeal to vanity in dress, or to the economic instinct by the pay- ment of money, the goal is always held up before the child of accomplishing something through right living. Philosophers might debate the wisdom of equipping anyone vsdth this point of view who must return to a world where virtue is not always sure of its reward; but superintendents would be greatly at a loss to get on without some such device for exorcising the devils which reside in the breasts of their charges. Through lectures and informal talks on suitable subjects, espe- cially on the lives of great and noble men, the attempt [1061 INSTITUTIONS FOR JUVENILES is often make to inculcate ideals and to raise the level of aspiration. Commemoratory exercises and cele- brations are likewise planned to contribute to this same end. Strange as it may seem, there has been little development since the early days of the original institutions in the apphcation of religion to the work of reformation. To some, mdeed, the hour a day spent in religious instruction, which was the time devoted to this object in the Boston House of Reformation at the beginning, may seem to represent a more advanced stage than the practices of the present. Seemingly this problem is as insoluble as ever, and the institutions for juvenile delinquents but echo the con- flict that rages outside over the introduction of religious instruction in the schools. Leaving out of account those who have definitely turned their back on religion, all other thinking men belong definitely to one of two opposing camps. There are those who believe that the religious element should appear solely in the character of the persons in charge, whose deep consecration to duty would make the atmosphere of the place a truly religious one, though characterized by few if any forms of religious observance. On the other hand, some feel that only in institutions definitely under the control of some religious body, where the traditional forms of wor- ship will be carefully observed, can the best results be obtained. Since public institutions must of necessity be non-sectarian, this second view calls for the establish- ment of more institutions under private control, not however disdaining public support. At the present time, there are usually ample chapel facilities in the public institutions and opportunity for Protestant, Jew, and Catholic to come into contact with religious leaders [107] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES of their own faith. Something more than this is needed perhaps in institutions for girls. There seems to be some inner connection between sex and religion and if this could ever be determined scientifically, many more who are committed for sex offenses might be reclaimed through the principles thus established. Space will not permit a more extended discussion of this interesting problem of moral education. The aim of the whole institution is of course to contribute to the upbuilding of character and the formation of proper habits. Once entered into the ordinary institution, the child has no longer the disposition of his own time; his life is arranged for him down to the minutest detail. Whether a routine of this sort prepares a youngster for the world of reality or for some super-socialistic Utopia may too be questioned. The gradual change from an institution standing half-way between a prison and a school, to a whole- hearted type of real school for children who have started on the road to crime, has been marked, as we have seen, by noteworthy developments along the lines of moral and industrial training. A like progress has not been made in the standard of intellectual or any literary education which the institutions for juvenile delinquents offer. Too great stress must not, however, be laid upon this, for it was far more important to sup- plement the old education of the three-R type by indus- trial and moral training, than to develop new principles of teaching the elementary branches which are the branches chiefly in demand. From three and one-half to four hours are now devoted to this kind of schooling and this is not a greater length of time than was allowed for in the three institutions with which comparisons [108] INSTITUTIONS FOR JUVENILES throughout this chapter have been made. The fact that the children committed to these institutions are usually several grades behind the normal child in the pubUc school^ does call, however, for the best methods and the best teachers available, which unfortunately have not always been obtainable on account of the difficulty in securing funds for this field of work. One important change which deserves to be mentioned has been made in the curriculum. It has been broadened to include music, both vocal and instrumental. There are now bands in many institutions and these have become a regular part of the military organization, giving life and movement to what would otherwise be perhaps a dull and dreary drill. School papers also are published by the printing departments of the institu- tions and an exchange with other institutions is kept up. Advance has also been made in supplying good reading matter. Magazines are now taken and kept in the cottages where the children may easily have access to them during moments of relaxation. The plan, undertaken at the start by the New York House of Refuge, of placing out the children after a year or two of training in the institution has been continued to this day. Theoretically, the child, whether in the institution or out on parole, was, and still is, under the control of the institution during his minority. Insti- tutions have, therefore, always sought to maintain some sort of supervision over the children which they have •"The median age of boys committed to the John Worthy School in Chicago in 1904 was just over 14 years; while the median grade was about half way through the third. In other words, the children were nearly five grades behind when they should have been, if they and their school opportunities had been normal." David B. Snedden, Administration and BducationalWorkof American Juvenile Reform Schools (New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1907), p. 56. [109] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES released. Development of this extra-mural control has not been so rapid as the need for it would seem to demand. In spite of the utmost care in finding a suitable situation for the child, there is often need of the services of some person wholeheartedly interested in the welfare of the child, to straighten out the tangled webs which young people are constantly weaving about themselves. In the beginning, this work was carried on largely by the superintendents through regular cor- respondence with the children. The logical develop- ment of this scheme would seem to be a traveling agent, hired by the institution, to supplement all written instructions or advice by personal visits to the parties concerned. Some institutions have been fortunate enough to secure the necessary fimds to pay the salary and expenses of such an official; others have not and in these this vital work of supervision (unless performed by other agencies) has been left undone. The results of neglecting to provide a visitor can only be guessed from the fact that where it has been well done many children have been brought back to the institution for another period of purgatorial detention. Various other schemes, however, for keeping track of the children have been or are on the point of being worked out in the different states. In some instances it is stipulated that the wages of the children shall be handed over directly to the institutions, thus insuring a certain amount of control even without the ser- vices of a visiting agent. In Massachusetts there has been considerable success in estabUshing local agencies of a volunteer character to look after the in- terests of the children. State agents have also been provided, and it is possible that the probation officers [110] INSTITUTIONS FOR JUVENILES of the courts will in time take ohargo of all individuals who have been placed within their districts. A cleai-er perception, on the pai-t of the public, of the difRcult>- of ivstoring a child to society, is cortain to make for a groator expansion of tliis phase of the work of reforma- tion. Before taldng up some otlier general problems bearing on the work and the futm-e of institutions for juvenile delmquents, it seans propei" to dii-ect attention to two now tj-pos of institutions- -i-epublics and parental or truant schools- -which may possibl>- have groat influ- ence on the ti-end of later dovokipnient. In 1S95. TMUiain R. Georgo established what is known as the Geoi-ge Junior Repubhc at Fi\xnille, New York.' Sinco that time, at least six other repubhcs have been foimded, all modeled closely after the original one at Five\ille. The theory of the repubhcs is in brief that self-government is the best kind of moral education. There is nothing new in this idea, at least not to those who are acquainted with tlie principles of democn^cy: nor is the application of it to tlie ti-aining of young offendei-s a wholly i-econt inno\'ation. Mention has already bot^n made of the pai'ticipation of eliildi"en in the government of the Boston House of Reformation, but the seed sown at that time fell on mikindly soil and it remained for Mr. Go^irgo to plant anew and to ti-avel aiui to lectm-e all over the United States watching that the new idea did not perish through nogkvt. Largely as a result of Mr. Georg-e's work, self-government has bt^en inti-oduced in other institutions, especially in the so-called honor cottages. Perhaps the most successful example of a self-governing institution is the Preston ' WillisuQ R, Givrsf. T'-:^' JuKicr K<-.:';.MiV ^"0. Appleton & Co.. 1010). nil] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES School of Industry at lone, California. Mr. Calvin Derrick, who had been associated with Mr. George, succeeded in establishing in this institution a system of joint administrative control which seemingly could be practiced in every penal institution. Two other features of the George Junior Republic deserve consideration. Contrary to the practices in other institutions, both boys and girls mingled freely in the life of the George Junior Repubhc. To what extent this experiment will influence the custom else- where is hard to say, but the opening up to women of institution after institution of higher learning may pos- sibly add to the force of the example of this republic. Further, it cannot be denied that close daily association of the sexes trains each to note whether persons of the opposite sex are kind and hardworking, as well as whether they are merely good-looking and charming. Another problem of education was raised by the George Junior Repubhc: is there not in addition to the physical, the industrial, the moral and the intellectual, a fifth side to education, namely, the economic? As this problem will be discussed at the end of the chapter, it is sufficient to point out that the attempt was made in the Repubhc to develop the economic qualities of thrift and business management by making the welfare of each child depend upon the exercise of these important talents. Parental or truant schools are an outgrowth of com- pulsory education laws. Prior to 1833, truants were committed to the Boston House of Reformation on the technical charge of stubbornness; but afterwards, this practice had to be abandoned since it was held that truancy did not constitute stubbornness. Finally, Massachusetts in 1850 passed a law, widely copied by [112] INSTITUTIONS FOR JUVENILES other states, which made truancy punishable by confine- ment in some "institution of instruction or house of reformation, or other suitable situation, as may be assigned or provided for the purpose, "i At first, jails, almshouses and, in Boston, the House of Reformation, were the institutions to which truants were sent xmder this law. Public opinion opposed this minglmg of criminals and truants, and legislative provision was finally made for county truant schools.^ By 1884, Massachusetts had several truant schools. In 1895, Boston opened such an institution giving it the name parental school,^ a title which has since been quite com- monly applied to those truant schools outside of Massa- chusetts which make provision forboardingthechildren.* The relation between crime and truancy is close, and this fact is gradually securing recognition through the establishment by boards of education of special disci- pHnary classes, day truant schools and boarding truant schools, which, taken together, are all closely connected and bridge the gap between the ordinary classes in the public schools and the institutions for juvenile delin- quents, which have been previously mentioned. In several of the boarding truant schools, delinquents are admitted as well as truants,^ and the entire regime of the ; 1 See Statutes of 1850, Ch. 294. 'The movement was given legal sanction by the Legislature in 1871, 1881 and again in 1884. See, John William Perrin, "The Truancy Problems in Massachusetts, 1845-1890," Journal of Pedagogy, 'X.'Wll (Maxch., l^QS), pp. 214r-224. ' This school was later abolished and the boys turned over to the care of the School Board, which established a^Disciplinary Day School fo fill its place. ■• Five of the thirteen boarding truant schools studied by Hiatt admit truants only; the others take delinquents as well. James S. Hiatt, "The Truant Problem and the Parental School," United States Bureau of Education Bulletin, No. 29 (1915), p. 26. ' For escellent discussion of these, see ibid. [113] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES truant schools, especially of those that take charge of the pupil the full twenty-four hours, partakes strongly of the nature of the regular institutions for delinquents. Children are transferred from the ordinary classes to the disciplinary classes and from them to the day truant schools on the order of the principal or super- intendent; commitment to the parental or boarding truant schools is made by the juvenile court and in at least half of the institutions by the school authorities also. In all cases, the commitment is for an indefinite period; in Newark the maximum is put at majority. The general discussion in this chapter of all juvenile institutions applies to truant schools too, if allowance is made in the case of the day truant schools for the non- residence of pupils, and if the point is noted with great care that (with the exception of the Boston and Newark institutions) each is an integral part of a school system. This broadening of the field of education until it has practically come to coincide with the sphere of correc- tion, is a noteworthy fact in the history of penology. The foregoing survey of institutions for juvenile delinquents leaves a number of important questions unanswered. What, for example, has been the success of these institutions? Here we plunge immediately into debatable ground. It is customary to claim that 90 per cent of the children who pass through the institutions turn out well. The truth is that few institutions have any adequate means of testing the results of their own work. The natural and necessary desire to appear well in the eyes of the public leads unconsciously to making the situation appear as rosy as possible. The only test that can be applied is that of conduct while on parole. This in itself is of course inadequate since what we need [114] INSTITUTIONS FOR JUVENILES to know is not so much how he behaves during the short period of control as what he makes of his entire after life. But on account of the fewness of parole officers, we are by no means certain of what takes place while the individual is still technically on parole. De Beaumont and De Tocqueville estimate that about 40 per cent of the children of the New York House of Refuge were reclaimed.^ From the reports of the present institutions, one fact at least seems well established, namely, the more thorough the investigation is, the lower one must place the figure for reformed children.^ Our inability to measure the results accurately makes judgment on other points less valuable since it must rest almost wholly on theoretical grounds and on deductive reasoning. For example, it seems certain that the in- creasing use of probation and the further development of truant schools will have the effect of making the work of the institutions more difficult and more trying, since the less criminally inclined will be weeded out and only the more hardened offenders will go to the institutions. Placing-out agencies, too, are now taking some delin- quent boys and girls and will probably be willing to receive more from the courts in the future as they become more acquainted with the problems of this class of children.^ A consequent fall in the percentage of ' The exact statement is 300 out of 513. On the Penitentiary System in the United States and its application in France, with an Appendix on Penal Colonies and also Statistical Notes (Philadelphia: Carey, Lea and Blanchard, translated by Francis Lieber, 1833), p. 124. ' See for example the report of the Minnesota State Agent quoted by Snedden in his Administration and Educational Work of Juvenile Beform Schools (New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1907), pp. 182-185. 3 In 1919, the Municipal Court of Philadelphia committed 55 delinquent children to Placing-out Agencies. — Philadelphia Municipal Court Report (1919), p. 332. [115] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES reformed must be expected and yet this may be offset by improvement in the character of the schools. To one who has taught normal youths, the average period of confinement in the institutions seems inex- cusably short. How can a school hope to make a per- manent impression on a wayward individual in the brief space of a year or two? It takes time to fix habits, and the personal influence which instructors wield is applied through slow and persistent effort. To detain the children for a longer period would necessitate additional buildings and an increased staff. Without enlarging the reservoir, the stream must soon pass out. Some people, fearing the so-called institutionalizing of the children are glad that the detention is as short as it is. This opinion is not without effect on the granting of appro- priations and on giving by private benefactors. Until the public comes to have a firmer belief in the value of the institutions, there is no other course than the one now followed of sending the child back into the world before the institution has had a fair chance to make its influence felt. No one fears the institutionalizing of the rich boy or ^1 in fine private schools. So would it not be better to send fewer delinquents, spend more on those sent, and keep them longer? So far as one can foresee, there seems little likelihood that we can get along without institutions for young offenders. We are finding out that it is not necessary to commit some types that we have committed in the past, but there will probably always be a residue for whom probation is not enough and whose continued presence at large in a commvuiity is a positive danger. Ulti- mately the public will have to accustom itself to seeing these held for long periods in institutions [116] INSTITUTIONS FOR JUVENILES and to paying larger bills which this practice will necessitate. Lack of financial support is also responsible in part for the failure of the cottage system to provide the expected home setting. Homes with thirty, forty and even sixty children in them are the exception even among people where race suicide has not become the accepted doctrine. Yet in many institutions, this kind of a family is placed in a cottage together with the foster parents who are thus in the same predicament as the old woman who lived in a shoe. Unlike real life, large families within an institution are cheaper than small ones. But the real private home, with its great potentialities for training, is made up of something more than a proper number of children to one set of parents. The failure to recognize this rather obvious fact accounts for much of the lack of success of the cottage system. The presence of older brothers and sisters in the home does more perhaps to steady a child than the parents themselves. A large family of children, all of approxi- mately the same age, is a natural impossibility and it is well for society that it is so, for their proper training and upbringing can only take place where the different ages are represented. Moreover, the real home is an economic unit which the institutional cottage is not. The endless contrivances to make both ends meet, and the frequent sacrifices thereby involved, are what ^ve the home its status as a training school in the art of making a Uving. In the George Junior Republic and in those institutions where a merit system based on the payment of wages has been introduced, some approximation to the ideal has been made. But all [1171 PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES agree that the cottage system does not of itself possess the economic atmosphere which is found in a true home of the people. It occurs to one that a far future may devise a cottage system for children with some of the features of the Belgian care for the insane. A central institution with doctors, psychologists, and its own day school, existing in the midst of a community of working peoples' homes, might develop a tradition of child care similar to the tradition which has trained the peasants of Gheel, Belgium, properly to care for the insane. If the insti- tution's day school kept long hours and was made varied and intensely interesting, the requirements upon the foster parents would be slight. The foster parents would need to learn to insist that their wards stay on their premises after school hours unless going off the premises in a parent's company. Freedom to dismiss their foster children for bad behavior, and freedom on the part of the child to go into any of a selected list of families whom he could persuade to take him (of course at the usual remuneration from the State), together with absolute dependence of the child upon the foster home for food, clothes, outings and pocket money, might possibly create the normal atmosphere so much to be desired for these children. But we have by no means reached the limit in the development of institutions. Further principles would quickly appear if the case work method, employed now so successfully in social work, were adopted as a funda- mental part of administrative procedure. Institutions know far too little about the boys and girls committed to their care. Courts should be compelled by law to furnish social history sheets of each individual whom [U8] INSTITUTIONS FOR JUVENILES they sent to an institution; and besides making a thorough physical examination of the child on admit- tance, which many now do, the institutions should call to their aid the most competent pyschiatrists to help in planning a course of treatment that would be fitted to the needs of the individual. Granted that with present facilities, it would be impossible for any institution to develop a complete system of individual care, much more could be done than now is; and the careful scientific study of each case would save the soul of the institution from the dry-rot which usually comes on with institutional age. :ii9] CHAPTER VII REFORMATORIES SIDE by side with the Auburn and the Pennsyl- vania systems, as we have come to learn from the preceding chapter, there was growing up in Amer- ica a third system of penitentiary discipline which, when the failure of the other two became pronounced and the word penitentiary fell in consequence into disrepute, lost its old name of a penitentiary system^ and acquired its present designation of the reformatory system. This third penitentiary system, or the reformatory system as we shall henceforth call it, first developed in the insti- tutions for juvenile delinquents described in the pre- ceding chapter. It bore no local name like "Auburn" or "Pennsylvania" and, as there is now no competing system in America for the reformation of offenders, this lack of a handy title is not felt, though were such to develop we can see that it would become merely a re- formatory system instead of, as now, the reformatory system. Not all the institutions with this system are officially called reformatories, as, scientifically speaking, ' De Beaumont and De Tocqueville discusa the House of Refuge under the general heading of the "Penitentiary system in the United States, etc." and in the opening paragraph of the chapter on this subject they quote approvingly the words of Governor Clinton of New York who speaks of the houses of refuge as being "the best penitentiary establishments which have been conceived of by the genius of man, and instituted by his benev- olence." On the Penitentiary System in the United States, and its Applica- tion in France, with an Appendix on Penal Colonies and also Statistical Notes (Philadelphia: Carey, Lea and Blanchard, translated by Francis Lieber, 1833), p. 108. [120] REFORMATORIES they should be, but similarly, only a part of the state prisons with penitentiary systems were called peniten- tiaries. Now, though it is quite customary, and rightfully so, to speak of institutions for juvenile delinquents as juvenile reformatories and of those which we are about to describe as reformatories for adults, we have, in the former chapter, felt that the inclination of juvenile institutions to become schools was one to be encouraged, and so we have refrained from calling the juvenile insti- tutions reformatories. We have applied the word in that chapter and in this one solely to those state^ insti- tutions for adults which have the reformatory system of prison discipline and which, unlike the state prisons and state penitentiaries that have adopted wholly or in part the reformatory system, deal with a selected group of offenders differentiated from other prisoners partly by the kind of crime which they have committed and partly by personal characteristics such as age rendering them, so it is thought, more amenable to reform. A "reformatory" may, then, be defined as a prison in which a state tries to reform selected adults by a sys- tem which is historically the third upon which good men have pinned their hopes. There is, too, another reason for not placing reforma- tories and institutions for juveniles in the same category. While the system of discipline employed in each is prac- tically the same, allowing for the difference in the ages, yet, singularly, the adult reformatory movement can not be traced to the institutions for dealing with juvenile delinquents which in point of time long preceded the ' New York City has an institution of this kind but so far as the author is aware this is the only one under local control. [121] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES establishment of reformatories for adults.' In 1869, the foundation date of the first adult reformatory, the gap between the methods underlying the education and training of children and those supposed to be applicable to adults had not been sufficiently bridged to cause those interested in adults to turn to the institutions for juveniles. They did not know that there, already worked out and ready to hand, were many of the methods later to be developed in their adult reform- atories.2 We must, as a matter of fact, go to far-off Australia to look for the beginnings of what was finally to become in America the adult reformatory system. In 1840, Captain Alexander Maconochie was placed in charge of the convicts on Norfolk island, which had by this time become the chief penal colony of England. He intro- duced there largely, so it is said, on his own authority what is called the mark system. Each definite sentence was reckoned as the equivalent of a certain number of marks, and a prisoner in order to gain his release had to earn that niunber of marks through good conduct and work (both physical and in some cases intellectual) which was paid for in terms of marks. This feature of Maconochie's regime was taken over by Sir Walter Crofton, the Director of Irish Convict Prisons, and 1 In a personal letter to the author, Mr. Brockway, commonly regarded as the father of the adult reformatory system, denied explicitly that he in any way drew on the institutions for juvenile delinquents for suggestions as to principles and procedure. One should compare the account of the beginnings of the Elmira Reformatory given in Frederick H. Wines, Pun- ishment and Reformation (New Edition, Revised and Enlarged by Winthrop D. Lane; New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1919), Ch. X, pp. 199- 234, with that given in Zebulon R. Brockway, Fifty Years of Prison Service (New York: Charities Publication Committee, 1912), especially in Chaps. XI, XVII, XIX, XXI. " See preceding chapter. [122] REFORMATORIES became an important part of the so-called Irish or Crofton System with which American prison reformers became tolerably familiar. ' Other experiments were going on about this time in Europe, all of which tended to show what might be accomplished with prisoners providing some real incentive could be furnished them to put forth their efforts. The first reformatory for adults in the United States was developed at Elmira, New York. Created by an act of the legislature in 1869, it was not until July, 1876, that the reformatory, a name given to the prison at the suggestion of the New York Prison Association, was prepared to receive inmates.^ Mr. Zebulon R. Brock- way was selected as the first superintendent, a post which he held until 1900. In 1876, the legislature enacted the indeterminate sentence law drafted by Mr. Brockway, the first legislation of the kind in this country. This law provided that male offenders between the ages of sixteen and thirty, and not known to have been previously sentenced to a State prison or penitentiary on conviction for a felony in any state or country,' might be sent to the Ebnira reforma- tory for a term not to exceed the maximum sentence which might under the New York Code be imposed for each offense of which they were found guilty. This measure gave to Mr. Brockway legally the same power over his prisoners that Maconochie exercised, seemingly without legal authority, over those on Nor- 1 For an excellent account of the Crofton System read, Mary Carpenter, Reformatory Prison Discipline as Developed by the Rt. Hon. Sir Walter Crofton in the Irish Convict Prisons (Longmans, Green & Cd.. 1872.) 'See Frederick H. Wines, Punishment and Reformation (New Edition, Revised and Enlarged by Winthrop D. Lane; New York; Thomas Y. CroweU Company, 1919), p. 206. ^1876, Ch.207 | 4, p. 213. [123] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES folk Island. The indeterminate sentence furnished to the prisoners the necessary motive for self -improve- ment, without which very little upbuilding of character can be accomplished. Feeling his way slowly but persistently, Mr. Brock- way developed his plan for the reformation of offenders. In the early years all work was carried on under the con- tract system, but in 1888 this system was abolished in New York State, resulting in much idleness for the prisoners at Ehnira. What would have been all loss to another, was opportunity to Mr. Brockway. He established a thorough system of physical training and developed his idea of offering instruction to the inmates in various trades. Some years earlier (1879) a school of letters had been organized which was supplemented by lectures of a social and ethical character. The popula- tion of the institution was divided into four grades, later reduced to three,' and a thorough marking system, reckoned on the basis of a small daily wage, was devised for the purpose of bringing home to each prisoner a sense of reponsibility for his own actions. To obtain his release before the expiration of his maximum sentence, a prisoner had to show by his record that he had made suflBcient progress to be entitled to it. Under the rules of the institution, as finally expressed, a man on entrance was placed in the middle grade from which he might move either forward or backward, depending on his conduct and his record in the school of letters and in the trades school. After six months of satisfactory progress in the middle grade, the prisoner was eligible for promo- tion to the first and after six more months, if all went well, he ha d the right to ask for his release. On the other 1 Hand Boob of the New York State ReformUory at Elmira (1906), p. 6. [124} REFORMATORIES hand, bad conduct and poor school work might result in a reduction in grade and thus prolong the prisoner's stay at the institution for the full period of his maximum sentence. If release was granted, the prisoner was placed on parole, the institution still retaining control over him even beyond its walls. A position was found for him and certain conditions of right living were laid down as a basis for absolute release. At the expiration of six months, if all reports were satisfactory the man, having now lived for some time in a condition of supervised freedom, was usually given his discharge from the reformatory.! Thus there was worked out at Ehnira a system of prison discipline which had as its sole aim the reformation of the offender through bringing constantly to bear on him positive influences for good. Dealing with the young man, who had supposedly not gone far on the road of crime, the institution employed the term of imprisonment for development and tested its own work through the agency of parole by which it was possi- ble to lear n of its own success or failure.* ' For an historical account of the upbuilding of Elmira, see Hand, Book of the New York State Reformatory at Elmira (1906). Also Zebulon B. Brockway, Fifty Years of Prison Service (New York: Charities Publication Committee, 1912), pp. 161-386. 2 "The prerequisites and facilities for such reformations are: " (a) Indeterminate sentence conmiittal of prisoners, with its conditional release clause, substantially as at Elmira, but without the maximum limita^ tion feature of the reformatory law. " (6) A marking system and accounting with each prisoner, which should include wage-earning necessity, with safe and other expenditure opportunity. "(c) Trades school so comprehensive and complete that each prisoner pupil shall learn and practice the occupation best for him to follow on his release. " (d) "School of letters, covering instruction from the kindergarten grade to and including the academic, together with a supplemental lecture course. "(e) Military organization, training and drill, embracing every inmate not disqualified. " (/) Physical culture and well appointed gymnasium with bath and mas- sage appliances for scientific use to renovate the physical man, compensate asymmetries and augment vital energies. " (g) Manual training proper, with tool work, etc., for use to aid recovery from discovered specific physical defects. [125] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES The Elmira idea spread rapidly. By 1921, there were, all told, twenty-nine reformatories for adults, — eighteen for men and eleven for women, — located in eighteen different states. Strange to say, not until recently has the movement to establish reformatories for women gained much headway. ^ Outside of New York not a single reformatory for women was estab- lished before 1900. True, both Indiana in 1869 and Massachusetts in 1874 provided separate prisons for women which later developed into reformatories but the establishment of these institutions had at first nothing in common with the reformatory at Elmira. The "(h) For more direct appeal to the moral and spiritual consciousness, there should be provided a library of carefully selected and wisely dis- tributed books, with class study of literature and authors; art education by use of the stereopticon, with lectures, and, when practicable, occasional art exhibitions carefully selected and explained; music, both vocal and instrumental, always high class, given and practiced to quicken sensibilities and for refinement; oratory directed to inspire heroism and patriotism; these together with reUgious services and ministrations. "The principles of good reformatory administration should include: "(a) Custody so secure that prisoners do not occupy their minds with thoughts or plans for escape. " (6) Control and management (within the law) by the constituted insti- tutional authority, without interference or 'influence' of outside persons. When the state undertakes the reclamation of criminals, benevolent societies and individuals rendering voluntary assistance, should serve under advice: the state is competent and responsible. " (c) There must be a resident executive officer in full command, vested with good authority and wide discretionary power. "(d) Subordinate officers and employees should be appointed and dis- missed by such executive at his pleasure. They should be completely and exclusively under his control, and their functions should be limited to his direction. "(e) The entire life of the prisoner should be directed, not left to the prisoner himself; all his waking hours and activities, bodily and mental habits, also, to the utmost possible extent, his emotional exercises. So thorough and rigorous should this be that unconscious cerebration, waking or sleeping, will go on under momentum of mental habits. There should be no time nor opportunity for the prisoner to revert to vicious charac- teristics." Handbooh of the Neva Yorh Stata Befonnatory at Elmira (1906), pp. 119-121. 1 See Helen Worthington Rogers, "A Digest of Laws Establishing Reform- atories for Women in the United States," Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology (November, 1917), pp. 518-553. 1126] REFORMATORIES reformatory at Anamosa, Idaho, formerly had a depart- ment for women, and the Kentucky reformatory still has one, though the housing of men and women together in the same reformatory is not approved by prison administrators of standing. In 1900, Iowa passed a law creating a reformatory for women but ten years had to pass before another state ventured into this field of penology. Since that time, progress has been rapid, accentuated greatly by the World War which has brought the problem of the proper treatment of prosti- tutes very much into the foreground.' Six more states have either built or are building refomaatories for women. Turning now to specific problems connected with the reformatory system of the United States, we shall first call attention to the class of offenders for which these institutions have been established. To quote its Hand Book, the Elmira Reformatory was for "male felons between the ages of sixteen and thirty not previously convicted of any crime punishable by imprisonment in a state prison."^ With unimportant exceptions, all the states in establishing reformatories for male offend- ers have followed this rule quite closely. Some have » See Martha P. Falconer, "The Part of the Reformatory Institution in the Elimination of Prostitution," Social Hygiene (January, 1919), pp. 1-10; also from same writer: "You will see that a good deal of work had to be changed because of the unfortunate decision of the controller. Many of the Houses of Deten- tion which were established in various cities near camps have been closed because they were not needed after the camps were closed. I was sorry to put any money into these but it seemed to be necessary for the protection of the soldiers and to make possible the law enforcement program. "The places that will be continued are the state reformatories. We have organized and started several and have made it possible for others to be enlarged. It has been a fine opportunity to standardize and by visiting continually it has been possible to get some modern methods into the care and treatment of dehnquent girls and women." Quoted from letter to author. 2 See Hand Booh of the New York State Reformatory at Elmira (1906) , p. 3. [127] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES changed the age period sUghtly' and a few permit the sending to the reformatory of those guilty merely of a misdemeanor. All, with the exception of Oklahoma, limit the institution to offenders not previously sen- tenced to a state prison or penitentiary. When we come, however, to the reformatories for women, we note that in at least five states the law fixes a minimum but no maximum age,^ and that in all the states having reformatories for women, conviction for a misdemeanor, limited in some instances, however, to those specified by name or to those entailing a certain length of sentence, is sufficient to send a woman to the reforma- tory. The reformatories of New York quite consis- tently, but alone, refuse to receive those who have served a previous sentence in state prison. It is not difficult to understand why some state reformatories, both for men and for women, are used for the detention of misdemeanants. "When we change our poUcy of making the punishment fit the crime to that of making it fit the criminal, we come to realize that the distinction between a felony and a misdemeanor does not help us much in deciding how best to treat the per- petrator of the crime. The misdemeanant may easily need exactly the same sort of treatment as the felon. Indeed, in view of the kind of crimes which women commit, it is probable that the woman guilty merely of a so-called misdemeanor, for example, soUciting on the street, is more apt to be in need of the reformatory discipline than is the one guilty of a felony. The first law dealing with the Elmira Reformatory •Pennsylvania fixes the period from fifteen to twenty-five; Illinois from sixteen to twenty-one; Kansas sixteen to twenty-five; Maesachusetta all under forty; Oklahoma no age limit. 'Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Ohio. [128] REFORMATORIES merely contemplated the erection of another state prison, but with the change in name and purpose it was decided to make the experiment with the most promising material which went to the state prisons. This accounts historically for the limitation to felons. The breaking down of the distinction between mis- demeanants and felons, whether male or female, is, therefore, a logical outcome of our newer view-point. The removal of the maximum age limit for women is in line with our known policy of dealing more leniently with women. A sentence to a reformatory is considered as a milder type of punishment than a sentence to a state prison or penitentiary. Probably there is also, though mistakenly, the idea that it is easier to reform an older woman than a man of the same age. The number of women over thirty who commit crimes is also not very large and by sending them all to a reform- atory the necessity of a separate prison for women or the setting apart of a wing in a prison used mainly for men is avoided. The removal of the limitation that the offender shall not have been previously sentenced to a state prison is to be explained in the same way. Generally speaking, and certainly in the case of the reformatories for men, the intention as already indicated was to draft from the state prisons and penitentiaries the most promising individuals. Hence the maximum restriction as to age and the clause relating to first offenders. The minimum restriction, sixteen years or thereabouts, was merely for the purpose of drawing the line between the reformatories and the institutions for juvenile delinquents. As a matter of fact, in spite of the attempt to select a special class, it has been found that the individuals sentenced to the reformatory are often [129] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES steeped in the ways of criminals. In the first place, it will be noted that the phrase, "not known to have been previously sentenced to a state prison or penitentiary for a felony," copied without much change by other states, does not rule out those who have been sent to other penal institutions. According to a report received from the superintendent of Elmira, sixty-seven per cent of the inmates had had institutional experience of some kind before being sent to the reformatory. The superin- tendent of the Pennsylvania State Reformatory gives thirty-five per cent and other superintendents offer similar testimony. This discouraging fact coincides exactly with what we are learning about criminals. If the truth were known, the number of bona fide first offenders between the ages of sixteen and thirty would be found to be small. A large per cent, certainly, of the inmates of any reformatory have been in conflict with the law from early childhood. Indeed, pessimists would have us believe that the reformatories themselves are merely preparatory schools for state prisons or penitentiaries. Be this as it may, most of those who are sent to reformatories are not, as might possibly be expected, wholesome youth, momentarily led astray. Since the establishment of the first reformatory at Elmira, we have learned something about the criminal class of this country which we did not then know. We would not now depend either on age, type of offense committed, or the bungling phrase, "not known to have been previously sentenced to a state prison or peniten- tiary for a felony," as criterions for the selection of criminals most promising from the point of view of reformation. We know from experience that even a strict enforcement of these restrictions on admission [130] REFORMATORIES will not keep out hardened offenders or those who, on account of defective mentality, are incapable of reform.' The logic of the situation would seem to demand what has been agreed to in New York State, namely, a receiving prison where the most careful sorting of all criminals for later transfer to functionalized institutions will be carried on with all the aids which the various sciences relating to conduct in any way have devised. No legislature can devise a formula which a judge on the bench can apply that will mean the sending to reformatories the type of offenders for which these institutions were created. 1 "The group of women received this year ia interesting. There are 106 of the type that reformatories were originally meant for, that is, women of workable mentality, to be taken in morally sick and returned to the com- munity morally well; this means 106 out of 240 legitimately belong to us as a reformatory. Of the remainder, 22 are psychopaths, only 2 of whom have even fair mentality; 103 range in mentality from imbecile to sub- normal. These are women without nervous defect." Secorut Annual BepoH, Bureau of Prisons of Massachusetts for the Year 1917, p. 72. "We still labor under the disadvantage of not having yet fully attained the status of a reformatory in the modern acceptation of the term, because of the presence in the institution of (a) 28 women, (6) 94 insane, (e) 5 for- merly inmates of the Department for the Insane, (d) 29 who had served previous sentences in prisons and penitentiaries, (e) 13 received who were over 30 years of age at the time of commitment, (/) 45 who had served sen- tences in other reformatories, reform schools, industrial schools, etc., in other states and in most cases for felony, (g) 48 who have served in the Industrial School for Boys at Eldora. All the above being recognized in most states as not properly inmates of an institution intended only for 'any male per- son who at the time of conunitment is between the ages of 16 and 30 years, and who has never before been convicted of a felony.' (Sec. 5718-A5.) The above facts are mentioned here in order that unjust comparisons may not be unwittingly made between this institution and more fortunate reformatories in other states, especially when the difficulties of maintaining good order are considered."— — Biennial Report of Board of Control of State Institutions, Iowa, for Period ending June SO, 1916, pp. 6-7. "Conditions still exist which prevent our having reached the modem conception of a reformatory the chief of which is the presence in this insti- tution of the following: (a) S6 who have served terms in prisons and peni- tentiaries, (6) 22 received who were over 30 years of age, (c) 39 who have served terms in other reformatories, reform and industrial schools, (d) 41 who have served terms in Eldora, (e) 4 who were formerly inmates of the Department for the Insane." Biennial Report of Board of Control of State Institutions, Iowa, for Period ending June SO, 1918, p. 5. [131] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES The educational work carried on in the reformatories can be classed under five heads — ^physical, vocational, intellectual, religious, and moral. Physical education is, of course, but a part of the general health policy of an institution and will be discussed in connection with it. On account, too, of the close relationship between vocational education and the employment of the prisoners, these two problems have also been Hnked together in the paragraphs which follow. Religious and moral education, likewise, cannot be wholly eparated. Partly because of the amount of financial and other assistance received from their respective state govern- ments but primarily because it has not been thoroughly settled, as it has in the case of the institutions for juve- nile delinquents, that the reformatories are to be, in the main, schools, reformatories differ widely not only in the extent to which these various forms of education have been developed, but also especially with respect to the methods used for physical and vocational education. Public opinion in the United States has the notion that a man when he comes out of prison will be fit physi- cally to go to work. But it has not yet risen to the point of demanding that this shall be the case or of not being surprised when ex-prisoners are weaklings. The reform- atories, as a class, come closer to attaining a decent standard of fitness for their graduates than do any of the other institutions for adult offenders. A good health policy involves, first of all, proper housing accommodations. In the main, reformatory buildings have been correctly built, though a perusal of the reports of the institutions indicate that in some instances there has been gross negUgence in keeping up [132] REFORMATORIES repairs.i Overcrowding which necessitates doubling- up, a defect commonly found in all prisons, is also found in reformatories and is decidedly injurious to both health and morals. The controlling board of a penal institution ought to have the same power to refuse admittance as do other state institutions such as insane asylums and institutions for the feeble- minded. There are certainly more arguments against overcrowding in the case of men and women who are to return to society than in the case of maniacs, imbe- ciles, and idiots committed for life. The second requirement of a sound institutional health pohcy is thorough medical inspection on admit- tance coupled with good hospital facilities. How neces- sary these are on account alone of the prevalence of venereal diseases among those sent to the reformatories, is shown f rom the figures in the report of the Massa- 1 "At the time your Board assumed control of affairs here, the buildings, grounds, etc., were in a deplorable condition, due to neglect or failure to make badly needed repairs. "I win but briefly refer to these matters. We found all of the halls of the Main Building, and a great many of the rooms in the same building, badly in need of plastering, t Great patches of plastering had fallen, and large areas were hanging loose, ready to fall. Laths had become detached, and, here and there, were hanging, giving the building almost the look of a deserted house. Floors in the halls and some of the school rooms were in an awful shape. In a great many places they had given away under the weight placed upon them. Holes here and there made it necessary for one to be careful and literally necessary to 'watch your step.' The heating plant in the same building was totally inadequate, euppljnng less than 83J per cent of the radiation necessary to properly heat the building. "The quarters in which boys were forced to sleep were poorly ventilated (in some rooms less than 380 cubic feet of air to the boy) , very dangerous by reason of liability of fire. "The beds occupied by the boys were filthy, with countless vermin. The base boards, window frames, sills, etc., we found to be the biding places of countless thousands of bedbugs. The plumbing was old, worn out and most unsanitary, a great many exposed closets being located in one corner of the boys' sleeping rooms. These closets were not vented, and, as a result, the odor was almost unbearable, especially in warm weather. Drinking fountains were located in almost every sleeping room, within a foot of the closets, referred to, etc." Report of the Missouri State Prison Board, Cover- ing the Biennial Period ending December 31, 1918, pp. 44-45. [1331 PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES chusetts Bureau of Prisons. Of the two hundred and forty women admitted to the reformatory for women for the years ending September 30, 1917, 58 per cent were syphilitic and 93 per cent were infected with gonorrhea.' The Superintendent of the Industrial Farm for Women at Lansing, Kansas, says that 87 per cent of the women sent to the Industrial Farm for women at Lansing, Kansas, during the biennial period ending, June 30, 1918, were afflicted with gonorrhea; 80 per cent were syphilitic; 55 per cent had both diseases.2 In the same Massachusetts report,* the number of cases of gonorrhea found among the 622 new commitments to the reformatory for men is given as 117, approximately 19 per cent, with 41 as the number of syphilitics, or 7 per cent. Mr. Brockway states^ that 43.7 per cent of the 8000 prisoners who had been examined at Elmira up to 1908 had some form of venereal disease. As evidence of ^the generally bad physical conditions of incoming prisoners, we may quote also Mr. Brockway's statement to the effect that out of 8000 cases "22.7 per cent were either lill or bore symptoms of disqualifying illnesses; 12.8 per cent had defective eyesight; 5.4 per cent defective hearing; and 57.8 per cent had defective teeth; 19.9 per cent were tuberculous."^ Dr. Christian states that most of the one hundred parole violators whom he studied at 1 See Report of the Bureau of Prisons of Massachusetts (1917), pp. 88-89; also Report of the Reformatory at Anamosa, Iowa, for the Biennial Period ending June SO, 1918, p. 43, in which the need for isolation wards arising out of the 1914 law declaring syphihs, gonorrhea and chancroids to be contagious and infectious is mentioned. 2 See Superintendent's report for this period included in Biennial Report of Board of Administration, p. 8. ' See pp. 62-63. * Fifty Years of Prison Service (New York : Charities Publication Com- mittee, 1912), p. 217. [134] REFORMATORIES Elmira had become nearly physical wrecks by the time they were brought back to the institution.^ Altogether we may conclude that the medical problem at a reform- atory is a real one, although some institutions have not fully reahzed it. Turning now to the means, other than medical, gen- erally spoken of under the heading "physical cultjore," which are used to build up the inmates and keep them in proper condition, we note at once the difference be- tween those institutions run primarily as schools and those which resemble more closely reformed state prisons. In the former, military drill and setting-up exercises form a regular and important part of the insti- tutional regime. Athletic games are likewise en- couraged, and the general attitude toward the problem of physical culture is about [that which pre vailsiir mili- tary colleges and preparatory schools.^ On the other hand, there are reformatories which depend very largely on work to meet the physical needs of the prisoners. If they have military organizations it is because it consti- tutes a cohesive force throughout the institution rather than a means of developing the physique of the prison- ers; if athletic games are indulged in, they are merely to fill in the idle hours. The idea of physical culture in these institutions is well expressed by the warden of the Oklahoma State Reformatory who wrote that: "A prisoner can gain just as much athletic exercise swinging a hammer in a rock quarry or running a plow on the farm, as he can playing baseball or football or doing armory service, and then at the end of the day he has • Frank L. Christian, A Study of One Hundred Consecutive Parole Violations, reprinted from Annual Report of Elmira State Reformatory for 1913, p. 4. ' See The System of Physical Culture Taught at the New York State Re- formatory, Elmira, N. Y. (A bulletin of the institution.) [135] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES produced something which will contribute to his own maintenance, instead of the taxpayers being compelled to contribute their funds to his sustenance. "^ We have noted earlier in the chapter the increasing interest in farming and stock raising, and where such work is car- ried on, or other work in the open air, it would seem that there would not be anything like the need for games and drill to break the monotony of institutional life that there is where the prisoners are employed at indoor factory work on machines, as weaving, sewing, etc. Likewise, part of the time remaining after the hours spent in the school of letters or of trades might as well be spent in doing "chores" on a large farm as in drilling on the parade ground. Work does not need to be monotonous or injurious to the physique. On the contrary it can and should be such that a man can endure long hours of it and feel fresh at the end. There is also no reason why in a large institution, properly provided with facilities for out-door work, undeveloped individuals can not through work be brought up to a fair standard of physical fitness. We must realize, of course, that wardens have not been left free to employ their prisoners as they saw fit,^ and that we have not yet succeeded in the outside world in freeing labor from its evil qualities. The relation of work and health has been touched upon in the preceding paragraphs and we shall now con- sider the relation of work to trade instruction. The experience at Elmira with working the prisoners from 1876 to 1889, the date marking the introduction of the 'Letter of March, 1916, to author. For other parts of this interesting letter, see pp. 139-140 of this chapter. ' See Chap. VIII of this book for a discussion of the problem of prison labor. [136] REFORMATORIES State-use system, aside from the employment in the erection of buildings and in the development of the small farm, was a trying business. It resulted in the introduction of the military system as a special sub- stitute for work and produced a certain attitude on the part of the management toward the relation of work and industrial training which has persisted ever since at this particular reformatory. The act of 1876 left the managers free to adopt the system of prison labor best suited to the purposes of the reformatory.' They chose the public-account system.^ In 1881, they were ordered, by act of the legislature, to install the contract system. Three years later, this system was abolished and the managers started once more to work the inmates vmder the pubUc-account system. In 1888, this was thrown out by an act of the legislature forbidding the production of goods for the open market in all the prisons of the State. Finally, the next year, the State- use system was legalized for the whole state but in the meantime Mr. Brockway, in order to prevent the de- moralization due to the idleness resulting from the law of 1888, had introduced military training and further developed the trade courses. This wavering policy on the part of the state government with respect to prison labor was demoraUzing in the extreme and the super- intendent and managers came to the conclusion, which was not surprising, that better results could be obtained in the matter of reformation if the entire time of the prisoner could be used in drill and in the schools of let- ters and of trades without reference to the production » See Zebulon R. Brockway, Fifty Years of Prison Service (New York: Charities Publication Committee, 1912), p. 267. 2 See Chap. VIII, p. 155, of this book for enumeration of the various systems. [137] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES of usable goods. Though it is now possible to employ the prisoners at Elmira under the State-use system, the production of goods is still of decidedly minor importance. While some of the reformatories have accepted this policy largely of divorcing industrial training from work, the majority seem to favor the idea, recently brought to the attention of the public through discus- sions of the Gary School system, of making the trade education a by-product of the work itself. The follow- ing statement from a letter to the author by the super- intendent of one of the large and excellently conducted reformatories in the Middle West gives a fair idea of the prevailing trend of opinion. "A large institution so fully developed as the reformatory, offers many oppor- tunities for teaching trades in connection with the dif- ferent industrial departments of the plant"; and further, "the industrial training shops and manual train- ing departments were merged into our State-use fac- tories when the State-use system was adopted and we do not have industrial training work now that has not for its object, economic output." Some superintend- ents even go so far as to say that the institutions should by all means be self-supporting. The Michigan Reformatory and the Kentucky Reform- atory, which is a reformatory only in name, are the only ones where the prisoners are employed under the con- tract system; in all the others except Wisconsin' where some work is done under the piece-price system, they are employed under the State-use or the public-account system. No doubt if Mr. Brockway had been left free ' In the Wisconsin reformatory, the prisoners are employed under the State-use, the public-account and the piece-price systems. [138] REFORMATORIES to develop the public-account system at Elmira as he originally planned, there would probably not havp been this difference of opinion as to the relation of work and training. If the plan of teaching each inmate who need? it a trade, is rigidly adhered to, it can be easily accom- plished under either the State-use or public-account system. True, there is always the financial pressure to be resisted, since those lines of work which offer the most advantages from the point of view of training are not always those from which the most income can be derived. On the other hand, the contrast in morale, vigor, and cheerfulness which one notes between the shop where only models or make-believe things are produced and the one where real goods, which the maker knows will be used, are manufactured is so greatly to the advantage of the latter that no one who has seen the two can fail, it would seem, to give his verdict in favor of making work a very essential part of the trade instruction, i The necessity, also, of incul- • "You ask what if any productive work is carried on, under what system? What should be the attitude toward productive work? Answering this question I beg to say that in my opinion, industry is the basis of good citizen- ship and the personal well-being of every human being, and personally I have entertained the idea that the country is running mad over athletics and out-door sports, wasting a great deal of useful energy that should be directed to productive work. A prisoner can gain just as much athletic exercise swinging a hammer in a rock quarry or running a plow on the farm, as he can playing baseball or football or doing armory service, and then at the end of the day he has produced something which will con- tribute to his own maintenance, instead of the taxpayers being compelled to contribute their funds to his sustenance. There is really an issue in this state between some of the more radical leaders of the labor organizations, and the taxpayers, as to whether anything should be produced by the penal institutions that does not go into sustenance, and this issue is on the grounds of products of prison labor coming into competition in any man- ner, directly or indirectly, with that of free labor. We have a prohibition in our law against contracting prison labor to outsiders, or the production of products that will come in competition with free labor, with the exception that the state institutions themselves may consume these products. Cor- rect government is founded on the principle of the greatest good to the greatest number, and while we have about 8000 labor enthusiasts in this [139] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES eating habits of work is fully as great perhaps as that of teaching the prisoners how to work, and one cannot assume that habits of responding to drill or to class- room routine are identical with those of undergoing long hours of regular routine work. In the reformatories for women, consideration for the health of the inmates influences very largely, and rightly so, the nature of the work which is undertaken. Many of the women who are sent to the reformatories are, on account of their diseased condition, greatly in need of hospital attention and the first and primary state, we have 80,000 farmers and as many merchants and business men who are taxpayers, and the proposition is whether or not all industry in the penal institutions should be practically stifled because these 8000 men are opposed to these products being sold on the market, even to the state itself, while the other 80,000 or 160,000 people are paying taxes to sup- port them in this idea and contention. I think that productive work should be carried on, and the men should have a polytechnic instructor or manual training instructor to teach them vocational training, while these products are being turned out to contribute to the individual sustenance of the pris- oners, and such betterment work as is necessary. Under no condition do I believe in contracting prison labor. They are the wards of the state, and a guardian should never surrender the control of his ward as long as he is charged with the duty and responsibility of directing it. Productive work can take the place of athletics and sports in the main. I fully realize that all work and no play would be a bad policy, and sufficient recreation and diversion should be had for those engaged in productive work, but I do not conceive it to be the duty of the state to gather up these young offenders and maintain them in idleness and in sport and athletics or military service, while they are a public charge, but I do believe that to teach them voca- tional training and the value of labor and productive work will remove the very cause why more than fifty per cent of the young offenders are now being incarcerated in the reformatories of the United States. This is apply- ing the antidote for the disease. It is the correct vaccination to prevent future contagion, and if it is a correct axiom, that an idle brain is the devil's workshop, the inability of the young offender to execute productive work is the reason for his downfall. I am equally as certain that mentality tests would not show such a large percentage of defectives if they had been taught the value of labor and productive work from boyhood or infancy. I think the products of prison labor should be consumed by the state itself, and nothing should be produced that would come in competititon with free labor beyond actual maintenance and betterment of the institution itself, that is I believe that institutions should be self-sustaining, but never run for a profit at the expense of free labor." From letter under date of March 4, 1916, to author by Boone Williams, Warden of the Oklahoma State Reformatory, 1140] REFORMATORIES thing is to restore them to a normal healthy condition. Vocational education for women has not been developed to the same extent that it has been for men' p,nd it is much more difficult to provide a training for women in the reformatories, which will be useful to them on the outside, than it is for men. All the reformatories have farms; most of them larger than the three-hundred-acre farm at Elmira. The Oklahoma reformatory, for example, has sixteen hun- dred acres, and it is clearly evident that the reforma- tories, like all the other institutions for the detention of prisoners, are tending to become self-sufficing units car- ing for their own wants first in so far as possible. If, as has been said in a preceding paragraph, the true purpose of the reformatory is adhered to, such an institution undoubtedly offers ample opportunity for trade mstruction and for healthful employment. With respect to what we have termed the intellectual form of education, we find that in some reformatories this is given great prominence (all the prisoners in the New Jersey reformatory for men are compelled to spend half of each day in school), while in others an evening class for illiterates, held on certain days of the week, is all that is offered to the inmates in the way of educational facilities. Mr. Brockway came to be a great believer in the ancient Greek idea that education and goodness went hand in hand, and he was, therefore, unremitting in his efforts to improve the minds of the prisoners. On the other hand, many superintendents seem either not to have grasped this philosophy at all or, in view of the obstacles encountered in conducting a .1 See what is said on this point in Chap. VI on Institutions for Juvenile Delinquents, pp. 103-104. [141] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES school, to have contented themselves with a very minor application of it, namely, with having taught those who had never been to school how to read and to write and to do simple problems in arithmetic. There are difficulties in conducting schools in reforma- tories which are not encountered on the outside. It must not be forgotten that we are dealing here with adults, not with children, some of whom are low grade mentally. Many have never been to school and of those who have a very large per cent have not gotten beyond the fifth grade and are, therefore, long unac- customed to class work and are naturally averse to applying their powers to acquiring knowledge. The period of detention, varying usually from one to two years under the operation of the indeterminate sentence laws, is a short period of time within which to accom- plish much, even though one half the time as in Illinois and New Jersey^ is devoted to school work. In a pre- ceding paragraph, it was pointed out how the pressure of work tended to limit the amount of trade instruction which could be given, and it will be found, also, that it has in many instances reduced the length of the term of the school of letters or the number of hours per day for class work or caused these to be placed at those hours of the day which are unsuited for mental effort. The niggardliness of state legislatures in the matter of appro- priations has also in some instances affected the quality of teachers and of the teaching. Some reformatories have been compelled to rely upon educated inmates as teachers; others have placed the whole burden upon the chaplain who also acts sometimes as Hbrarian (and in one instance, which was noted in the report of the insti- > The most allowed anywhere. [142] REFORMATORIES tution, as also the instructor in printing). Character in a teacher is a prime requisite, as teaching is not a mere passing on of facts but a radiation of personality. Inmates are not, therefore, apt to make successful teachers. As a rule, the reformatory schools which are firmly established include the work from the first to the eighth grade, inclusive. Volimteer classes in special subjects above the eighth grade are sometimes conducted and lectures are occasionally given to the entire group. Outside of the reading afforded by the libraries and the instructions offered by various entertainments, the foregoing about measures the extent of intellectual development offered. Two facts stand out with considerable clearness in a study of reformatories — one is that public opinion has not yet, as in the case of the institutions for juvenile delinquents, fully decided that these institutions are in the main educational, and the other is that, despite the excellent standing of some of the schools,^ there is need for wiser and more consistent leadership in develop- ing the work. It would, therefore, seem advisable for a state legislature to fix by law the amount of time to be devoted in a reformatory to this form of school work, and, secondly, to place the management of all the schools directly under the control of the state depart- ment of education. To have these two points threshed out in the legislature would do much, also, to fix the status of the institutions. » "It may be doubted whether many elementary schools in the country are better, in point of equipment, in the quahty of the teaching staff or in the efiSoiency of the instruction, than is this [the Rahway Reformatory of New Jersey] institutional school." Report of the Prison Inquiry Corn^ mission (1917), p. 49. 10 [ 143 ] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES In all reformatories, provision is made for religious services by ministers of various sects. There seems to be always a chaplain, sometimes two or more, oflBcially connected with each reformatory. Opportunity is given for individual work among the prisoners, and in so far as their spiritual wants can be cared for in this way the need appears to be fairly well met. The Illi- nois reformatory boasts of a local Young Men's Chris- tian Association, said to be the only one in any penal institution; in the Kentucky reformatory there is a Christian Endeavor Society and in some other reforma- tories there are organizations similar in character though not in name. For many years a class in ethics was maintained at the Elmira reformatory, and at the Ohio reformatory a school of conduct formerly called a school of ethics is held. The lectures which are given in the reformatories are also usually of an ethical character. We might mention also as encouraging directly good conduct within the institution the mark or credit system, found in various degrees of development in all the re- formatories. Without^doubt, a fair and accurate mark- ing of the prisoners with special privileges for the higher grades is very favorable to the discipline of the place. Only in so far as incarcerated men can be kept busy and happy will a mark system be without danger. If they are "on the outs" with their keepers, a mark system will be all tangled up with tale-bearing and in- justice. A system of examination as to progress by impartial outside boards would be perhaps safer though theoretically not so desirable. We must not pass lightly over this problem of de- veloping proper standards of life and conduct, because this is the whole purpose of the reformatory. The {1441 REFORMATORIES question is what, if not ideals, is to take the place in the outside world of the enforceable discipline and the institutional regime within the reformatory walls. A man can be held up to a fair standard of conduct within an institution by pressure of various kinds, but this will mean nothing toward his reformation unless in the meantime his soul has been possessed of new wants, new desires and new aims. A smooth running reformatory, where there are few infractions of rules, should not be considered as identical with one where the recalcitrant and vicious youth of the land are changed into useful citizens. Every phase of reformatory life should, at least in- directly, contribute to the elevation of the morals of the inmates, and unless this is the case, the value of the direct attempts, already mentioned, to inculcate proper standards is very doubtful. Only officials of high moral standing, consecrated to the work in hand, can give an institution, such as a reformatory, the atmos- phere suited for moral growth. But in our reforma- tories, we have not yet wholly succeeded in eliminating the evils of the spoils system. So when the state gives a position requiring ability and high moral qualities to a man who is not worthy, — ^when it gives a fine job to a nobody, — ^we must expect the inmates to cling more closely than ever to their old ideal of "something for nothing." The spoils system makes cynics of us all. Commitment on an indeterminate sentence and re- lease on parole are features of all reformatories. Fed- eral prisoners have been received on definite sentence, but by a special arrangement with the Department of Justice these have been allowed generally to come under the same rules relating to release as govern the regular [ 145 ] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES prisoners. There are some others whom judges of state courts, either through mistake or on account of some special law, have sent to the reformatory under definite sentence, but their number is very small. The inde- terminate sentence laws covering commitments to re- formatories, with one or two exceptions, follow the New York law setting as a limit to the indeterminate sen- tence the maximum number of years which under the old law could have been imposed as sentence. Theoretically, one would say, there should be within a reformatory complete individualization, each prisoner being treated as a imit and allowed to progress as rap- idly as his individual case warranted; but, as we know, it has been found necessary to group the prisoners into three or occasionally four classes and to make the period of detention in each class the same for all. Under the rules in force in most reformatories, a perfect record for twelve months would entitle a man to release. Ac- tually, on account of demotions and penalties incurred, it usually takes a man several more months to win his parole. The longest average period of detention, noted by the writer, is that of the Indiana reformatory which is given as three years. Taldng the reformatories as a whole, eighteen months would be a fair average for the time the prisoners are detained. There is a regretable tendency, in releasing on parole, to deviate somewhat from the method employed at the Elmira reformatory. At this institution, release on parole was based on the prisoner's general demeanor, his progress in the school of letters and in the trades school. It resembled greatly the graduation from a school or a college, of one who had completed all the re- quirements of the institution. With the growth of [146] REFORMATORIES state boards of parole and the centralization of control of penal institutions, the process of granting parole has come to take on something of the nature of a pardon in not basing the decision entirely on mensurable progress within the institution. When such items as previous record and environment, nature of crime, information gained by parole board in a personal interview^ are con- sidered, it indicates pretty clearly that the reforma- tories have not yet succeeded in working out a scheme of reformation which is mensurable or which provides the prisoner with the incentive to reform. In those reforma- tories where the schools are poorly developed, there is little of a definite nature aside from work and conduct records for the paroUng authorities to consider. Now while admitting that it is very difficult to develop stand- ards for measuring reformation, it is readily seen that unless this can be done the whole theory of the inde- terminate sentence falls to the ground. Indeed the indeterminate sentence may have the effect of embit- tering a prisoner, for the farcical pomp of granting parole on vague and ill-defined bases does not deceive the prisoner even though it may the paroling author- • Note carefully the following rules regulating the granting of parole from the Ohio State Reformatory quoted from the pamphlet issued by the reformatory entitled Rules and Regulations (1911), p. 5. "What the Law Requires the Board to Consider in Granting Paroles. "Judgment by the Board as to worthiness of the applicant for parole will be baaed on the following considerations, arranged in the order of their rela- tive importance: 1. The record and character of the applicant as established in the institution. 2. The nature and character of the crime committed. 3. His previous record and environment. 4. Information gained from a personal interview with applicant. 5. Probable surroundings if paroled. 6. All other facts bearing upon the advisability of parole the management may be able to obtain. "It may be well to observe that while a good record in the institution is the first requisite and of prime importance, it is not the only consideration in determining fitness for parole, as inmates and their friends sometimes suppose," [147] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES ities.1 We find, too, that the power which has been in some states granted to judges to parole inmates of re- formatories brings in an element of imcertainty and favoritism which is detrimental to the work of the reformatories, through breaking down the machinery for orderly progress to freedom which each prisoner is supposed to use. All reformatories have adopted the plan of sending a man direct to a job when released on parole, and of re- quiring reports from him at definite intervals. Ordi- narily the man is supposed to notify the reformatory or his parole officer when he changes his position or is out of work. The amount of supervision which the reform- atories exercise over those on parole both by means of reports and through visits by the parole officer varies greatly. In some states the parole work has been so well organized that it approaches the standard of good probation work, while in others it amounts to practi- cally nothing.2 It is customary to grant a man final discharge after six months of satisfactory conduct on parole, although the reformatories could legally hold a man until the expiration of his maximum sentence. The economy of careful supervision when paroled even for the short period of six months has not yet been clearly perceived by the public, and legislatures have neglected to supply funds for enough parole officers to do the work thoroughly. Return to civil life is often a difficult and trying experience for those who are genu- inely anxious to make good, and to spend money in fit- 'A Prisoner, "The Indeterminate Sentence," Atlantic Monthly (Septem- ber, 1911), pp. 330-2. ' In the 1915-16 report of the Colorado Reformatory, p. 5, the warden states that 92 per cent answer their parole as contrasted with 32 per cent during period before he assumed management. [148] REFORMATORIES ting a man to return and then to allow him to fall back into his old ways through lack of careful supervision is surely extravagance of the worst kind. What success have the reformatories had? The evi- dence which we have is scattering and inconclusive. Our criminal statistics are embryonic, and it is doubtful whether it will ever be possible in a country so large as ours to ascertain with any degree of accuracy the extent of former convictions and places where former sentences have been served. We must depend, therefore, on reports from individual reformatories. Mr. Brockway states* that in 1888 a searching investigation of all the paroled prisoners of the Elmira reformatory was made and that 78.5 per cent were found to be living self- supporting and orderly lives. The following paragraphs, quoted from a report^ of the former warden of the Ohio State Reformatory, Mr. Leonard, give a some- what more detailed pictvire of the outgoing stream: "From the best information obtainable, I would give as my best judgment and belief after making liberal deductions, that sixty-five per cent (65%) of the young men who go out on parole from this institution, live free from crime and their success in life and useful- ness as citizens is above the average of the people of their class and circumstances; this because of the edu- cation and industrial traming received at the Reform- atory. "Another twenty-five per cent (25%) are weak in character and of low value as citizens and liable, under special temptation, to stumble into delinquency. ' Fifty Years of Prison Service (New York : Charities Publication Com- mittee, 1912), p. 297. 2 AnrnuU Report in Fiscal Year ending November IS, 191S, pp. 9-10. [149] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES The remaining fifteen per cent (15%) recommit crime of varying degrees, and upon the whole are of Uttle value in the social fabric and should be classed as delinquents and a burden upon society, and are apt to be returned to the Reformatory or find lodging in some other prison or place of detention. If there is any mistake in this estimate it is in placing too high the number that revert to criminal conduct. " While Mr. Brockway's investigation included some men who had been out at least ten years, the percent- ages commonly given are based on figures covering merely the period of time within which supervision was maintained. Thus a man who obtained his final dis- charge at the end of six months, and then committed a crime probably would not be counted among those who had broken their parole. "What, of course, we would like to know is the percentage who live out their lives as law abiding citizens. From figures in the report of the Pennsylvania Industrial Reformatory for 1917-18,* it would appear, taking the average for the last eighteen years, that 14.44 per cent of those paroled each year violate their parole during the year. Thirty-five per cent of the one hundred and sixty women paroled from the Clinton Farms Reformatory, New Jersey, since its' beginning had by 1917 violated their parole.'' The superintendent of the Illinois State Reformatory says in his biennial report for the period 1914-1916 that ninety per cent of those paroled during this period made their parole, that is, obtained their final release.' It is difficult to obtain from some of the reports any 1 See p. 25. ' See Report of the Prison Inquiry Commission (1917), I, p. 64. 'Biennial Report of the Illinois State Reformatory (1914-1916), p. 13. [1501 REFORMATORIES figures for estimating the percentage that violate their parole. From such information as is available, from ten to forty per cent of those paroled violate their parole within the period of supervision. Considering the class of offenders sent to the reformatories, this does not seem to the writer a discouragingly large average. As throwing some light on the problem of parole vio- lation, we quote below from Dr. Christian's study of one hundred parole violations of the Ehnu-a reforma- tory his recapitulation of causes :i "Failed by reason of alcoholism 13 vagrancy 6 environment 20 being probable recidivists 14 associating with evil women 4 small wages 2 being mentally defective 37 return upon technical violation 2 voluntary return 2 100" Dr. Christian states that practically seventy-five per cent of the men were found back in their old haunts^ and that fifty-five were classed as mental defectives upon their original reception at the reformatory.* It is unfortunate that other intensive studies of parole vio- lations have not been undertaken, since they would furnish valuable guides in adjusting our whole reform- atory discipline. The reformation of offenders and their confinement in a reformatory are two processes which must not be confused. The second is but incidental to the first. • A Study of One Hundred Consecutive Parole Violations, p. 23. ' Ibid., p. 6. » Ibid., p. 7. [151] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES The choice of all reformatory officials should therefore be made on the basis of their ability to make men out of what is in some instances very unpromising material, not on the qualities which would fit them to be keepers in a menagerie. The salvage idea as related to adult criminals, first expressed in the building of houses of correction and much later in the establishing of peni- tentiaries, was born again at Elmira; and the subse- quent spread of the idea, as evidenced not alone by the present number of reformatories in the United States but also, as we have previously stated, by the adoption of reformatory methods by other penal institutions for the detention of adult offenders, constitutes one of the most hopeful features of our present penal system, but unless we can give to the reformatories or the other penal institutions which attempt the work of reforma- tion a standing comparable, let us say, to state univer- sities, there is grave danger that they will lose the djmamic quality which alone distinguishes them from ordinary prisons. [152] CHAPTER VIII PRISON LABOR THERE is no one problem in connsction with im- prisonment which ranks to-day in importance with that of the proper employment of the prisoners. This statement can be easily proven. Many prisoners, especially those confined in jails, are kept in idleness. Financially this pohcy is ruinous to the State. The capital invested in prisons is large and the maintenance cost is no small item. Work is a physical, a mental, and, it can be truthfully said, a moral necessity to most men.' Without it a prisoner will inevitably degenerate and when released is pretty certain to prove more *"You are j\jst naturaU^ uncomfortable all the. time. You reach the point where you cannoTBleSpr~eat, walk, reaST You are just simply dis- gusted with life. You actually don't" care whether you^'ake up after it has taken you any amount of hours to fall asleep, which gets to be the case every night. Not having the natural exercise that the human body de- mands, you cannot digest your food. I sang, whistled, tore some buttons off my clothes and tried to amuse myself by pitching them, and finally I got hold of a pencil and some paper and made a deck of cards for myself and played aohtaire. The first few days of that pastime were fine, but finally I got so that even that wonderful game got monotonous, and then I began to ask for work every time the keeper came to the door. "By the time when I had only about ten more weeks to serve I got to be like a maniac. The strain of short-time and the physical and mental abuse to my whole system through what I had gone through had got me in a ter- rible state and every day I asked like a baby for a job. Anything to be taken out of my cell. I told the keeper 'I want air; I need it.' I told him how long I had been confined; cried' and begged to leave me out of the cell; that I could not stand it. Up to rny^^t-minute, however, all hopes we^e shattered and I was confinedUntiTmy time was up. "Ajprisoner is human even if he has fallen and committed crime. If the public knew what is really going on they would not stand for it. Any per- "sou can see that the system is wrong. Enforced idleness makes a prison a breeding place of degenerates and criminals." Unpublished etatement of a man at one time confined in the Philadelphia County Prison, an insti- tution in which very little work is carried on. [153] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES troublesome to society than he was prior to his incar- ceration. Idleness gives rise to no productive income and there is, therefore, no fund from which wages might be paid to prisoners, other than through an appropriation for that purpose which is not apt to be made. The eco- nomic bond which unites a prisoner to his family group is often a very strong one and there is no surer way of causing disaster to the family and to the prisoner than by breaking it. Wages are, too, an incentive to good conduct and a means of encouraging self respect. The prisoner's time may be spent in compulsory study and industrial training. In so far as the course of study is based on that done in the grades of oih- public schools, a situation which we find in the reformatories for juveniles and to a far less extent in those for adults, the time so spent has naturally no bearing on the problem of prison labor. But to fit the type of man who gets in prison for the world of industry necessitates not merely a theoretical understanding of the rudiments of a trade, but the actual practice of it while in prison. To make real things which will be useful to the world is far better than to spend one's time in constructing objects which the prisoner knows will soon be torn down so that another pupil may use the material, a practice which is sometimes followed where the labor problem has not been satisfactorily solved. The best training for probably the majority of adult prisoners can be had in the doing of real work under friendly and careful supervision. The question of industrial training can not therefore be separated from that of prison labor. Prison labor is not merely an essential feature of every prison system worthy of the name but it has [154] PRISON LABOR given rise to as troublesome problems as any that now exist in the world of free labor. The history of prison labor in the United States reflects faithfully certain aspects of the economic and the political philosophy which prevailed during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The exploita- tion and neglect of free labor, the viciousness of compe- tition, the conception of a public office, the hostility toward state-conducted enterprises, all these bore their fruit within, as well as without the prison walls. Fortu- nately, the history of prison labor reflects also a growing opposition to the evils resulting from these ideas. What the past has meant to the prisoner and what the future seems to promise to him can best be appre- ciated by examining the organization of prison work. Prisoners have been and are still employed under six different systems, known as the lease system, the con- tract system, the piece-price system, the public-account system, the State-use system, the public works and ways system. 1 They differ from each other in many particu- lars but especially with respect to the extent to which private interests control the prisoner, his labor or his product. In examining these systems we shall not only take note of these determining characteristics but also of other interests involved, namely, the ease of admin- istration, the financial interest of the state, the relation of prison labor to free labor, the purpose of punishment, and opportunity for training. In the discussion which follows, it should be kept in mind that although prisoners in the United States are subject to four divisions of government — federal, state, ' Twentieth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, Convict Labor (Washington: 1905), pp. 15-20. [155] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES county and municipal — the determination of system or systems under which the prisoners are to be employed is decided by the federal government for the federal pris- ons, and by the states for all state, county, or municipal institutions. The word, government, is used here as the term by which to indicate any one of these various units. The lease system,^ the counterpart of which can be found in the old EngUsh practice of farming out the jails, represents the extreme limit of control by outside interests. Under this system the government turns over its convicted prisoners to a certain party, known as the lessee, who agrees to house, clothe, feed and guard them. The lessee also pays to the government an agreed upon sum of money for each prisoner received. In return, the lessee obtains the right to work the prison- ers and the further right to all the products of their labor. It is purely a business contract, each side seeking to get as much out of the proposition as possible. Prom the point of view of the government, the administration of the system is very simple. The government does not need to erect costly buildings nor provide skilled administrators. A distributing station is all that is needed. Because of this fact, what the lessee pays to the government is nearly all "velvet." Alabama, for example, is said to have received $1,073,286.16 as gross earnings for the year ending September 10, 1912. ^ •The lease system was an outgrowth of the Civil War; General Ruger of the Federal Army, who was in charge of the Georgia government at one time during the period of reconstruction, made the first convict lease. The penitentiary had been burned during the war and with not much hope of obtaining adequate State revenues, leasing seemed an easy way out. A. J. McKelway, "Three Prison Systems of the Southern States of America," Penal and Reformatory Institutions, Correction and Prevention (Russell Sage Foundation, 1910), p. 71. 'See John Mitchell, "The Wage Earner and the Prison Worker,'" The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (March, 1913), p. 12. [156] PRISON LABOR When one comes, however, to examine its effect on the prisoners and the reflected effect on society, it may well be questioned whether after all this system, as has so often been said, is the best paying one of them all. Frightful tales of cruelty and neglect have in the past come out of the prison camps maintained by the lessees; shocking conditions discovered in them; and it is univer- sally agreed that government inspectors were unable to enforce the rather lax standards laid down in the con- tract. Since every unnecessary cent spent by the lessee on the prisoners would reduce his profits by that amount, onejwould naturally expect to find the minimum of existence supplied to the prisoners and the maximum of effort demanded from them. So bad have conditions been that the obvious abuse by Governor Donaghey of Arkansas of his pardoning power, in 1912 when he freed 360 convicts, was universally approved by the press of the country since it meant the ending of the lease system in that state. Viewed from the point of view of compe- tition with free labor, the system amounted to the rein- troduction of slavery. Fortunately, the lease-system is being rapidly given up. Only three states, so far as can be determined, now make use of it. ^ Prison labor under the lease system represents retributive punishment as well as the notion that brutal and degrading punishment forms the best defense of society. Ill treated and ex- ploited, in a vindictive frame of mind, the criminal returns to society a far greater menace than he was before the state punished him. The lease system is in part at least an outgrowth of that theory of the state which demands that the state undertake no economic 1 Alabama, Florida and North Carolina; see Hastings H. Hart, SocM Problems of Alabama (Russell Sage Foundation, 1918), p. 43. [157] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES activity which private individuals can be induced to take up. Under the contract system, the control of the prisoner remains in the hands of the government; the outside party, known now as the contractor, commands merely the prisoner's labor and the product of his labor. The government undertakes to house, feed, clothe and guard the prisoners; the private party however still employs them. The government builds a prison and workshops which it furnishes usually rent free to the contractor, sometimes even providing free power; the contractor brings in his machines and raw material. The govern- ment attends to the discipline and the contractor directs the work. The contractor pays the government so much per day for each prisoner employed. This divi- sion of control which leaves the prisoner in the hands of the government and the business itself in the hands of the contractor has the advantage that it does not require business ability on the part of the prison officials nor humanitarian impulses on the part of the contractor. A weakness, however, lies in this very division of control, as it gives rise to endless controversies between the two parties. The contract system requires much more from the government than does the lease system; it also costs more. The buildings are expensive and there are many salaries to pay in addition to the cost of main- tenance. The contractor, of course, pays more for the prisoners since he does not board them, than does the lessee; but as the government is a better provider the immediate financial gain to the state is not so large. ' Under the contract system the prisoners are not so much ' A short time ago an investigation of the contract labor system of a local prison in one of the New England States showed that the institution not only received no net return but was actually losing money, [1581 PRISON LABOR forced to work for less than a living wage as it is they are subsidized by the government. The competition with free labor is none the less unfair. The contract system is a great advance over the lease system and it has far greater possibilities for good in it. First of all, it represents a milder form of punishment. The pris- oner is assured of better treatment. His person, being under the control of pubUc authorities, is better cared for, although one must not infer that he is thereby adequately cared for. Still, there is not the same in- ducement shabbily to treat the prisoner as there is under the lease system where it is a matter of dollars and cents to the lessee. Secondly, the contract system offers some opportunity, unfortunately not often availed of, to bring to bear on the prisoner positive influences of a desirable character. If the length of the working day is not unduly prolonged, a live warden can accomplish much in the remaining hours not needed for sleep. Too often the faults of prison life is placed on the system of prison work when in reality the blame should rest squarely on the shoulders of the warden or rather perhaps on our citizens who are responsible for placing weak and sometimes criminally-minded men in charge of our insti- tutions and for the passage of laws interfering with or preventing proper prison administration. While this method of employing prisoners can not be looked upon as part of a reformative system, it does not, however, stand wholly in the way of such a system. The piece-price system represents a still further relax- ing of the control of private interests. As under the contract system, the government houses, feeds, clothes, and guards the prisoners. It furnishes also the work- shops. The difference between this system and the 11 [ 159 ] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES contract system lies in the fact that the contractor no longer employs the prisoners, paying the government so much per head for them; but the contractor furnishes the raw material and pays the government so much per piece for making it up. It is a return to what econo- mists call the domestic system. Sometimes the con- tractor sends men to direct and to inspect the work but these can not be considered as foremen responsible for production. All that has been said with respect to the contract system applies with equal force to this system with these two reservations; it eliminates to a great extent the conflict of authority between the con- tractor and the public authorities which existed under the contract system where, for example, the speeding up by the contractor would be a constant source of friction, and the piece-price system would give the prison authorities a greater opportunity to utilize the time of each prisoner as seemed to them best. Under the public-account system there is a clear-cut break with all private interest, unless one includes the general buying public in this category. The contractor is ousted from the prison entirely and the government represented by the prison authorities undertakes the r61e of producer, buying the raw material, setting the prisoners to work on it, marketing the produce and in short becoming an entrepreneur itself with all that that implies with respect to the securing of capital, the directing of the enterprise and the assumption of risk.* Manifestly this system calls for a business man at the head of the prison if it is to be anything like as suc- • An excellent example is Minnesota. The state prison of this state pro- duces binder twine and agricultural machinery. Farming on an enormous scale is carried on by several of the southern states, as North Carolina, South CaroUna, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. [160] PRISON LABOR cessful financially as either the lease, the contract or the piece-price system. It puts a greater strain on our polit- ical system demanding from it exactly those qualities of business enterprise which socialism would demand. So far as the relations of prison labor to free labor are con- cerned it is hard to see where there is any improvement. If ^anything can be derived from the sale of the manu- factured articles over and above the cost of the raw material and the wear and tear on machinery, it is a gain for the government, not of course over the profit which could be derived from any one of the other sys- tems but since the government must support the pris- oners, it is better to get some economic return from them than nothing at all. The government can, therefore, if it wishes to do so, put the products on the market cheaper than any private manufacturer. The one great advan- tage of this system, at least theoretically, is that the government, unlike the private contractor in that it does not have to make every decision turn on the ques- tion of gain or loss, is more free to undertake work which will be of some real value to the prisoner. One must not forget, however, that the prison must function under the eye of the public and the deliberate selection of non- paying, or at least poorly paying, lines of business for prison work can only be possible when the public have been educated to the point where they are willing to see the prison industries run at a loss if it means the refor- mation of the offender. The system does not of itself imply pimishment for the purpose of reformation ; it can be made as foolish, as monotonous or as cruel as when the work is performed under a contractor or lessee. In several of the southern states, where farming is carried on on a large scale, there is at the present time grave [ 161 ] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES danger that the desire for income may postpone for a long period the introduction of reform measvires. The State-use system^ of employing prisoners is that system under which the government itself undertakes the work of production and then in its capacity of con- sumer, either directly or indirectly, uses all the goods which it has thus created. It differs from the pubUc- account system only in the fact that the goods are not sold upon the open market but are taken by the state or its various divisions of government or by their respective institutions. The organization of the State-use system is under some circumstances very simple but may become under other conditions the most complex of them all, depend- ing in general on the number of producing prisons and the number of consuming institutions or customers. In the business world, the manufacturer who makes goods for the general market makes all the decisions relating to styles, designs, and problems of production. But it must be remembered that the prisons are, under this system, not producing for the general market but for customers who mmt buy, for, while not allowing the goods to be sold on the open market, the state govern- ment usually binds itself and its political subdivisions by law not to purchase elsewhere so long as the prison or prisons can fill the orders.^ The number of buyers may therefore be very large and naturally those who must buy wish to have a hand in deciding the styles and designs of the goods. One phase of the problem • See Employment and Compensation of Prisoners in Pennsylvania (1915), pp. 42-49, written for the Commission by the author and quoted freely, but with many changes, in this and the following paragraphs on the State- use system. ' Pennsylvania has not bound itself and as a result has not been able to find a, market sufficiently large to keep all its men employed. [162] PRISON LABOR consists, then, in getting the consumers to agree before- hand on the kind of goods which they want, and to put in their orders some time in advance. On the other hand, if there are several prisons, all producing goods, there is the further problem of running them as a whole and of dealing with the consuming interests as a unit. Now to carry out successfully the details of any one of the other systems previously described does not de- mand the cooperation of the penal institutions in which prisoners may be working. But the State-use system means a system in which all producing institutions within a state are fairly well articulated, and for this reason the local prisons on account of their great num- bers are usually not included in the State-use system of a state but are left either to work their prisoners, if they see fit under another system or to set up what might be termed a county- or municipal-use system of their own. The state often compels, however, the local units of government together with their institutions to purchase the goods made in the state institutions. So in describ- ing the State-use system, we shall limit the discussion for the most part to the employment of the State-use system by the state governments within state institu- tions. Even with this limitation, the difficulty of under- standing the system is great on account of the diversity of management. The management of prisons differs greatly from state to state and is more fully discussed in Chapter XIII. For the purposes of this discussion, however, all minor differences may be omitted and attention focused on two diverse forms — ^whether the management is central- ized or decentralized. In some states each institution has its own board of managers or trustees; in others all [1631 PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES are under one board. There are, moreover, two forms of centralized management. The central board may have control merely of the prisons or it may also manage other state institutions as hospitals, asylums, etc. Let us now consider some forms of organization of the State-use system illustrative of what has been said. Probably the simplest situation is where prisoners are employed in growing vegetables or in making clothing for themselves or in repairing or constructing buildings forming a part of the institution in which they are con- fined. No goods are sold to other institutions or to any of the units of government; everything is used on the spot. As the work is that which naturally belongs to an institution, there can here be no problem of whether it ought to have been assigned to this or to another prison. The consuming group is also the producing group, a fact which renders unnecessary the existence of two authorities, one charged with the problems of pro- duction and one with the decisions of what to produce. Comparatively simple also is the case of a prison which furnishes one or two products, as coal and coke, to other institutions. Although outside tastes have now to be consulted, the nature of the commodity does not permit of wide variations and consumers must take what is produced. We may next consider the situation which is presented when there are several producing prisons, all, however, controlled by one board which also controls all the other state institutions, the second form of centralized management mentioned in the pre- ceding paragraph. Although very much expanded, this situation differs not at all from the case of the insti- tution producing for its own needs. No machinery is necessary in addition to the managing board. Since it [164] PRISON LABOR controls all the prisons, it can apportion the industries among them; and since it is also responsible for the proper running of all the consuming institutions it may be left to determine the styles and designs of the goods to be produced. If, however, state departments and local governments are compelled to buy from the prisons, then some sort of a board representing these additional consumers, as indicated below, needs to be created. The case is somewhat different when the board which controls each of the prisons does not con- trol the other institutions of the state, each of which may conceivably be under its own board. What is necessary in this case is an organization representing these non-prison institutions and other buying agencies to confer with the board managing the prisons (and consequently in charge of the production of the goods), determining in the main the kind of goods which they will be willing to buy. Complete decentralization of management offers the greatest difficulties of organiza- tion. Some degree of centraUzation of management is really inevitable since there must be some one authority to say to the various prisons which commodities each shall produce. This may very easily bring the newly created organization into direct conflict with the individual boards of management, as questions in regard to the division of the state appropriation and to the erection of additional buildings are certain to come up. With complete decentralization, the first problem is to do away with it, at least in part.i The second problem is to form an organization representing all the non-producing institutions or customers, the ' Bee law of Pennsylvania under which State-use system was established, 1915, P. L. 656. [165] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES duty of which will be, as has already been pointed out, to determine what kind of goods they will be willing to buy. Complete decentralization of manage- ment calls, therefore, for two additional sets of machin- ery, one of which is pretty certain to come into conflict, sooner or later, with the existing boards of management. With customers guaranteed to the prisons by the state, the success of this system would seem to be insured. As a matter of fact, the complicated organ- ization, which is necessary in many states, weighs heavily against it. The controlling element must have not only good business ability but know some- thing also of the pursuasive art of diplomacy. The guaranteed market must, after all, be worked up and the customers, who quite humanly object to the narrowing of their market must be kept in good humor. Of all the systems, this one requires for its financial success the highest type of officials. From the point of view of simpUcity of machinery the public-account system is undoubtedly preferable. The State-use system has, however, won the approval of the labor unions. In the reports of legislative hearings much space has been taken by their representa- tives in showing that competition under the State-use system is very greatly reduced, if not entirely elim- inated. Their attitude has undoubtedly had much to do with the introduction of the system, since their influence in politics can not be neglected. The validity of their arguments may well be questioned. Keeping prison- made goods off the general market may in a certain sense be said to eliminate competition, but the closing of a good market for the products of free labor, which [1661 PRISON LABOR the State-use system entails, may produce as disastrous results in the ranks of free labor as would have come from the unrestricted sale of prison-made goods. It makes little difference in the long run whether the market for non-prison goods is reduced by competition with prison-made goods or by legislative action. With absolutely no interferences on the part of private contractors or lessees on the one hand or by the general buying pubUc with its established trade prejudices in the matter of purchasing on the other, it is sometimes argued that the State-use system gives a greater opportunity to the prisons to make the work truly reformative in character. It probably has no advantage in this respect over the public-account system. Perhaps a truer portrayal of the situation is to say that because of the difficulty of organ- izing the State-use system there is less work for the prisoner to do, and thus more time can be devoted to his education and training. The State-use system is, at least, an interesting experiment in socialism and may possibly give us either a key to the organization of the socialistic state of the future or arguments against it. When the prisoners are employed mainly in erecting public buildings or in constructing highways or in similar work where the purpose is to add to the durable possessions of the state, they are said to be working under the public-works-and-ways system. In reality this is but a special form of the State-use system. The employment of prisoners, on works of the character indicated does, however, give rise to some special problems which serve passing notice. In the first place the prisoners must be brought to the work, not the work to the prisoners. When one job is completed [167] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES the prisoners must move on to the next. Anything like permanent quarters are not possible. The question of guarding is immediately brought to the front. The spectacle of men working in chains or under heavy guard is anything but a pleasing sight on the road.* Nor does the honor system offer a wholly satisfactory alternative, since usually only selected groups of prisoners can thus be utilized. Moreover, temporary camps do not provide good opportunities for the applica- tion of those positive influences which we hope to see become more and more a part of prison treatment. On the other hand, it is being pointed out that it is easier to secure appropriations for this kind of work than for most any other kind. This fact, in view of the history of prison appropriations, may well weigh heavily in its favor. The improvement in health which usually follows work in the open air is another great argument for such employment. It is particularly suited for the South where the prolongation of the warm season makes it possible to live in easily erected temporary quarters for most of the year. As has been said, the public-works-and-ways system is but a form of the State-use system and it is the form which local prisons have found they could really use to advantage. Under this system, arrangements are preferably made with the State Highway Department, but often with local officials, to plan and supervise the work.* • See Charles Richmond Henderson, Outdoor Labor for Conmcts, a Report to the Governor of Illinois (1907), p. xii. 2 For a good account of the employment of prisoners on roads in northern states, see Sydney Wilmot, "Emplojnnent of Convict Labor on Road Construction in Northern States,'' Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science in the City of New York, Vol. IV, Number 2 (January 8, 1914). For a more general account, see Road Making by Convict Labor, Bulletin No. 1 of National Free Labor Association (1913). [168] PRISON LABOR As has already been said in discussing the State-use system, the possibility of conflict between the prison authorities and the group representing the consuming interests is ever present. At the present time, the general public is greatly interested in improving the roads, in draining swamps, in reforesting devastated areas, and in all sorts of similar projects. Prisoners seem to many Uke laborers sent by Providence to do this work cheaply, and probably much more of it will be done in the future, though it is by no means a perfect solution of the problem. There are two ideas which are bound to counteract this drift. One is the objection already referred to of working men in chains or to working them in the open under heavy guard, and the other is the growth of the probation system which wiU operate to restrict the sending of those men to prison who will work without guards or who are not in need of institutional care. It must not be inferred from anything that has been said that all prisoners within a single state are nec- essarily employed under the same system. The tendency is in this direction, it must be admitted, but on the other hand, we often find that prisoners are employed in one institution under at least two different systems. In every prison, the inmates are employed in caring for the buildings, cooking, cleaning, etc. Such work must be grouped under the State-use system, though it is usually spoken of as unproductive work and those engaged in it not counted as under any system. But prisoners of one have been employed under the State-use and public-account systems, State- use and contract systems, contract and lease systems. There is a constant change from one system to another [169] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES going on in the country and sometimes the change is back to a system formerly used. Some idea of the use in the past of the various systems in the United States may be obtained from the following table based on figures taken from reports of the United States Commissioner of Labor :i Total engaged in productive work Number Per cent Number ,Per cent Number Per cent Number Per cent Number Per cent Nimaber Ways \Per cent Public-account . , Contract Piece-price Lease State-use Public Works and Year. 1886' 45,277 14,827 32.8 15,670 34.6 5,676 12.5 9,104 20.1 1895 38,415= 13,410< 34.9 10,5995 27.59 7,5376 19.61 6,869' 17.88 1903» 51,172.2 8,530.4 16.7 16,915.9 33.1 3,886.7 7.6 3,651.7 7.1 12,004.5 22.4 6,144 12. 1914' 1 It ia impossible to make exact comparisons. The report for the year 1886 (p. 4) says that the inquiry "reached all penal institutions of all grades in all the states and territories and the District of Columbia in which the inmates are in any degree employed in productive labor." The report for the year 1895 deals with prisons of the grade of state penitentiaries (p. 443) ; and omits the figures for the states of Delaware, Idaho, Montana, Utah and Wyoming because no productive labor was carried on in the prisons of these states in 1886. On the other hand, we find that it was decided in obtaining the data for the 1905 report that (p. 12) "no effort should be made to secure data from any institution in which the value of the productive labor was less than $1000 during the year preceding the investigation." The report for the year 1914 is so incomplete that it is useless to quote the figures. Furthermore, in the reports of 1886 and 1895, the figures for the public-account system included those working under the State-use and the public works and ways systems. 3 Total numbers and nximber employed under each system given in The Second Annual Report o] the CommUsimieT of Labor (Washington, 1886), p. 287. 'Bulletin of the Department of Labor, No. 5 (Washington, July, 1896), p. 458. * Ibid., p. 464. » Ibid., p. 456. »Ibid., p. 456. J Ibid., p. 458. e Twentteth Annual Report of the Commiaaioner ofl Some of these statutes have been held to be unconstitutional because they interfered with interstate commerce. See Federal and State Laws Relating to Convict Labor, Senate Document, No. 494, 63d Congress, 2d Session, p. 33. [1731 PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES times required to sell prison goods, thus making it unprofitable to handle them, or the sale of prison goods in the open market may be absolutelj^ forbidden. The interference on the side has also taken numerous forms. Production has been restricted to certain specified industries or diversification has been com- pelled by restricting the number of prisoners that can be employed in any one industrj''. A ban has been placed on the use of power machinery in order to reduce the amoimt produced and in one state at least the total number of prisoners that could be employed was fixed by a law.* The length of the working day has been curtailed. It must not be supposed that each state has all these restrictions. Some indeed have none; others may have but a few of those named. Pennsylvania is an excellent illustration of the attempt to eliminate com- petition by legal enactments of this sort. In 1883, the branding of prison-made goods was required; in 1891, the length of the working day was fixed at eight hours; in 1897, the use of the machines operated by any power other than hand or foot was prohibited; a percentage diversification was made compulsory and the total number of prisoners that could be used in producing goods for sale was restricted to 35 per cent of their number. Any restrictions are a serious interference, as indeed they are meant to be, with the industrial side of prisons. Another form of restriction, more just to the prisons, consists in a forced shift from one system of prison labor to another. These legal restrictions are not, however, sufficient to account for the poor showing of the prisons industrially; > Pennsylvania. [174] PRISON LABOR nor can it be said that a regard for the prisoner and an interest in his training have stood in the way of prison production. The plain truth is that, as a rule, prison industries have been conducted either in a bungling fashion that would have brought absolute ruin to a private producer, or else some private interest has reaped the profit. Here, too, there has been improve- ment. In 1900, it was thought there was no system, other than the lease or contract, that could be made to produce a revenue to the state over and above the expense of keeping the prisoners.^ There are now several institutions not operating under the lease or contract system, which are not only self-supporting but which turn in a surplus to the state.^ Out of the years of experimentation in the employ- ment of prisoners, certain principles have emerged greatly at variance with those once held by the public. In the first place, it is now well understood that prison- ers are not to be worked or exploited for the benefit of private interests. Some years ago a company which had contracts with several prisons advertised this fact as an advantage to the investor, on the ground that it constituted a special advantage which other manufacturers did not possess. Today a public advertisement of this kind would probably bring the company into great disrepute. Secondly, the objections to state-conducted enterprises are rapidly disappearing, a fact which opens the way to the absolute control by a government of its prisoners. Thirdly, the products of prison labor are not to be ' Report of the Industrial Commission on Prison Labor (1900), III, p, 60. ' Minnesota State Prison, Mississippi Penitentiary Farms, Texas Farms, Louisiana Farms, South Carolina Farms and West Virginia State Peni- tentiary are examples. 12 [1751 PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES thrown on the market in such a way as violently to disturb conditions of labor existing on the outside. The reasoning on this point has not been wholly clear, as has already been pointed out, but the results of the efforts to prevent competition, while disastrous in some instances, has helped to force a wiser solution of the prison labor problem. Lastly, there is a great and growing insistence that prison labor be educative in nature and of the kind which will promote character building. Mention was made that possibly our ordinary public schools could learn much from observ- ing the work in the best of our institutions for juvenile offenders, and in the emphasis that labor shall mean something uplifting to the prisoner there is a thought that can well be carried out into the world of free labor. It is not so difficult to forecast the probable nature of prison labor when we take into consideration the changes which are taking place in the character of the institutions themselvies. The use of state industrial farms for the confinement of those now in jails, the change from city to country in the location of new state prisons, ;»penitentiaries and reformatories, the purchase of farms to be run in conjunction with penal institutions now located in the city, all point to the self-sufficing penal institutions as the type of the future. The work of the -institution will be in the main for the satisfaction of its own people, although arrangements will have to be- made for the sale, either under the pubHc-accoimt or the State-use system, of any surplus products. This method of employing prisoners is of course a form of the State-use system, but on account of the fact that the institution under this system will use most of its own products, it should be considered 1176] PRISON LABOR as a seventh system and known as the self-sufficing system of prison labor. The scheme has much in its favor. Nearly all of the ordinary mechanical trades can be taught as a part of the work routine of the institution and the tasks made educational in the highest degree. Such competition as exists will be for the most part indirect and not noticeable. There will always be plenty to do, if the population of the insti- tution is not allowed to increase to the point where the direction of the prison workers becomes complicated. It gives, too, the warden or superintendent a chance to use his wits freely in developing the institution, as the hampering effect of outside interests, whether contrac- tors or purchasers of goods, is not to be lightly disre- garded. It has the fewest objections and most advantages of any scheme yet tried, though probably there will be some trouble in working out a proper wage system, if there is not a steady flow of money coming to the institution from the sale of manufactured products. Prisons should be laboratories for testing out our theories of vocational education. It is peculiarly necessary to find the right work for a prisoner, for, if he can not be definitely placed in industry on his release, there is great likelihood that he will return to crime. No state can afford to neglect this opportunity to protect itself and to save a man. 1771 CHAPTER IX COMPENSATION OF PRISONERS THE idea that prisoners should be paid wages is probably derived from the early English practice of paying laborers in workhouses. It will be recalled that work was provided in these institutions under what we now call the pubUc-account system for the unemployed of the parishes. Those for whom work was thus found were paid. Now the loss of distinc- tion between workhouses and houses of correction, to which attention was called in Chapter IV, resulted, for example, in the passage by Massachusetts in 1699 of a law' providing for houses of correction, in which provision for the payment of wages to inmates is distinctly made. In other words, with pubUc opinion totally confused as to the proper functions of the two institutions, it was an easy step from the payment of wages to those who, not finding work, came voluntarily to the workhouse, to the pajonent of idle and dissolute individuals who had been sentenced to work in the house of correction. Pennsylvania seems to have the honor of being the first state in the Union to provide for the payment of prisoners in other than houses of correction. The laws of 1790,2 as has been related in the preceding chapter, set up the pubUc-account system, and also ^ May 31, 1699, Chap. V, p. 110. ^Sm.L.,BSl,See.l7. [178] COMPENSATION OF PRISONERS sketdied out in some detail a plan for the pajTnent of prisoners. A separate account was to be kept with each prisoner, and he was to be paid one half of any surplus remaining after deducting the cost of raw materials and the expenses of his maintenance. Although some recognition was thus early accorded in Amaica to the rights of a prisoner to a i)art of the products of his labor, it has not been until recently that this subject of compensation of prisoners has claimed a very wide attention. * It is not yet, by any means, clear just what imprisonment does or should involve. Hitherto it has been taken for granted that in addition to the forfeiture of civil rights* imprison- ment meant that economically the prisono" became for the dme bdng the slave of the state which might, if it saw fit, set him at work, retaining in its treasury what- ever of profit might thereby arise. Latdy this idea of imprisonment has been questioned in a court of law' and while it has been upheld, the ethics of the question still remain unsettled. The large number of practical considerations, which even thou^ the right and the wrong of the matter could be decided would still have to be considered, create further perplexities, and, as we shall see, a ntmiba" of social as weQ as purely pen- *One of tie tasks oi the PenngylTania Penal Commisaon, created in 1913, was the consid^ation of wages for prisoners. On pp. TS-ST of the teport of this commisaon may be fonnd a surrey of what was b^ng dcme in 1913 in the vsrieus states. There has recently appeared in the Jou.~:l!2 ofOii American Ir.stiiuie of C~iminal Lct-t and Cr '-"!'•;<: 7br(lination of parole work in State and County institutions. Tho Board is fully sympathetio with tho independent spirit of the counties aivd flic desire of oncli of tlicni to transact its business in its own way. Although it rcoomniciula the owtablisliraont of county parole boards, to be composed of two county officials and ono member of the Board, it recog- nizes to its fullest extent the spirit of local independence by incorporating in its rcooniiiiondation a provision leaving the control and deciding voice with the county ofliciii I h. Tho establishment of such boards will make for uniformity of treatment of inmates of all the penal institutions of tho Commonwealth withmib disturbing the local authority." Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Prisons of Massachusetts (1917), p. 27. [229] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES branch of the government/ then handed back in part to the judiciary through the minimum and maximum sentence laws, taken from them again and turned over to prison authorities and, later, in some instances put into the hands of an independent board or commission of parole, grasped at by the chief executive, this power to determine the length of sentence, a power which ought clearly to be exercised under all due legal re- straint, safeguarded in every way that the liberty of no individual may be unduly infringed, is still a prize to be fought for by all branches of the government. An examination of the organization of parole boards of the various states, which usually do not concern jail prisoners, would show not merely the influence of the three ideas, graduation from institution, control by chief executive, control by separate board, — and some- times, let it be said, all three have come to an ex- pression in the composition of a single board, — but there could be seen also, probably in nearly every case, the imprint of the form of management of penal institu- tions which prevails in the particular state imder con- sideration. ^ In a state, for example, where the institutions are under decentralized control, the parole board is quite apt to be of a somewhat different composition than in a state where all the penal institu- tions are under the control of one group. Taking all these points into consideration, the possibilities, or let us say the combinations in the composition of a parole board are numerous. In Arizona, for instance, there is a board of pardons and paroles, composed of the attorney general, the super- } See Chap. II, pp. 25-27. 2 See Chap. XIII, Management of Prisons. [230] THE PAROLE SYSTEM intendent of public instruction and one citizen, who recommend to the governor not merely those whom they feel are eligible to parole, but also those whom they consider should be pardoned or who should receive a commutation of sentence. In Illinois, the granting of paroles and the supervision of those paroled are in the hands of a superintendent of pardons and paroles, an official in the Department of PubUc Welfare. The action of this official must in turn be vised by the governor of the state. In West Virginia the parole board recommends to the governor who grants the parole. 1 The same is true in Pennsylvania, though the recommendations are made by the parole boards attached to each institution. In the Federal prisons, the local parole boards make recommendations to the attorney general. In Indiana, the board of trustees of both the Jeffersonville reformatory and the state prison constitutes the board of parole, a method quite common where decentralized management persists. The experience with the parole system has been too short to give any clear indication of what should be the composition of a parole board. A few guiding principles can, however, be laid down tentatively. In the first place, it seems certain that the more training an institution has to offer, the greater weight it should have in the granting of parole. Nothing can be more detrimental to the order of an institution which has a definite course of instruction or discipline, call it what you will, to offer and which holds up conditional freedom as the reward for the completion of a course. 1 In 1919, the parole board so recommended 152 applications and of these the Governor paroled 130. Fifth Biennial Report of the West Virginia State Board of Control (1919), V, Part 1, p. 218. [231] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES than the releasing on parole by an outside authority of men who have not completed the course. To all the other prisoners, not good work within the institution but "influence" without must seem the pass to free- dom. If, on the other hand, the institution is an institution of the old sort, there seems to be little or no reason why a state board functioning separately from the authorities controlling the institution, should not make the decision as to the proper time to place on parole, making the institution one of the sources of information in regard to the prisoner and weighing the information according to the character of the institu- tion.' This would be a parole system, as previously described, made up of a period of imprisonment, that is, punishment in the old sense plus supervision on release which might or might not partake of the nature of probation. The question also arises why the power to grant release on parole and the task of supervision need be lodged in the same hands. Assuming an ideal parole system, might it not be wise to leave in the hands of the institution the power to determine release and to leave to a board organized on a state-wide basis the work of supervising released prisoners. A scheme of this kind would have much to recommend it. It would leave the institution, unhampered by outside authorities, free to make release a certain and necessary condition of the completion of the course of discipline, and yet it would have the advantage of turning over the man to a new group working from another point of view, unpreju- diced by previous contact and with the work of super- ' The author has seen some county institutions where for a prisoner to have a good reputation would seem to be a positive objection to his release. [232] THE PAROLE SYSTEM vision as its sole task. The parallel between the parohng of prisoners and the placing out of dependent children should be emphasized. The latter has become a skilled job in which men have gained reputations as child experts, and there is absolutely every reason why the placing out of prisoners and their supervision afterwards should not come likewise to be recognized as a task fit only for the expert. A board organized to do this and nothing else might well relinquish its right to determine the time of release from the institution, though manifestly there should be the closest co- operation between the board and the institution. If the preparatory training and discipline in many institutions is lamentably weak, we may scarcely expect to see this remedied by careful placing out and adequate supervision afterwards, for it is only the institution that has made a genuine effort to reclaim its men that is sufficiently interested to agitate for proper supervision. The supervision of paroled prison- ers is sometimes said to be the weakest part of the parole system, and without subscribing in any way to this beUef, since a good preparation within the institu- tion for release is fully as important, we would have little hesitation in acknowledging it as very weak indeed. After a careful survey of this feature of the parole system, a recent writer states that "The sum spent on supervision annually varies from $1.00 to $6.00 per man; the ratio of parole officers to men in their charge, from 1 : 40 to 1 : 800."i Probably we should find that the small expenditure >B. W. Brown, "Parole an Institution of the Future," Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology (May, 1915), p. 65. [233] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES per man and the large number of paroled prisoners to parole officers is much the more typical of our present conditions. In the report of one institution, the warden complained that he had no parole officer at all, the former one having died the year before. Supervision is, take it the country over, a matter of obtaining a few reports. This answers the question so eagerly put by those interested in modern methods of treating prisoners, namely, what per cent of paroled prisoners make good on parole. Few officials can withstand the desire to make out a plausible case for this new method of preventing crime and so they "estimate" the per- centage that are doing well, usually anywhere from 85 is to 95 per cent. It is hard to reconcile these figures with the high percentage of those who have had previous prison experience that can be found in almost any prison population. ^ In placing the proper value on statements as to number that have turned out well on parole, it might be well always to learn first the proportion of prisoners on parole to parole officers. While the tendency seems to be toward placing pa- roled prisoners under the oversight of some kind of a state board, it should be understood that the custom has been in the past for the parole officer to be a mem- ber of the administrative staff of the institution. Some little attempt has been made to use county and munici- pal officers. In Idaho, for example, the sheriffs act as parole officers, and in Louisiana the law requires the paroled convict to notify the sheriff of the parish in which he takes up his residence and that officer is '"Of six hundred and eight routine admiasions to Sing Sing, four hun- dred and six were recidivists." ^Bernard Glueck, "Recent Progress in Determining the Nature of Crime and the Character of Criminals," Pro- ceedings of the National Conference on Social Work (1917), p. 580. [234] THE PAROLE SYSTEM thereby constituted his parole officer; in other states parole officers depend to some extent on sheriffs for information as to conduct of paroled men. If super- vision is to be nothing more than the keeping track of a man, then the sheriffs, especially in rural communities, police in urban, might very well undertake this work; but the good aimed at in the matter of supervision is one not apt to be attained by the average sheriff or police officer. The chaplain of a prison, the man of all works, has often been given this job of looking after released prisoners; but, if not he, then some other officer is designated the parole officer or a new appoint- ment made to take care of this work. One very strong reason for the creation of state boards of parole lies in the fact that where there are several institutions in a state paroling offenders, a great gain in efficiency, especially in the saving of car-fare, results from districting the state and confining the activities of a parole official to one particular district. In Illinois, the state has been divided into nine divisions, and in Louisiana, the parole district has been made to coincide with the Congressional district. This cannot, of course, be done when parole officers are on the staffs of institutions. It has also been proposed to place paroled prisoners under the control of probation officers. Granted a well-developed probation system, there could be no objection to this, but as probation is as much in the embryonic state as is parole work, there would be need of finding out, not only in every state but in each county of the state, whether there was actually a probation organization in existence capable of doing the work. When judges parole prisoners from county jails, the work of supervision is carried on [2351 PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES in much the same fashion as if they had been placed on probation in the first place, the man being made directly responsible to the court itself. In some states, a "first friend" is made a necessary condition of release on parole, and where such is the case they may be considered as assistants of the parole officer. The parent or "first friend" who receives a youth from a school for boys near Grafton, West Virginia, is required to give a bond for $100 to secure the faithful per- formance of the parole contract, in order that there may be no loss to the institution in case the prisoner violates his parole. Volunteer parole officers and organizations have been used, though as in the case of volunteer probation officers the enthusiasm for the work does not usually last. In New York, Phila- delphia and Baltimore, the Prison Association, a private organization, has looked after paroled men and has done creditable work.' The development of standards in supervision is essential, and there is much that is now being done by parole boards in Massachu- setts, New Jersey, and in New York City that looks encouraging. The dependence of good work with paroled prisoners on good work with the same men prior to their release ought to be self-evident. While a man is serving his minimum, there is ample time for the institution to get together in most cases a pretty complete record covering different aspects of his previous life. The institution itself should offer a splendid opportunity for finding out much about the man that would be 'Howard C. Hill, "Medico-Legal Services of Prisoners' Aid Societies,'' Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law (jmd Criminology (No- vember, 1920), pp. 433-439. f236] THE PAROLE SYSTEM extremely useful to those charged with his oversight while on parole. Physical and mental examinations, observations of the individual by competent scientists over long periods of time, would likewise yield informa- tion of the utmost importance to one interested in placing a particular individual where he would stand some chance of getting on. A man well-placed is already more than half-saved. With all the facts in his possession, a parole officer would know how much and what kind of attention should be given to each individual, and finally be in a position to be of some service to a man.^ Often, so great is the pressure for room in the institution that the majority are paroled without question at expiration of minimum sentence. Sometimes notice of recommendation for parole is required to be published in home newspapers, as in Ohio. By law, some of the recently created state boards of parole are required to obtain information of various kind as a basis for granting parole. The Minnesota law states, for example, that the board, while not required to hear oral arguments from any person not connected with the institution, "may insti- tute inquiries by correspondence, taking testimony or » "Readiness for parole, then, depends on something much more funda^ mental than good conduct in the institution. The inmate should be paroled when, because of his progress in the institution, he is considered ripe for trial in the community, or when the point of saturation has been reached. It is like filling a jar with jam. The jam will shrink a little and you may add a little, but there comes a time when any addition to its contents trickles down on the outside — a good thing wasted! Such cases should be tried on parole, not because they have done well, but because they apparently can- not benefit further by remaining in the institution. These seeming failures often make good on parole. Their nervous make-up is such that they do not thrive under institution conditions. I am not speaking of the mani- festly custodial cases, who do not belong in a reformatory institution, though most training schools are at present clogged with them." Edith N. Burleigh, "The Future of Parole," Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology (May, 1920), p. 61. [237] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES otherwise, as to the previous history, physical or mental condition, and character of such prisoner. . . ."' But it does not seem that a state board would ever be in as good a position to decide a case on merit as a well- equipped institution. But here again, the question of who shall grant the parole depends upon the nature of the institution. In dealing with the problem of releasing men from prison, one should not pass over the work of volunteer societies, which long ago perceived that the sudden thrusting forth into the world of men kept for years behind bars, without friends or without the means of obtaining an honest livelihood, was a poor way of restoring an erring member to society. Homes now exist in many cities to which discharged prisoners are free to go until some provision can be made for their placement. Very often some form of industry is carried on, partly to keep the men employed and partly to help defray the cost of running the establishment. Both the American Volunteers and the Salvation Army have been active in the work, and there are several other smaller agencies or organizations supporting the same cause. With the growth of parole work there has been some reaction against any arrangement for taking care of discharged prisoners in a group, the thought being that a man should go immediately to a job upon his release from prison, having no further contact with former associates. No doubt this would be best, but until the parole system has been developed to a point where this is possible for every discharged prisoner, the volunteer organizations should be encouraged and supported in their work. ^Lawa of 1911, Chapter 298— S. F. No. 9, §6. [238] THE PAROLE SYSTEM The possibilities in the use of volunteer parole officers have by no means been exhausted. In a society more completely organized on an industrial basis than is ours at the present time, much might be accompUshed by turning the individual back to the economic group from which he came, under the oversight of the officers of that organization. Labor unions have furnished trade instructors to prisons in New York and New Jersey and have allowed the training in prison to count on the years of apprenticeship necessary to learn th,e trade. They have given sincere evidence of their desire to help the men when released, even going to the extent of taking them immediately into the union. Farmers' organizations might similarly be induced to assume charge of released prisoners who expected to take up farming. Would not such groups be able to do far more in steadying a man than a parole officer, however good, who must spend his time flitting back and forth among his charges? The influence of work- mates would surely be more powerful than that exerted spasmodically, as it must necessarily be, of a parole officer. Still another means of utilizing volunteers is that recently tried out on a small scale by the Massachusetts Reformatory for Women.i Under the authority of an old law, enacted years before parole was thought of, women were placed out as cooks, laundresses, and housemaids. While paid for their services, they were not allowed to receive their earnings; nor were they given control over their own time. The employer » Jessie D. Hodder, "Indenture of Prisoners: An Experiment," Journal of Vie American Inslitute of Criminal Law and Criminology (May, 1920), pp. 29-32. 16 [ 239 ] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES acted as supervising agent. Good results were obtained under this scheme; and there seems no reason why the plan could not be further developed along the lines found so successful in handling the insane at Gheel. Providing regular inspection was made of the homes to prevent abuses and to straighten out little tangles, it would seem far better to indenture criminals who would thus become an integral part of a household, than to keep them cooped up in large numbers in an estabUshment for any length of time. Release from parole is accompHshed in several ways, depending, of course, upon the organization of the parole system as a whole. Theoretically, when serving an indeterminate sentence, a man is still imder the control of the state until his maximum sentence expires. Actually, he is seldom visited or called upon to make reports during the full time intervening between his release and the expiration of the maximum sentence. In Illinois, according to the law, a released prisoner is required to report monthly for the first two years, quarterly for the third and fourth, semi-annually for the fifth and annually thereafter. In Louisiana, paroled men may apply at the end of a year for a change in the conditions of parole. In Georgia, a state which operates without an indeterminate sentence law, the prison commission may recommend to the governor that a man who has been on parole twelve months be pardoned. Sometimes the board that grants the parole has the right to terminate the parole before the expira- tion of the maximum sentence. Not sufficient attention is paid to this detail. Lack of parole officers has meant in many states a brief period of formal reports from the released man and then his disappearance without [240] THE PAROLE SYSTEM discharge of any kind. It would seem that the formal setting free would in many cases be a final lesson of genuine value to the individual. Even at its worst, the paroling of offenders marks a step in advance, for this method of releasing men, as has been said, is far superior to the old way in that there is some attempt on the part of public authorities to assist the man as he leaves prison. In addition, there is the same fine opportunity as exists when a man is on probation, to work with the paroled man as an individual, helping him so to readjust his life that he will be an asset instead of a liability to the community. Our institutions, however, must be brought to the point where they will prepare a man for parole, if success is to crown the efforts of the parole officer. [241] CHAPTER XII OTHER FORMS OF PUNISHMENT IMPRISONMENT, probation and parole are not the only methods of caring for convicted criminals in the United States. Three forms of punishment — putting to death, flogging, and fining, each of which historically antedates the use of imprisonment — ^are still practiced in this country. There has been, too, a sHght use of steriHzation, and certain civil disabihties follow, too, as a matter of course, imprisonment on a criminal charge. Capital Punishment One of the oldest forms of punishment for crime, as well as one of the commonest prior to the beginning of the nineteenth century, is capital punishment, that is, putting a man to death. It would be impossible to sketch even in outline the evolution of capital punish- ment, so far back in time do its beginnings lie. But it is easy to recall the tragic fate of Socrates condemned to drink the poisonous hemlock, the slaughtering of criminals in the Roman arena and the burning of heretics at the stake during the Middle Ages. In England under Henry VIII there were, it is said, two hundred and sixty-three crimes pimishable by death. Men, women and even children were executed for offenses so trivial that we, who have grown accus- [242] OTHER FORMS OF PUNISHMENT tomed to milder laws, find it hard to understand how lieople of those days could have endured so bloody a regime.' Fortunately, the harshness of the English laws did not appeal to the American settlers. In most of the New England colonies, twelve offenses only were made punishable by death.^ In East Jersey, the death penalty could be imposed for thirteen.' To the fact that many of the early colonists had been made to feel the severity of English laws for their religious beliefs, we may perhaps attribute the limitation of the death penalty in the colonies. Starting in the later part of the eighteenth century, a movement to insure milder treatment of the criminal began, influencing in a marked degree the laws relating to crimes. In 1788, Ohio, followed by Pennsylvania in 1794, limited the death penalty to murder.^ By 1838, Rhode Island had reduced the number of crimes punishable by death from ten to two, murder and arson.^ This movement progressed in the states steadily though unevenly, and has finally resulted in the abolition of the death penalty in twelve* states and to limiting its use •Joseph CoUinson, "Facts About Flogging," Humanitarian League Pamphlet (1902), p. 1. Blackstone places the number in hia time at 160. See Blackstone Commentaries (Lewis's Edition, 1902), p. 1437. ' Raymond T. Bye, Capital Punishment in the United States (Philadelphia: Committee on Philanthropic Labor of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends, 1919), p. 2. • The crimes for which the death penalty could be imposed were murder, perjury, buggery, sodomy, abduction, rape, witchcraft, assault by children upon their parents, conspiracy, the third offense of burglary and of robbery, the fourth offense of thievery, and arson if the court so prescribed. See Harry E. Barnes, Report of the Prison Inquiry Commission of New Jersey (1917), II, p. 28. * RajTnond T. Bye, Capital Punishment in the United States (Philadelphia : Committee on Philanthropic Labor of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends, 1919), p. 6. ^ Ibid., p. 6. « Includes two which punish for treason only. ' [243] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES in twelve more states to the crime of murder only.* There are two states^ which retain the death penalty for five different crimes, and two' which punish six with death.* In twenty-four 'of the thirty-six states • "States where Capital Punishment Is Abolished: Name o) Date of State Abolition Arizona (1; 1916 Kansas (2) 1907 Maine (3) 1876 Michigan (1) 1847 Minnesota 191 1 Missouri , 1917 North Dakota (4) 1915 Oregon 1914 Rhode Island (4) 1852 South Dakota 1915 Washington 1913 Wisconsin (5) 1853 " (1) Treason is punishable by death. (2) There have been no executions in Kansas since 1872. (3) In 1882 the death penalty was re-established in Maine but abolished again in 1887. (4) A convict serving a life term for murder upon conviction of a murderous attack upon a guard or keeper can be condemned to death. (5) There were only three executions in Wisconsin prior to abolition of capital punishment. ' ' Raymond T. Bye, Capital Pun- ishment in the United States (Philadelphia: Committee on Philanthropic Labor of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends, 1919), p. 10. See also H. L. Baldensperger, Handbook on Capital Punishment, issued by National Committee on Prisons (1916), pp. 7-13. 'Alabama, Louisiana. ' Delaware, Virginia. • A questionnaire to the Attorneys General of the various'States developed the following information: Cbimes Punished with Death Penalty. By states Alabama Murder. Rape. Arson. Robbery. Treason, Arizona Treason. Arkansas Murder. Rape. California Murder. Colorado Murder. Connecticut Murder. Delaware Murder. Rape. Arson. Treason. Burglary. Kidnapping. Florida Murder. Rape. Georgia Murder. Rape. Certain arsons. Treason. Idaho Murder. Illinois Murder. Kidnapping for ransom. Indiana Murder. Treason. Iowa Murder. Kansas [244] OTHER FORMS OF PUNISHMENT which retain the death penalty, the court or jury, usually th e jury, may substitute life imprisonment Kentucky Murder. Rape. Louisiana Murder. Rape. Arson. Housebreaking. Lying in wait with weapon with intent to kill. Maine Maryland Murder. Rape. Arson. Attempted rape. Massachusetts Murder. Michigan Treason. Minnesota Mississippi Murder. Rape. Certain arsons. Treason. Missouri Montana Murder. Treason. Causing death of innocent person by perjury. Nebraska Murder. Nevada Murder. Rape. New Hampshire . . Murder. New Jersey Murder. Treason. New Mexico Murder. "•• New York Murder. Treason. North Carolina . . . Murder. Rape. Arson. Burglary. North Dakota Ohio Murder. Oklahoma Murder. Rape. Oregon Pennsylvania Murder. Rhode Island South Carolina ... Murder. Rape. Attempted rape; carnal knowledge of a woman child. South Dakota .... Tennessee Murder. Rape. Texas Murder. Rape. Robbery with firearms. Utah Murder. Vermont Murder. Arson. Virginia Murder. Rape. Certain arsons. Treason. Burglary. Robbery with violence. Washington West Virginia .... Murder. Rape. Wisconsin ^, Wyoming Murder. Train wrecking or robbery, executed or at- tempted. The states in this table may be grouped very interestingly and distinctively as follows: (I) A group of sixteen southern states that punish rape as well as murder with death. No state outside of these southern states punishes rape with death except Nevada, which requires extreme violence to accompany rape. (II) A group of sixteen states that punish with death practically for murder only.* These sixteen states, added to the twelve without the death * New York, Indiana, New Jersey, and Montana are included on the theory that treason is, more or leas, a crime merely on paper, and that perjury as described in Montana is a form of murder. [245] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES for the death penalty. ' Strange to say, the Federal government was the slowest of all to reduce the number of crimes punishable by death. Not until 1892, did it finally restrict the number of capital crimes from seventeen to three, — ^treason, murder and rape.'' During the years 1911 to 1917 inclusive, there were on the average in the whole country of the United States one hundred persons put to death each year.' Con- sidering the enormous population of this country, this number of criminals who annually pay the extreme penalty of the law is unusually small. Compare this quota, for example, with the seventy-two thousand executions which are said to have taken place during the twenty year reign of Henry VHL* Had it not been for the war, the death penalty would probably have been aboHshed in other states of the Union. In Pennsylvania, a bill to bring this about had been intro- duced into the legislature in 1917 and seemed certain penalty, comprise the remainder of the United States outst of m^the seventeen states mentioned under (I) with the exception of Illinois, Vermont, and Wyoming, which punish crimes other than miirder or rape with death. (Ill) Finally, here is under group I a most important sub-group of ten southern states, comprising the coastal states (except Florida) clear around from Delaware to the Rio Grande, that add not only rape to murder as a cause for execution, but varied other crimes, characterized by assaiilt on the person. The significant feature is that these ten states punish with death either the mere attempt to commit murder or rape, or else the crimes of arson or robbery committed in a manner that might have involved murder, even only accidentally. We find, then, in the Old South, of the first settled seacoast, a conserva- tive clinging to the old legal fashion of extending the death penalty to a list of crimes. • Raymond T. Bye, Capital Punishment in the United States (Philadelphia: Committee on Philanthropic Labor of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends, 1919), p. 10. ' Ibid., p. 6. • Ibid., p. 58. ' Joseph ColUnson, Facts about Flogging (Humanitarian League pamphlet), p.l. [246] OTHER FORMS OF PUNISHMENT of passage, when an explosion in a powder factory, producing a kind of war hysteria, killed all chances of the bill becoming a law. Considerable ingenuity has been exercised in devising means of putting men to death. In fact, there seem to have been few means left untried. In civilized countries, we find to-day, however, usually one of three ways, — ^hanging, guillotining and electrocuting. Hanging was the method formerly employed almost exclusively in this country, but following the practice of New York state, fourteen other states* have adopted electrocution as the means of executing their criminals. As a slight concession to the old frontier spirit, a man in Utah may have the privilege of being shot if he objects to being hanged. The use of electricity, necessitating as it does various electrical appliances, has had the effect of centraUzing the executions. Formerly, it was the prac- tice for criminals to be hanged in the county jails, a practice which still persists in many states of the Union, but with the change to electrocution, all execu- tions take place in one place, usually the state prison or penitentiary. In 1921, Nevada passed a law pro- viding for the asphyxiation of criminals in a specially constructed cell — another attempt to kill a man in as Kindly a way as possible! Executions were once public, and were the occasion of much general excitement in the community. Attracted by the thought of seeing a man die, huge crowds gathered at the place of execution, coming 'Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Maaaachuaetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Caro- lina, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia. Raymond T. Bye, Capital Pun- ishment in the United States (Philadelphia: Committee on Philanthropic Labor of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends, 1919), p. 7. [2471 PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES sometimes from great distances and arriving days in advance in order to make certain of being on hand. Natiirally enough, these gatherings were productive of anything but good, and the authorities have been finally compelled to exclude all but the few who were necessary to the performance of the ugly task. New York abolished public executions in 1835, and by 1906 Arizona had followed this good example, leaving only Florida as the one state to allow an execution to be held in public. Every now and then there is a harking back to the old notion that it is a salutary thing for others, particularly criminals of a lesser degree or potential criminals to witness executions. But recently the sheriff of Cook County, Illinois, in which the city of Chicago is located, compelled the prisoners in the jail to witness a hanging. Strange things happen, however, in war times, and the sheriff's state of mind was no doubt a product of the general hysteria of the time. Although there has been periodic agitation looking toward the improvement of prisons, no one has seriously thought of doing away entirely with imprisonment itself. Not so with the death penalty; the movement, as we have seen, did not in some states stop short of the complete abandonment of it. In Europe, too, as well as in this country, there is constant pressure brought to bear on legislators to remove this penalty from the statute books. Many arguments are brdught forward against it. Justice, it is said, should not be retributive. The "eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth" theory is a relic of barbarism and no longer in accord with the ethical sense of the community. Executions, no matter how [248] OTHER FORMS OF PUNISHMENT accomplished, are revolting and nauseating in the extreme. Attention is called to the care that is taken to prevent the officials who are charged with carrying out the execution from knowing which of several strings pulls the drop, or which particular switch turns on the electricity There can be no such thing, they argue, as an abstract state killing an individual. There is only one way of regarding an execution — ^the cold- blooded slaughter of a man by a man, a thing which the state expressly forbids. Moreover, capital punishment is irreparable and mistakes in justice are unfortunately not unknown. Men who are absolutely innocent may be made to pay the penalty, and, should the real offender be discovered later, no chance remains to right the wrong which society has done to the supposed criminal.! Again, capital punishment can not be thought of as reformatory in nature, and contrary to what is often claimed it is no greater deterrent to crime than imprisonment. The death penalty was once the common punishment for crime; but its restricted use produced no evil effect. Imprisonment will prevent the offender from committing further crimes just as effectively as his execution. As for the deterrent effect of the death penalty upon others, one might think that an exact understanding of the horrible details of executions would be the best way of warning all persons criminally inchned; yet executions are now, as we have seen, private affairs, because it was found that public executions led to increased brutality and to a loss of sensibility which after all is the great preventative of 'Andrew Toth served twenty years of a life sentence in the Western Penitentiary of Pennsylvania for a murder which he did not conunit. "The Case of Andrew Toth," Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology (1911-1912), Vol. II, p. 428. [249] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES wrong doing. Juries, too, it is said are loth to convict when they know that a verdict of guilty means sending a man to his death. Certainty of punishment is thereby done away with, and thus another great deterrent of crime is eliminated. Yet the debate on capital punishment is by no means one-sided. Let us consider now the opinions of those who favor the retention of this form of punishment. They do not defend the theory of retributive justice but they do distinctly recognize it as a theory which countless people still hold. Lynchings, it is feared, would therefore increase, should legal executions be abandoned. Society has not yet progressed to the point where the natural resentment at a dastardly crime will be satisfied with anything less than the extinction of the offender. The pubUc will have its way either legally or illegally, and it is better that the execution be performed according to law. Life impris- onment is no substitute. Sooner or later means will be found to get the criminal out of prison. Some weak- kneed governor will finally yield to the entreaties of friends and relatives or, if freedom does not come in this way, some scheme will be devised to nullify the judgment of the court. Life imprisonment does not, therefore, mean protection from the offender in ques- tion; and since the actual punishment substituted is on this account very much milder than the death penalty, there is a decrease in the deterrent effect on others. After all, men do fear death more than impris- onment, and since there is no such thing as life imprison- ment crimes will increase and criminals will multiply. Should the death penalty be abandoned, the danger to prison guards would be increased tenfold. A life- [250] OTHER FORMS OF PUNISHMENT termer knowing that there was no severer punishment in store for him no matter what he might do, would dare and try anything which might lead to his escape or the satisfaction of his grudges. Having nothing to lose, the life of a guard would not stand in his way for a moment. The reformatory element, it is contra- dicted, is not absent from a death sentence. Under the shadows of the gallows or the electric chair, men are brought to a realization of their guilt and of the wrong which they have done to society. The coming of relentless death is the one experience which will produce the desired effect. They are prepared to meet t^ieir Maker purged of their sins. It is better thus to die than to live a life of crime and finally die imre- pentant. And so on. "What should bg our conclusions with respect to the use of capital punishment? Should this penalty be retained on our statute books or should the gallows and the electric chair be turned over to museums? Our answer to this question will depend, of course, on the validity which we attach to the various arguments, both pro and con, which have been advanced. For- tunately, it is now possible to measure the worth of many of the arguments in a scientific way. A survey of the United States and the nations of Europe reveals the fact that there has been considerable experimenta- tion with the non-use of capital punishment, and in 1912 there appeared a study on capital pvmishment by Dr. Liepmann,! Professor of Law at Kiel, in which the results of world-wide experience were brought together ^Die Todesstraffe. Bin Guiachen mil einem Nachwort (Berlin: J. Gut- tentag, 1912). A summary of the book has been prepared by Raymond T. Bye and printed by the Committee on Philanthropic Labor of Philadel- phia Yearly Meeting of Friends as Bulletin No. 16. [251] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES and considered with reference to the question of whether Germany and Austria could safely eliminate the death penalty from their penal code. A similar study, though confined to the United States, by Pro- fessor Raymond T. Bye,' appeared in 1919. The masterly analyses of these two men enables us to dispose at once of many of the arguments which have hitherto been considered well nigh invulnerable. Before considering the evidence furnished by Pro- fessors Liepmann and Bye, let us note the inconsistency in two of the arguments for the retention of the penalty. It is stated that there is no such thing as life imprison- ment. If this is true, then the argument falls to the ground that the life of the keeper would be greatly endangered by life-termers who would hesitate at nothing because knowing that they have no yet greater punishment to fear. If pardon or release in some form is a certainty, as the first argument implies, then the motive for good conduct on the part of the prisoners still remains. The material collected by Professor Liepmann bears this out: there is little to be feared on this account.^ As a rule, life-termers are easy to get along with and are often among the most trusted prisoners of an institution. This, too, is the universal testimony of wardens. On the great prison farms of the South, it is customary to use these men as armed guards to look after the other convicts. With respect to a possible increase in lynchings should the death penalty be given up, what evidence there is points to the opposite conclusions. There are fewer lynchings ' Capital Punishment in the United States (Philadelphia: Committee on Philanthropie Labor of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends, 1919). ' See Die Todeestraffe. Ein Gutachen mit einem, Nachwort (Berlin: J. Guttentag, 1912), p. 190. [252] OTHER FORMS OF PUNISHMENT in those states of the United States which do not have the death penalty than in many of those which do.^ Indeed in those states which make the greatest use of the death penalty, occur the largest number of lynch- ings. Lynchings are to be explained on the ground of racial and political circumstances and not in connection with the use or non-use of capital punishment. ^ Argu- ments of irreparableness must be considered with reference (a) to the likelihood of miscarriage of justice, and (6) to the necessity of running this risk. Professor Liepmann cites case after case where, mistakes having actually occurred in judgment,^ the penalty has, alas! been carried out upon an innocent man. His conclusion is that neither the testimony of witnesses nor of experts nor even the confession of the accused can be wholly relied upon as conclusive evidence of guilt.^ Granted that mistakes do occur, we have still to consider whether this great risk which innocent people must endure wherever capital punishment is in force, is not after all a social necessity. This question leads us directly to the main argument on both sides, that is, the influence of the death penalty on the prevention of crime, for if, as the opponents of the death penalty ' See Dr. M. Liepmann, Die Todesstraffe. Ein Gtttachen tnit einem Nachwort (Berlin: J. Guttentag, 1912), p. 15. Alao RajTnond T. Bye, Capital Punishment in the United States (Philadelphia: Committee on Philanthropic Labor of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends, 1919), p. 65. 2 Raymond T. Bye, Capital Punishment in the United States (Philadelphia: Committee on Philanthropic Labor of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends, 1919), p. 71. ' See Die Todesstraffe. Ein Gutachen mil einem Nachwort (Berlin: J. Guttentag, 1912), pp. 126-177. ' Professor Bye does not think that the possibilities of error are so great to-day but admits that the risk is not worth running. See Capital Puvr iahmmt in ike United States (Philadelphia: Committee on Philanthropic Labor of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends, 1919), pp. 91-93. [253] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES argue, capital punishment does not prevent crime, then there is no use in the whole public submitting to the general risk, possibly, of dying for a crime not committed; but if, on the other hand, capital punishment is the powerful restraint that is claimed for it, then from the social standpoint it may be well to run the risk for the sake of increased social protection. On this point Professor Liepmann's investigations are most enlightening. The death penalty has been legally abolished in Italy, Roumania, Portugal, Holland, Norway, San Marino, fifteen of the Swiss Cantons, five states of the United States, ^ four of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Ecuador and Brazil. In Belgium and Finland, it has been practically, though not legally, abandoned. Now in none of these states does he find evidence that any increase in crime resulted from the change. Referring to a table of homicides in the registration area of the United States, Professor Bye says: "It will be seen from the above table that there is no measurable relation between the existence or non-existence of capital punishment and the homicide rate,"^ More interesting still is the fact that the power of the death penalty as a deterrent has been greatly overestimated in those states which still retain it, for the reason that a very large percentage of the death sentences are never carried out. Commutations to imprisonment is much more common than is generally supposed. Statistics for England' show that from 1870 to 1910 inclusive the ' Now abolished in twelve states. ' Capital Punishment in the United States (Philadelphia; Conunittee on Philanthropic Labor of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends, 1919), p. 43. ' Dr. M. Liepmann, Die Todesstraffe. Bin Gutachen mit einem Nachwort (Berlin: J. Guttentag, 1912), p. 122. [254] OTHER FORMS OF PUNISHMENT number of death penalties which were commuted to imprisonment amounted to 44 per cent of the total nmnber of death penalties imposed by the courts during this period. Even more startling are the figures for some of the other countries. In Austria/ for example, the executions constitute but a negligible fraction of the number of persons who are sentenced to death. "In New York State," says Professor Bye "from 1890 to 1907,2 344 condemned murderers were pardoned and 904 had their sentences commuted." During the same period, there were only 112 executions. If then, as Professor Liepmann says, the chances of being hanged or of having one's head cut off are less to-day than being struck by lightning, how then can the death penalty be considered as a deterrent without which society would be endangered? The only conclusion to which one can come is that capital punishment is in no way superior to imprisonment as a deterrent and that it is not worth while to run the risk, however small, of putting innocent people to death. Little need be said concerning the argument of reformation secured on the way to death. It does society no good and there seems to be no sufficient reason for interfering forcibly in those relations which are solely the concern of God and the criminal himseK. The brutalizing effect of executions, even when privately conducted, cannot be denied. The state itself cheapens human life when it orders its officers to kill a man. Newspaper reporters and a few privileged ones are still invited to be present, and the details leak ' Dr. M. Liepmann, Die Todesstraffe. Ein Gutachen mil einem Nachwort (Berlin: J. Guttentag, 1912), p. 117. » Capital Punishment in the United States (Philadelphia: Committee on Philanthropic Labor of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends, 1919), p. 56. 17 [2551 PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES out. It is a well-known fact that for years a growing public opinion has sought to keep accounts of murders and other lurid crimes out of the newspapers, because it has been fairly well established that other men have been induced through reading these accounts to commit similar crimes. The death penalty stands in the way of conviction. Professor Bye states that such evidence as he has been able to gather indicates that juries are un- willing to convict of any offense which would entail a serious punishment.^ This is notoriously the case where the individual is a woman. Now all are agreed that^punishment to be of any great value must be speedy and certain, and the death penalty standing in the way of this, is therefore more probably an obstacle than a help in the elimination of crime. If capital punishment is given up, what penalty should take its place? Life imprisonment is the sub- stitute which has been used. But hfe imprisonment, in that it offers no hope to a man, is also objectionable. As a matter of fact, most life prisoners are finally released either by commutation of sentence or by pardon. It would be far better to sentence the man to prison on an indeterminate sentence with the high minimum of twenty years or thereabouts. Ample protection would be afforded to society in this way, and the method of release would be certain and uniform. Flogging Flogging as a punishment for crime is of very ancient origin, though in England, except for ecclesiastical offenses, it was not much used until after the twelfth ' Capital Punishment in the United States (Philadelphia: Committee on Philanthropic Labor of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends, 1919), p. 50. [256] OTHER FORMS OP PUNISHMENT century. In the course of time it became a common law penalty for misdemeanors/ and during the period when England transported its convicts (1787-1867) flogging was, as Mr. George Ives remarks, "the great prophylactic and social 'remedy' of those rough times." Flogging was legally prohibited in Scotland in 1862, and in England, though flogging was never formally abolished, the same result has been practically attained through the method of fixing specific penalties to specific crimes by Acts of Parliament.' Prior to the time of Queen Elizabeth, the offenders to be flogged were tied to the rear end of a cart and the lash applied while the cart was being driven about through the town and coimtry. Sometimes the number of strokes of the lash was fixed in the sentence, but often the sentence read that the person was to be flogged from one place to another, leaving the exact number of strokes to the judgment or strength of arm of the executioner. The whipping post was substituted for the cart's tail in the thirty-ninth year of the reign of Elizabeth, but even so late as 1817 women were still flogged pubHcly in England. The American colonists, as was to be expected, followed the example of the mother country in making provisions for the use of the lash. However, as in the case of the'death penalty, decided opposition developed against its use and there are now but two states of the Union — Delaware and Maryland — ^which still retain • Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law (2d ed.; Boston: Little, Brown and Co. 1903), II, p. 518. ' A History of Penal Methods: Criminals, Witches, Lunatics (London: S. Paul & Co., 1914), p. 147. •Joseph CoUinaon, Facts About Flogging (Humanitarian League pam- phlets, 1902), p. 3. 1257] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES this penalty. In Maryland, its use is restricted to the single crime of wife-beating and in practice it is seldom resorted to as it is an alternative to imprisonment. On the other hand, Delaware decrees this punishment for something like twenty-five different crimes,^ and whippings are meted out with considerable regularity in this one small state which may thus be considered the sole representative in America of the ancient regime. While the Delaware statutes declare in no uncertain terms that conviction shall be followed by an appUcation of the lash, there is nevertheless a fair chance that the offender may not be thus punished. In the first place, no woman can be whipped. This has been the law since 1889. Then in case of larceny the judge may omit the lashes if the person is of tender age or a first offender with a previous good record. Thirdly, the court may dispense entirely with the whipping if the jury in rendering their verdict make a recommendation of mercy. Report is that the lashes are in general reserved for colored offenders. The whippings are administered publicly by strokes on the back and the maximum number allowed is sixty. To many the retention of the whipping post in Delaware is an anomaly hard to explain. If forty- seven of the states can get along without its use, why cannot Delaware? There are four argmnents in favor of a flogging as a punishment for crime.^ They are; (1) The argument ' The Whipping Post in Delaware (Philadelphia: Committee on Philan- thropic Labor of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends), Bulletin No. 5, pp. 2-5. *The following three paragraphs are copied with some changes from a bulletin prepared by the author for the Committee on Philanthropic Labor of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends. See The Whipping Poet in Delaware (Bulletin No. 5, 1914), pp. 6-13. [258] OTHER FORMS OF PUNISHMENT of retaliation; (2) the argument of economy; (3) the argument of prevention of crime; and (4) the argument of reform of the offender. The argument based on retaliation is simple. Its theory is approximately the Old Testament notion of an "eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." It is simplified slightly, however. All crimes are given a value in terms of pain, and society, instead of perpetrating in all cases a like crime on the offender, demands that he yield up at least an equiva- lent in pain. The law, it is said, must be drawn to allow this. A man who breaks into a house and lays hands upon an innocent girl should not be put in a "palace prison." He should be flogged; he should be made to give back to society an equivalent in pain. Flogging is thus defended as a good means of making the criminal pay back what he owes to society. There is no denying that this desire to get even with the offender is found in nearly every one of us. But the question is not whether such a feeUng exists, but whether it is wise to give expression to it; whether it is wise to let it dominate our actions. In speaking of flogging as a pimishment for sexual crime, the noted English criminologist, Mr. W. D. Morrison, says : " If we were to give way to mere feeling of horror or detestation with regard to these sexual crimes, we would probably go beyond flogging, and demand the penalty of death itself. But the laws of the land cannot be framed to satisfy the blind demands of outraged feelings; they must be framed in accordance with sound judgment and wise pohcy. The legislator must consider what are likely to be the permanent effects of a law."' » V Corporal Punishment," Law Magazine Renew, XXV, p. 273. [259] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES In requiting evil with evil, the State says to„each and every individual, not in so many words, but by example, which is more effective than words, that this horrible practice — this primitive concept of justice evolved by a primitive people — ^is to be his gmde in solving the problems of life, that the old dispensation cannot be supplanted and that Christianity itself is a lie. No one nowadays dares openly to advance this argument in favor of the whipping post, but if the reasons which have been ostensibly urged in its favor are examined closely the ugly shadow of this thought will be detected among their forms. Secondly, flog^ng is the cheapest form of punishment. A post costs but a trifle, and with a little paint from time to time will last a long time. The state or county does not need to erect costly buildings, and there is no continuous charge for maintenance. In the first place, the state must imprison a man after flogging him, because it dare not turn loose upon society a man filled with hatred and the passionate desire for revenge. It means a flogging plus imprison- ment. Moreover, a well-conducted penal institution ought to be nearly if not quite seK-supporting. Then, too, temporary cost must not be confused with permanent expense. The question for society must always be, which is cheaper in the long run? Nor is money cost the only cost which society must consider. The whip- ping post lays a burden on society, through its brutaliz- ing influence, which cannot be estimated in money, but which is harder to bear than the taxes which are necessary to finance a proper penal institution. [260] OTHER FORMS OF PUNISHMENT Without doubt, the third argument, the argument of prevention, is the most potent one yet adduced in favor of the whipping post. It is claimed that it prevents crime. In Delaware the classic example of the four bank burglars is poked at everyone who dares decry its efficacy. In England the case of the garroters was made to do similar duty. It is said that flogging absolutely stamped out garroting. There could be no greater misrepresentation of facts than this state- ment. It has been conclusively proven that garroting declined more rapidly before the law was passed which made flogging a penalty for this crime than it did after the law went into effect. ^ Yet this false statement, made by an advocate of flogging, has been quoted by a learned American jurist as an undeniable victory for the lash.2 Always there is some one crime which flogging has prevented, but in each case it is a different crime. As for bank robbery, it is not a common crime anywhere. The passing of the frontier and the develop- ment of modern safeguards have rendered banks far less liable to attack from the outside than from the inside. Our attention is called to the fact that it has been the experience of lawyers, that criminals would be willing to have their term of imprisonment extended indefinitely, if it were possible by so doing to avoid the beating. A similar story comes to us from England of the criminal who "bellowed Uke a cow"* when ' "Corporal Punishment," Law Magaiine Bemew, XXV, p. 270; see also Mr. P. A. Taylor, The "Cat" Speech in the House of Commons (June 14, 1875), p. 21, and Joseph CoUinson, Facts About Flogging (Humanitarian League pamphlet), p. 5. 2 Hon. Simeon E. Baldwin, "The Restoration of Whipping as a Punishment for Crime," The Green Bag, XIII, p. 65. 3 Joseph Collinaon, Facts About Flogging (Humanitarian League pamp- phlets), p. 13. [2611 PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES confronted with the recompense demanded by society. The error in this mode of reasoning lies in the belief that an expression of feeling at the time of receiving the sentence is a measure of the efficiency of the whip- ping-post. As Justice Keating has so well said, the "question is not what is his state when sentenced, but what is the effect ajUr he has been so punished."^ Brought face to face with the penalty, most men would shrink from it. Yet there are cases on record of men who have been beaten so many times that they have become utterly calloused to it. Dostoieffsky, who has given to the world in "The House of the Dead, " his experience of ten years in a Siberian prison, says: "The habit of receiving floggings helps in some cases to give intrepidity and decision to convicts. Those who have been often flogged are hardened both in body and mind and have at last looked upon such a punishment as merely a disagreeable incident no longer to be feared."^ An eminent American jurist, in discussing the means necessary to prevent crime, has said: "Society must make the evil heavy enough and distasteful enough to outweigh the element of uncertainty and distance."* This idea of balance arises from the fact that criminal law has vmtil recently been looked upon as an abstract science. No lawyer who has studied the social effects of such laws, who feels that criminal law and criminal procedure is not a game or a problem in mathematics, ' Mr. P. A. Taylor, The "Cat" Speech in the Bouse of Commons (June 14, 1875), p. 25. ' The House of the Dead (New York: Everyman's Library, E. P. Dutton & Co.), p. 214. 'Hon. Simeon E. Baldwin, "The Restoration of Whipping as a Punish- ment for Crime," The Green Bag, XIII, p. 65. [262] OTHER FORMS OF PUNISHMENT but a means toward a definite social end, could acquiesce in this view. If crime could have been prevented by subjecting the captured offender to a severe and racking penalty, then it would have been stamped out long ago, because this is exactly the method which States have used in the past. In England there were at one time, as has been said, over two hundred crimes for which the penalty was hanging. Long terms of imprisonment, transportation, and flogging at the cart's tail were penalties for the smallest of crimes. Surely the evil exacted by the State was sufficient to outweigh the uncertainty and distance, yet crimes flourished and grew apace, while the hangmgs and floggings went merrily on. Does anyone really befieve that the State of Delaware could bring about a decrease in chicken steafing, horse stealing and dog stealing by doubling or trebling the number of lashes meted out to the offender? It is hard to exorcise this old superstition of prevent- ing crime by subjecting criminals to cruel and barbarous treatment. That gruesome shadow, the desire to get even, hides ofttimes behind this whole argument, but let us treat it on its own merits. You will notice that this idea of balance is based on a pleasure and pain theory of conduct — a theory of ethics which, by the way, is largely discredited at the present time. It is a very dissatisfying explanation of the conduct of normal men; and it furnishes fittle or no insight into the lives of criminals, many of whom are abnormal in mind or in body. It is a well-known fact that criminals are notoriously short-sighted. A large per cent of the prisoners [263] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES received at the New Castle County Workhouse come from Pemisylvania and Maryland. One would natural- ly suppose that the deterrent effect of the whipping-post would have led these men to stay at home, or, in view of the small area of Delaware, that Delawareans would have skipped over the border in order to satisfy their craving for the taste of someone else's chickens. The only other supposition is that these people fear imprison- ment more than they do the whipping post, a supposi- tion not allowed by the defenders of this form of punishment. If men who commit crimes were so farseeing ag to calculate with exactness the pleasure to be obtained from their contemplated crimes, and to balance over against it the possibility of detection, conviction and the pain of a flogging, they would be men of sufficient sense and acumen to choose another career than that of crime, and they would do so. But the most logical explanation of the failure of the whipping post, or of any other form of brutal punish- ment, to act as a deterrent to crime is found in its demoralizing influence on society. Mr. Morrison, whom I have previously quoted, writes: "It has dawned upon the mind of Europe that corporal punishment, that the birch, the cat, and all other instruments of physical torture are no protection against the criminal classes. It is seen, on the contrary, that these instruments of torture breed in the heart and mind of the community that very spirit of callous- ness to human suffering which produces crime."' Society cannot hire one man to come in and beat up • ''Corporal Punisliment," Law Magazine Review, XXV, p. 274 [264] OTHER FORMS OF PUNISHMENT another, and expect to reap a crop of the gentler and nobler virtues. They do not grow in such soil. Crime is often the result of a lack of sensitiveness to human suffering. Is it, in truth, a wise policy to render men less sensitive? The State is said to stand in loco parentis to the people, but what do we think of the father who knowingly brutalizes his children? Dostoieffsky, whose experience as a political prisoner gives him the right to speak with authority, says: "I declare that the best man in the world can become hardened and brutified to such a point that nothing will distinguish him from a wild beast. Blood and power intoxicate; they aid the development of callous- ness and debauchery; the mind then becomes capable of the most abnormal cruelty in the form of pleasure; the man and the citizen disappear forever in the tyrant; and then a retiu-n to human dignity, repentance, moral resurrection becomes almost impossible. "That the possibility of such license has a contagious effect on the whole of society there is no doubt. A society which looks upon such things with an indifferent eye is already infected to the marrow. In a word, the right granted to a man to inflict corporal punishment on his fellowmen is one of the plague spots of our society. It is the means of annihilating all civic spirit. Such a right contains in germ the elements of inevitable, inuninent decomposition."* Fourthly, the whipping post is defended on the groimd that it reforms the offender, or at least teaches him a lesson which he will not soon forget. Deprivation of liberty, it is said, means nothing to the ignorant and 1 The House of the Dead (New York: Everyman's Library, E. P. Button & Co.), p. 229. [265] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES lazy type of individual. Such a one does not fear imprisonment. It is not a restraining influence, as is the whipping post. The whipping post is offered as an alternative to a few short months in a "palace prison." What element of reform is there in taking away from a man what little self-respect he has, and in beating him down to the level of a brute. To harden him still more than he is, is not to fit him to lead the life of a free man in society. Man is not a passive, inert bit of material. If he knows that he must endure hard and cruel things, he steels himself to bear them. He has become another man, stronger in this respect than he was before. Therein lies the danger. Many a man has been changed by a flogging from a thought- less and good-natured individual to a cruel and vin- dictive savage. "Treat a man like a dog and he will be a dog," should be written in every prison and criminal court in this land. The alternative to the whipping post is not imprison- ment for a few months in a "palace prison." No one has ever proposed such a course. The issue cannot be thus clouded. How many "palace prisons" are there in Delaware, or in the United States? To turn to the whipping post as an alternative to imprisonment means the postponement of reforms in our institutions. It is a step in the wrong direction, for we know full well that society will never again take that path in seeking its goal. The worst of it is that the whipping post does not prevent recidivism. In England men were whipped over and over again. Morrison says: "... there is no proof whatever that flogging is a deterrent; there is no proof that it prevents the offender from repeating [266] OTHER FORMS OF PUNISHMENT the offense; there is no proof that it prevents others similarly inclined from following in his steps."' And a reviewer of Dr. Feder's recent book, Die Pmgelstraffe, says: "Dr. Feder's knowledge of the history of corporal pimishment is amazing; not less than sixty countries are treated in their position regarding it, and with briUiant dialectics it is proved that the twentieth century has no need to return to it."^ Many other reasons|[couId be urged for abolishing this practice of whipping men than those here used in rebutting the arguments of its advocates. It is suffi- cient to mention but three, and these in brief. To-day a reform in criminal procedure is demanded. The problem is largely to secure quick and sure justice. That jungle of technicalities into which the guilty man can now escape is partly the result of brutal punish- ments which were once inflicted on the convicted criminal. It is easy enough for a white jury to send a negro to the whipping post. But how is it when the individual on trial is white and a member of their own social class? Does conviction follow? And will these loopholes for escape be closed so long as this punishment remains? What must be the effect on the executioner? Can a man perform this task of lashing grown men and remain as he was before? It is not necessary to enlarge on this point. But note that the State has hired him to do a thing which it condemns in others, namely, to assault a fellow creature. Delaware can make no claim to social or natural > "Corporal Punishment," Law Magazine Review, XXV, p. 274. ' Adalbert Albrecht, Review, Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology (1912-1913), III, p. 328. [267] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES circumstances which can not be duplicated by other states. It enjoys no special freedom from crime and in publicly flogging a man it offers an interesting example of group retardation or atavism. Public opinion throughout the United States condemns the practice,* but as each state is practically at liberty to deal with criminals as it sees fit, Delaware has thus far given no heed to the criticism of its peculiar institution. Flogging has been used not merely as a penalty for crime but even more extensively as a means of enforcing discipline among prisoners. Until recently this second use of flogging was widespread in the United States. In the North, the dark cell and handcuffing to the cell door have now largely supplanted the lash; but in the South, although there are laws prohibiting its use in nearly every state, flogging of prisoners is openly acknowledged by prison administrators.'' Indeed it is quite warmly defended on the ground that as actually carried out the flogging is not only more effective but far less detrimental to the health than confinement in the dark cell.' Even though one were to grant the superiority in this respect of the lash, its use cannot be justifled. All the arguments that can be brought against it as a penalty for crime can be used equally well against it as a means of enforcing discipline. In > The Whipping Posi in Delaware (Bulletin No. 5, Committee on Philan- thropic Labor of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends), pp. 14-39. • On one great prison farm in a southern state, the writer noticed that the farm foremen all carried rolled up and tied to their saddles, a heavy leather strap with which discipline was enforced in the field. '"But there are thousands of well-meaning people who recoil from the red suppurating furrows of the obvious 'cat,' and who are shocked at the idea of chains, who seem entirely unable to realize the meaning of mind torture! Yet I believe that the latter is in reality far worse, and men who ought to know have said so, too." George Ives, A History of Penal Methods, Criminals, Witches, Lunatics (London: S. Paul & Co., 1914), p. 226, [268] OTHER FORMS OF PUNISHMENT extenuation, however, of its use, it is but right to repeat again that society has placed on prison administrators an exceedingly disagreeable task, and that scientists have as yet given them very little assistance. Fines We have long been accustomed to thinking of fines as penalties imposed for crimes, but when first we read of fines their character was somewhat different. In the thirteenth century, justices had the power to sentence men to indefinite imprisonment and they could also allow them to make an end (Jinem facere) of the imprisonment by the payment of a sum of money. The judge had no power to impose the fine as a penalty but the prisoner could by the payment of money make an end of his imprisonment which the judge did have the right to impose. ' In the course of time, the situa- tion was somewhat reversed. The fine was made the punishment and the criminal stayed in prison until the fine was paid. In practice, therefore, the result was the same so far as the criminal was concerned, but the distinction, even if only a theoretical one, enables us to understand the origin of the word and to compre- hend more truly perhaps than we otherwise would the circmnstances which have linked imprisonment and fines so closely together during all the centuries which have since intervened. Fines are really but a development of the old Ger- manic system of bdt and wtte. A man who had broken the peace had to make bdt with the injured party and •Pollock and Maitland History of English Law (2d ed.; Boston: Little. Brown & Co., 1903), II, p. 617. [269] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES wUe with the king.^ In the twelfth century or there- abouts all this was changed. Damages assessed by a tribunal replaced the hot, and money penalties took the place of the wite.^ Brought to America by the early colonists along with other forms of punishment, fines have always constituted an important part of our system of penol- ogy. They are used not only in connection with the minor crimes but constitute the penalties for some of the graver ones as well. Sometimes they are imposed in addition to a certain amount of imprisonment; sometimes they are an alternative to imprisonment; and sometimes they are the only punishment which is provided by law for certain crimes. As a rule the early English fines were light and the power of the judges seems not to have been abused. In the Magna Charta, however, warning is given that care must be observed in imposing them. An echo of this fear is the amendment to the Constitution of the United States, widely copied in the constitutions of the separate states, that fines shall not be excessive. Statutes very generally give judges wide discretion in the matter of fixing the amount of the fine. The maximum is often stated; sometimes this is coupled with a min- imum; and curiously enough a minimum is sometimes given with no maximum.^ In the use of this penalty, the opportunity to individuaUze has almost always been present and judges have usually fined the man with some consideration of his ability to pay. 1 Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law {2d ed.; Boston: Little^ Brown & Co., 1903), II, p. 451. ' Ibid., pp. 458-9. 'Frederick Howard Wines, "Possible and Actual Penalties for Crime," Prison Reform and Criminal Law — Correction and Prevention (Russell Sage Foundatiou, Charities Publication Committee, 1910), p. 112. [270] OTHER FORMS OF PUNISHMENT No other problem connected, with the use of fines as penalties for crime has attained such importance as has the problem of the method of payment. As we have seen, the practice at the beginning was to retain custody of the criminal until the fine was paid. Like other debtors, the man unable to pay his fine languished in prison until death or some merciful friend released him by paying his fine. With the relaxation of the severity in the treatment of ordinary debtors some concession was made to criminals who were the debtors of the state.' In general, a fine is now regarded as a debt due the state and may be enforced by execution against the property of the criminal. In case he cannot pay or be made to pay, statutes providing for fines usually make imprisonment a substitute for the fine, in which case a maximum term is fixed upon as an equivalent, or some scheme is given for allowing each day's imprisonment to count toward the payment of the fine.2 It has been repeatedly held that where imprisonment is not provided as a substitute, the judge has, nevertheless, the power to impose a sentence of imprisonment in case of non-payment of the fine. Statutes of the United States, as well as statutes of most of the separate states, make provision for dis- charging a prisoner who can estabhsh his inability to pay his fine. It is held, however, that a prisoner is not entitled to such discharge until he has served a term of imprisonment which roughly approximates the fine as a punishment.' 1 See, for example, the provisions in the following laws of Pennsylvania: March 27, 1789, p. 483 of Smith's Laws. May 6, 1887, P. L. 86. ^ "The Caged Man," Proceedings of the Academy of Political and Social Science of the City of New York (1913), III, No. 4, pp. 257-264. ' American and English Encyclopaedia of Law (2d ed.), XIII, pp. 53-69. [271] 18 PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES An examination of the different methods of enforcing payment reveals the fact that the poor man is far from receiving the same sort of justice which the court measures out to the well-to-do. A fine does not carry with it the same degradation that goes with imprison- ment; nor does it mean a separation from one's family nor from one's job. Imprisonment is the fate of the poor offender while the rich man pays his fine and goes free. Note what the Bureau of the Census has to say on this subject ;! "Of the 493,934 prisoners and juvenile delinquents committed to penal or reformatory insti- tutions in 1910, 278,914, or 56.5 per cent, were com- mitted for nonpayment of fine. ... It is a fair presumption that the prisoners committed for non- payment of fine are with rare exceptions persons who are unable to pay a fine because of their poverty. Persons of means committing the same offenses usually pay their fines and therefore do not appear in the prison records." A fine commentary on equality of opportunity and privilege in this country! Not long ago a case was brought to the author's attention of a negro who was working out a fine on the public road for failing to observe the directions on the street sign. Disregarding the injustice of the system as between rich and poor, there is the further objection that such methods of payment impose a no mean burden on society. The fine is not paid and the state is out at least a large part of the cost of keeping the criminal. For these reasons and for others which will appear in discussing a change in the method of exacting pajmaent, public opinion has finally veered around to ^ Prisoners and Juvenile Delinquents in the United States CBureau of the Census, 1910), p. 41. [272] OTHER FORMS OF PUNISHMENT the conclusion that fines ought not to be transmuted into imprisonment except as a last resort. The best suggestion yet made in regard to payment is that where a man is found to be unable to pay his fine at the time when it is imposed, he should be placed on probation and allowed to pay by installments.' This scheme has already been adopted in a few states and cities,^ and there is so much that can be said in favor of it that an increasing use of it in the United States may be confidently expected. Only in a general way is it possible to measure the evil consequences to the man and his family, if he has one, of substituting imprisonment for fines. This does not mean that the evils are insignificant. On the contrary, the loss of wages must be keenly felt by many famiUes, and the probable loss of position and social status are undoubt- edly additional penalties which the man who can pay his fine need not endure. Fortunately, we have at hand some figures for Buffalo, New York, which some years ago inaugurated the system of payment by install- ments, that enables us to see what financial gains to the community may be hoped for from allowing the offender to pay in this fashion.' In this city, during the year 1913, 759 persons were placed on probation for the collection of fines aggregating $12,593.45. By the end of the year, $10,764.50 of this amount had been'col- lected. The per capita cost of [keeping a man for one day in the Erie County Penitentiary, serving Buffalo, is > The Payment of Fines in Installments by Offenders. Bulletin No. 4 of the Municipal Reference Library, Chicago Public Library (November, 1914). ' Report of Proceedings of the Seventh Intemaiional Prison Congress (Hun- gary: September, 1905), p. 23. ' The Payment of Fines in Installments by Offenders, Bulletin No. 4 of the Municipal Reference Library, Chicago Public Library (November, 1914), p. 7. r2731 PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES about 50 cents. If, now, the 759 persons had been sent to prison to serve out their fines at the rate of a day equaUng one dollar, as was the old practice, it would have cost the county $6,296.72. To this sum must be added the fines collected under the new system, $10,764.50, in order to obtain the total loss to the county of substituting imprisonment. Seventeen thousand dollars ($17,061.72) is an appreciable item in the budget of any county, and a large part of this, making allowance for the cost of collecting, was saved by allowing offenders to pay by installments. The reformative and corrective influence of fines when paid by installments is not thereby decreased but greatly increased. The offender is kept under the eye of an official charged with the collection of the fine, and is forced to save. Reports of probation officers show that many offenders have started saving accounts for the first time in their lives when confronted with the choice of saving for the installment or going to prison.' A fine paid in installments is, too, a better reminder than one paid in a lump sum. The experience of the Municipal Court of Kansas City is that only two per cent of those who have paid their fines by installments come before the court a second time although fully twenty-five per cent of all court cases are repeaters.^ In no state that has adopted the scheme of paying by installment is it made compulsory with the Judge. Judges decide whether the offender is likely to default and use their discretion in placing him on probation. Such experience as has been had goes to show that 1 See The Payment of Fines in Installments by Offenders, Bulletin No. 4 of the Municipal Eeferenoe Library, Chicago Public Library (November, 1914), p. 7. 'Ibid., p. 13. [274] OTHER FORMS OF PUNISHMENT ninety per cent of those who haye been given the chance keep their word and pay their fines, i In some places, the prompt payment of instaUments results in canceUing a part of the fine. This feature is similar to the practice of cutting down a sentence of imprisonment for good behavior, and is justified for the same reason. It is scarcely necessary to add that the possibilities of this plan of payment rests to a large extent on the development of the probation system itself. Though the existing court and pohce machinery can be used, one can easily see how much more effective a good probation staff would be in carrying on this work. Capital punishment and whipping have both been regarded in this chapter as fast-disappearing forms of punishment. In place of each has come imprisonment. The question may now be asked whether fines are to go the same way. The answer to this question depends in part on the practical problem of devising a suitable method of pajonent. Attention has already been called to the practice of transmuting fines into imprison- ment. Some indication of the extent of this practice is afforded by a recent report on commitments to the Chicago House of Correction. During the years 1910- 1913, from 82.4 to 87.3 per cent of the commitments to this institution were for the non-payment of fines.^ Here, plainly, the fine is but another name for imprison- ment. Payment by installment will undoubtedly check this tendency, and, once have it understood that a fine means a fine and not imprisonment, an extension of the use of fines will probably follow. 1 The Payment of Fines in InstaUments by Offenders, Bulletin No. 4 of the Municipal ReferenoeLibrary, Chicago Public Library (November, 1914), p. 5. 2 Ibid., p. 5, and see also figures for the United States as a whole, quoted on page 272 of this book. [275] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES Whether fines are to give way to imprisonment depends, too, on the desirability of substituting imprisonment for fines. The position has been taken that customary methods of exacting payment discrim- inated between the rich and the poor, and pajrment by installment was largely defended as a means of remedy- ing this situation. One might ask, however, why would it not be as well to do away with fines entirely? If all, regardless of their economic status, had to go to prison, there would be no discrimination. The question might be asked in still a different way: do fines have a place in a proper system of penology which imprison- ment cannot fill? An affirmative answer must be given to this question. There is a great group of offenders for whom imprisonment is not only inadvis- able but positively detrimental. The transgressor of a city ordinance, for example, involves in the opinion of most people little or no criminality on the part of the individual and to bring down upon his head the evils which, as has been pointed out, follow in the train of imprisonment, is to lay up in many mstances additional trouble for the community. All that is needed is a sharp reminder and this end is admirably served by a fine. Again, many of the newer crimes growing out of a somewhat livelier social conscience are those for which juries will not send men to prison. This has been proven over and over again, particularly in the case of officials of a corporation. The townspeople may submit to having their leading citizen fined but they will not see him imprisoned. Fines are, therefore, a necessity in dealing with this class of offenders. The recrudescence, too, of a very old theory of punishment, dating from the time when hot was paid to the injured [276] OTHER FORMS OF PUNISHMENT person, strengthens the present position of fines as penalties. Even now, fines are sometimes used to recompense the individual who has been wronged,^ and if the damage idea of civil cases should be more fully carried over into the field of criminal law, as seems likely, fines will probably be reUed upon to put the scheme into effect. It remains to inquire whether there are not criminals now punished by fines for whom imprisonment would be preferable. There is little doubt but that this is so. Prostitutes fall into this class and so do habitual drunkards. To fine either is so much waste of time. As a general thing, imprisonment should be used in those cases where it is necessary to control absolutely the activities of the offender either for the protection of society or in order to effect some definite change in his habits and ways of thinking. This is the case with prostitutes and habitual drunkards. Probably there are many other groups for whom fining is not the proper kind of punishment; yet it is certain that fines have their place in any scheme of punishment and will not be abandoned. Sterilization It is not surprising in view of the increasing emphasis laid on plant and animal breeding that serious effort has been made to check the growth of crime by making it impossible for criminals to reproduce their kind. The study of the Jukes,^ a family notorious for the number of paupers and criminals, made it plain for the first time that we had groups in our midst which * American and English Encyclopaedia of Law, 2d ed., XIII, p. 69. 2 R. S. Dugdale, The Jukes (6th ed.: New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1900). [277] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES collectively resembled a malignant tumor, tearing down and destroying the cells of the body poUtic. Other investigations such as those of the Tribe of Ishmael, and the Kallikak Family,' have helped to confirm the popular opinion that to allow indiscrim- inate reproduction and yet to strive for a high level of civilization is as hopeless and impossible a task as to try to lift oneseK by the bootstraps. Recently this movement to rid society of its burden through the sterilization of unsuitable strains, has crystallized into law.' In 1907, Indiana passed a sterilization law and this example of Indiana has been followed by fifteen other states.^ Only in Nevada and Washington is the law in effect a penal statute, giving the court power to order the operation in case of conviction for certain sex offenses or if the offender is proven to be an habitual offender. In the remaining states the law applies to the inmates in certain institu- tions, usually including the penal group, and the selection of individuals to be steriHzed is left to boards or commissions. In Kansas, the board cannot proceed to carry out its recommendations without the authority of a court order; but on the other hand several of the states make the administrative board the final arbiter * Henry H. Goddard, The Kallikak Family (New York : The Macmillan Co., 1912). ^ For good accounts, see The Legal, Legislative and Administrative Aspects of Sterilization, Bulletin lOB, Eugenics Record Office (1914); Joel D. Hunter, "Sterilization of Criminals," Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, V, pp. 514-539; William A. White, "Ster- ilization of Criminals," Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology (1917-1918), VIII, pp. 499-501; "Sterilization Studies of the Committee on Cacogenic Control," Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology (1918-1919), IX, pp. 596-598. ' Indiana, Washington, California, Connecticut, Nevada, Iowa, New Jer- sey, New York, North Dakota, Michigan, Kansas, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Oregon, South Dakota, Colorado. [278] OTHER FORMS OF PUNISHMENT in all cases.i In Washington, the court has held that the law was constitutional, but in New York, New Jersey and Michigan the contrary view has been taken on the ground that it constituted "class legislation" inasmuch as it did not apply equally to the same kind of people outside of institutions. Up to March 1, 1918, a total of 1422 operations had been performed in the states having sterilization laws,^ but by far the larger number of operations were made on defectives such as the feeble-minded and the insane. Is criminahty heritable and, if so, is sterilization the best means of combatting its transmission to offsprings? There seems to be little or no evidence for believing that criminality is a unit trait that can be inherited as such; but, on the other hand, it is fairly well established that f eeble-mindedness, lack of nerve control, epilepsy, alcoholism, etc., are heritable and that from individuals so afflicted criminals are often made. It is difficult for the general public to differentiate between these two positions, and yet it is necessary for it to do so if headway is to be made in this endeavor to eliminate crimes through the elimination of future criminals. A man may be a criminal, yes, even an old offender, and yet not be insane, epileptic or feeble-minded; in other words, there may be in him no heritable factors predis- posing toward criminality which he received from his ancestors or which he will pass on to his children. There- fore, for the present, at least, the whole effort should be directed not to the elimination of criminals as » Indiana, California, Connecticut, Iowa, North Dakota, Wisconsin. 2 California had performed 1077 operations; Connecticut, 12; Indiana, 118; Iowa, 67; Kansas, 3; Oregon, 17; Nebraska, 25; New York, 9; North Dakota, 32; Washington, 1; Wisconsin, 61. Eiigenical News (May, 1918). [279] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES such, but to the cutting off of weak and impoverished strains. There are many who, though granting the need of preventing the reproduction of weak and degenerate strains, are yet opposed to sterilization as the means, claiming that segregation is as effective and fraught with fewer evils. We can only touch upon this problem briefly. The material for a careful verdict is not now readily available. True, there is something to be learned from the practice of castration in Turkey and elsewhere, and there is also an opportunity to pick up some valuable inforaiation from the case histories of men and women whom disease and operations have accidentally rendered sterile, but there is no means of knowing in advance what would happen if sterilization were widely used as a method of combatting crime. We know very little as to the results in those states where it has been tried. In 1914, the Committee of the American Institute of Criminal Law asked for an appropriation to get at the facts but the money has not been forthcoming. There is a danger that after steril- ization the individuals might become centers of infec- tion and demoralization in the community. It seems, too, to be an indignity which, if forced upon human beings, may in the end react disastrously in reducing the importance of the individual. On the other hand, we must bear in mind that segregation is generally extremely costly and, except for those too defective to appreciate it, is revolting also and contrary to deep instincts in human nature. There are, for example, many types of individuals, it must be remembered, who would rather starve than go to the poorhouse, and may not permanent segregation be worse than steriUzation? [280] OTHER FORMS OF PUNISHMENT Civil Disabilities The Constitution of the United States forbids the passing of any bill of attainder .1 Attainder meant the loss of civil rights following a sentence for treason or felony. The individual attainted forfeited his real and personal property; he could not inherit or pass on by inlieritance; he could not sue or testify; nor could he make any claim to legal protection or rights. Only a vestige of this old notion now survives.^ Imprison- ment quite generally entails the additional penalty of a loss of citizenship. In only six states^ is this not the case. A pardon by the governor usually restores citizenship automatically, and we find, also, in some states a proAdsion whereby a man who has had a good record in prison or after release, may by special executive act of the governor regain his citizenship. It is to be noted that citizenship is not restored as a matter of course on release from prison. But the restoration of citizenship ought to be the reward for good conduct while on parole. It would constitute a fitting ending to the treatment of the offender, far more impressive than the usual method of allowing him to shde quietly out of the clutches of the law. Imprisonment consti- tutes, also, in nearly every state a ground for divorce, although usually the imprisonment must be for felony or continuing over a certain period of time. Now if instead of doing all that can be done to break home ties by making it impossible for a prisoner, except in 'Article 1, Section 9. „,..,„.. ' " The Caged Man," Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science %n the City of New York (1913), III, No. 4, pp. 353-369. 3 Arizona, Indiana, Michigan, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Ver- mont. In Indiana, however, the General Assembly may deprive anyone convicted of crime of the right of suffrage. [2811 PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES rare instances, to contribute to the support of his family, and by throwing in his face the fact that his wife may now leave him in the lurch, we should imdertake to strengthen family bonds, we would probably stand a much better chance of decreasing the numbers of old offenders. [282] CHAPTER XIII MANAGEMENT OP INSTITUTIONS FOR OFFENDERS NOT all of the institutions for offenders in the United States are public; many juvenile homes and schools receiving children from the courts, are still private both as to management and support. Historically, as we have seen, provision for the care of adult offenders also rested in part on private individuals. In the early days in England it was no uncommon thing for a bishop to own a jail or the lord of a manor to have a place for the safe-keeping of criminals. We have already noted how carefully the laws were drawn so as not to disturb existing private rights in jails ;i and we likewise referred to the fact that, while the first English law having to do with houses of correction placed the financial burden of these on the county, a provision was also inserted that private individuals might estabUsh and maintain houses of correction out of their own funds.* The part that private philan- thropy played in the United States in the establishment and maintenance of the first institutions for juvenile offenders has also been touched upon;^ but attention should be called also to the fact that even in the setting up of state penitentiaries, charitably incUned people were here and there called upon to do their part. In ' Chap. Ill, p. 35. ■^ Chap. IV, p. 56. • Chap. VI, p. 93. (283j PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES 1813 Tennessee, for example, passed an act^ requiring clerks of courts to open subscription lists for the purpose of permitting the citizens to subscribe whatever they might think proper for the erection of a penitentiary. But aside from the fact that private individuals and organizations provide funds in some cases for the salaries of probation officers and psychiatrists, the juvenile insti- tutions now constitute the only remaining example in the United States of private enterprise in the care of offenders, and through state subsidies and the placing of public officials on the boards of management^ many of these are fast losing their purely private character. With respect to these private institutions for juvenile delinquents, the public is concerned almost solely with the maintenance of proper standards of care. Free from poUtical control, they have greater oppL.-tunity to experiment, but lack of funds often prevent them from taking advantage of this chance, and at all times a certain per cent of them fall below any tolerable standards. Thus it is that the public must set up standards for them and by adequate supervision see to it that they are lived up to. There is, unfortunately, a disposition on the part of some institutions to resent any interference on the part of the state, particularly where the entire support of the institution is obtained from private sources; but it is doubtful if this position can be successfully maintained. Institutions are being constantly set up from mixed motives by individ^als or groups with slight qualifications for running them successfully. ' An Act to Authorise Subscriptions for Erecting a Penitentiary in Ten- nessee, 181S, Ch. LXXVI. . 2 Chap. VI, p. 96. [284] MANAGEMENT OF INSTITUTIONS The fact that our public prisons are classified as federal, state, and local does not at first strike one as incongruous or strange. So accustomed have we become to classifications of all kinds based on these divisions of our government, that we never stop to think, in regarding prisons, whether the function of caring for prisoners should be split up in this fashion or not. When one inquires, however, what particular theory of administration is responsible for this division of the work, the puzzling features of the situation develop. Should one start out with the assumption that the present scheme is but the natural result of each division seeking to care for its own criminals, the explanation must be regarded as far from satisfactory so long as no meaning is given to the phrase, "its own criminals." If by this is meant the location of the crime, the explanation is inadequate, for it is plain that every crime committed on land must have been committed within a local division of government. If, however, the phrase is to be interpreted as meaning that each division takes care of those criminals who have broken the laws enacted by that division, the explanation would be suflacient to account for the existence of federal prisons and individual state prisons; but not for the distinction between state and local prisons, for these latter not only care for those who have offended against local ordinances but for those who have broken a law of the state as well. However, the general practice of sending long-term prisoners, who are offenders against state laws, to state institu- tions has tended somewhat to make the distinction hold true here also. In the chapter on jails, the evils of local management were pointed out and arguments [285] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES presented to show that all convicted prisoners ought to be cared for by the state itself. But as for making them all federal prisons, there seems at present no good reason. The individual states are capable of handhng the work properly and no one is yet prepared for such a degree of centralization of government functions as this change would involve. At the present time, the Federal government has under its jurisdiction three penitentiaries and two training schools, one for boys and one for girls. ^ These institutions are all managed by the Superintendent of Prisons, an official on the staff of the Attorney General. Both the Navy and War Departments also have military prisons subject to their authority. As the problems of management presented by these institutions do not differ in any way from those found in state institutions, the discussion of problems of management which follows applies equally well to them. The management of a prison is somewhat analogous to that of a private corporation. Corresponding to the stockholders are the voters; the board of directors of the corporation is duplicated by the "board of man- agers," "board of inspectors," "board of control," or official or officials by whatever name they may be known, who are responsible for the prison; and the business manager of the corporation has his counter- part in the superintendent or warden.^ Furthermore, just as within recent years, certain classes of corpora- tions have been brought under the supervision of the ' The penitentiaries are located at Atlanta, Georgia; Leavenworth, Kansas; and McNeil Island, Washington. Both of the training schools are located in the District of Columbia. ' For a summary of the laws governing prisons in the United States and in foreign countries, see Charies Richmond Henderson, Modern Prison Systems, 57th Congress, 2d Session, House Document No. 452. [286] MANAGEMENT OF INSTITUTIONS government,! so too, beginning in Massachusetts in 1863, naost prisons have now been placed under the super- vision of a state body separate from that of the actual board, or what not, managing the particular institution.^ Keeping clearly in mind the foregoing analogy between the management of prisons and of corporations, let us proceed to some further implications. It is a notorious fact that the general stockholders of a corporation have little to do with running the corpora- tion; likewise, unfortunately only those citizens who have hoped to profit thereby seem to be aware that prisons may be controlled by votes. The profit- seekers are always busy, while the general voter acts but spasmodically. The result can be foreseen. Too many prisons have been run in the interest of job- himters and by those who hope to be benefited by the manipulation of prison industries. Blame must be laid upon our schools which permit a man to grow up in total ignorance of a large part of the great govern- mental machine which, later, will have no hand to guide it but his and his fellow ignoramuses. The sentimental point of view, the business point of view, and other equally bad ways of regarding prisons are due to the unscientific training of the voter. A prison should be regarded as a great social factory turning out a definite product, — namely, men less prone to crime than they were before entrance. It should be made to do efficient work in eliminating crime. If it is worn out or obsolescent, it should be thrown on the scrap heap. But how little attention is paid to prisons! • For instance, Interstate Commerce Commission. ^ We must not forget that the Grand Jury has exercised supervisory- power over prisons from earliest times. 19 11287] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES Has it not been the experience of nearly every one who has appeared before legislative committees in the interest of prison reform, to find the densest kind of ignorance of prison affairs on the part of the legislators? This attitude of these chosen representatives of the people is usually indicative of the minds of their con- stituents. They truly " represent " the general stupidity and apathy of the citizens at home; and the problem becomes one of educating the mass of people to the meaning of the tasks which in a democracy are laid at their doors. Without the backing of informed men and women, we may rest assured that no public official will stray far out of the ruts followed by his prede- cessors. Turning now to a discussion of the more immediate control of institutions for offenders, that is, to the control exercised by those of the management who correspond to the directors of a corporation, we find, if we leave out of consideration local prisons such as jails and workhouses, that there are at least four forms of organizing this control or management in the nar- rower sense.i These are as follows :2 1. Each penal institution under a separate unpaid board of managers concerned with the management of the one institution alone. ' The group of state institutions with which we are dealing here includes the state prisons and state penitentiaries, the reformatories for adults, the institutions for juvenile delinquents and a few institutions of other types such as the Indiana State Farm for Misdemeanants, and The Massa- chusetts State Farms for Inebriates. 2 For good accounts see, Henry C. Wright, Report of an Investigation of the Methods of Fiscal Control of State Institutions (New York: 1911) ; Fred- erick Howland Guild, "State Supervision and Administration of Charities," Indiana University Studies, No. 33; Frank A. Fetter, "State Supervision and Administration — Report of the Committee," Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Correction (1909), pp. 397-413. . [288] MANAGEMENT OF INSTITUTIONS 2. All state penal institutions under one paid board, commission or department, which has nothing to do with the management of other state institutions, such as state hospitals for the insane, institutions for the feeble-minded or others belonging to the charity group. 3. All state penal institutions managed by a paid board, commission or department which also manages all state charitable institutions. 4. A mixed form of management combining some of the features of centralized and decentralized forms mentioned above. The first form of management, each institution with its own board, is the oldest; and the second, one board, commission or department directing all state penal institutions, ranks next in point of age. New York hav- ing centralized the control of her state prisons in 1847. The third form of organization came into existence in 1869 in Rhode Island. As all the institutions of this small state happened to be located on one large farm, it was an easy matter to bring about centralized man- agement. The fourth form represents an attempt to combme the best features of the centraUzed and decen- traUzed schemes. These four forms represent varying degrees of centralization of control, and this character- istic is the peg from which the following discussion largely depends. Before considering the relative advantages and disadvantages of these four forms, it will be best to note what are the duties of those who perform this part of management.! The most important duty of all is the selection of an administrator to run the institution. • L. A. Rosing, "Duties of a Board of Control," National Conference of Charilies and Correction (1907), pp. 40-44. [289] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES Too great emphasis cannot be laid upon the importance of procuring a capable man, for on him depends to a large extent the success or failure of the prison. In the selection of college presidents, this fact has long been recognized. College trustees search the country over for a man suitable for the presidency, and surely the same care and zeal should be shown in the selection of a warden on whom the welfare of hundreds literally depends. In addition to selecting the warden or super- intendent, they formulate general rules for the admin- istration of the prison and with few exceptions deter- mine the salaries and wages to be paid. They purchase supplies and award contracts. In connection with prison industries, they play a varied r61e depending on the system of employment used. They also exercise the important function of presenting the case of the prison to the governor and the legislature. The question then is, by what form of organization can these varied tasks be best performed. Forms 1 and 2 present the problem of decentraliza- tion versus centralization in the clearest contrast, unmixed by other considerations; so let us begin within these. First, what shall we say in regard to appointments. Since cabinet officers, members of boards or commis- sions all owe their selections to the governor of the state, the only consideration which is likely to make for difference in the composition of the boards or commissions is the matter of pay. It seems certain that as high types of men can and will be secured to serve on the unpaid decentralized boards as on the paid centraHzed ones. The spoils system and the fact that acceptance on a paid board or commission [2901 MANAGEMENT OF INSTITUTIONS usually necessitates the giving up of other work, are both considerations which a priori suggest that the unpaid decentralized board will make the best appoint- ment of wardens and superintendents, since they -will probably not be so easily influenced by party demands. In states like Massachusetts and lUinois, where the institutions have been centralized in a state department, the situation is not far different. This new form of management will not of itseK insure better appoint- ments than those made by individual boards. Next in importance to the appointment of an admin- istrator is the duty of directing the industries of the prisons. The deciding factor in the choice between the centralized and decentraUzed forms when viewed from this angle, is the system of employment that is used.* There is nothing in the nature of the contract, piece- price, or public-account systems which necessitates centralization of control; but the State-use system, and the speciaUzed form of it known as the public- works-and-ways system, both render centralized control of the industries of all the penal institutions more or less imperative. In a previous chapter, this question was fully gone into and from the discussion of these two systems of prison labor the reasons for this centraliza- tion was made clear. The only question which needs, therefore, to be asked here is whether it is not possible to have centralized control of industries and still retain the separate boards of direction. As a matter of fact, there are actual examples of this division of control In 1915, Pennsylvania set up the State-use system, and created a board to have charge of all the industries in the three state institutions for adults, without » See Chap. VIII on Prison Labor. [291] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES disturbing the separate boards of management which control the individual institutions. Nevertheless, in view of the fact that the industries of a prison are in most cases the most important part of the prison regime, it would seem that the centralization of the control of these would in the course of time tend some- what to reduce the importance of the separate boards. By many the purchase of supplies is considered to be a function of gi'eater importance than the direction of industries and to be a more decisive factor in determin- ing the relative merits of the centralized and decentral- ized tjrpes of management. Though this is an error, the purchase of supplies has been the backbone of many an argument on the general question which we are discuss- ing. Over against the gain from large-scale bujdng by the centralized organization, is placed the opportunity to buy in local markets from dealers or producers kindly disposed toward the institution. Other, but less important, considerations enter into the argument on both sides but as the matter has been fairly conclu- sively disposed of by the Wright report, ^ it will be unnecessary to take them up. No advantage has been found to he with the central board with respect to the purchase of supplies. In fact, the advantage, if any, is with the decentralized form of management. But coming rapidly to the front are other problems of institutional administration which seem to demand a certain degree of centralization of management for their solution. The psychological and psychiatric work, now a regular part of the routine of the best prisons, can be best developed and standardized by one ' Henry C. Wright, Report of an Investigation of the Methods of Fiscal Control of State Institutions (New York, 1911), p. 344. [292] MANAGEMENT OF INSTITUTIONS authority acting for all prisons in the state. The same can be said of the educational work, the parole work, the scientific feeding of the inmates, and the installation of proper methods of accounting. A plan combining decentralized management with centraUzed oversight has been worked out in New Jersey, where the local boards have been retained though subject in all these matters to a central board. Mr. Wright, after his study of the three different types of management represented by the three states of New York, Indiana and Iowa, comes to the conclusion that a mixed scheme (Form 4) which would leave each institution under its own board, yet placing in the hands of a centralized board or department certain functions relating to standards and accounts, would be superior to either a completely centralized or decentralized system. ' What now shall be said of type 3, that form in which the management of the insane asylums, the institutions for .the feeble-mmded, etc., is placed in the hands of the same board, commission or department that is charged with the direction of the prisons of the state? The answer depends almost entirely, it would seem, on the general conception which one has of the purpose of prisons. If one regards a prison as a human "Zoo," then its management should not be imited with that of the charitable group, because we have progressed beyond this point of view with respect to the insane, etc., and it would not, therefore, be advisable to unite in one office such diverse functions. On the other hand, it must be admitted, thank God! that the tendency is to break down the distinction between the ' Henry C. Wright, Report of an Investigation of the Methods of Fiscal Control of State Institutions (New York, 1911), pp. 347-353. [293] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES charitable and the correctional concepts, and the objection, therefore, to placing the management of the two types of institutions in the same hands loses some of its force, in proportion to the extent to which the distinction has been obliterated. Moreover, all that has been said as to the advisability of concentrating in the hands of one board the entire industries of the prisons, can be used as an argument in favor of uniting the direction of the charitable group with that of the prison group. The charitable institutions now produce many kinds of goods, and, with the coming of the State-use system of employing prisoners and the com- pulsory bujdng by all state institutions which accom- panies this system, efficiency seems to point to the control of these industries by the same group that manages those of the prisons. If, then, local boards of management are to be eliminated and replaced by centralized management, there is no good reason for separating the charitable from the penal group unless the total number of institutions in the state would make the task entirely too great for a single board to handle. A word now about this phase of the management of local institutions, jails, workhouses, etc. We must bear in mind that the problems of management of these are somewhat different from those of the state institutions.! In the case of the jail, for example, its control is vested in the great majority of instances, as has been stated,^ in the sheriff, who is also the chief administrator, corresponding to the warden or super- ' For an excellent description of the legal setting of local institutions, see Walter Rhoads White, County Government of Delaware County, Pennsyl- vania (The Peoples' Rights Association, 1917). 2 Chap. Ill, p. 39. [294] MANAGEMENT OF INSTITUTIONS intendent of a state institution, i And while in some states the houses of correction or workhouses are under the control of boards, they, too, are often managed by the sheriff in the same way as the jail; or, if not by him, then by a keeper appointed directly by the county commissioners who correspond in the county not to a board of managers but, rather loosely, to the state legislature. Moreover, the great majority of counties have but one institution for delinquents, and in them centralization of control can mean no more than the combining under one head one institution for dehn- quents and one or more institutions of charity. This was done, for example, in 1920, in Philadelphia, when under the new city charter a Department of Public Welfare was created and the management of the house of correction together with the management of the home for the indigents was placed under it. Similarly, Kansas City, Missouri, and Cleveland, Ohio, have each combined the management of these same institutions. New York City, however, having several institutions for delinquents, created a department for correctional institutions alone. The difference between the New York plan and that of the other three cities, it will be noted, is the difference that would exist between Form 2 and Form 3 of managing state institutions. In Phila- delphia, Kansas City and Cleveland, the jail still remains untouched by this move of centraUzation. State care of all convicted prisoners is the best solu- tion of the problems of local management. It will not be necessary to repeat here the arguments advanced in Chapter III for this shift from local to state control; but 1 In Pennsylvania, a board of inspectors who select the keeper, is appointed in the larger counties. [295] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES nothing short of it, it may confidently be predicted, will meet the needs of the situation in all counties. Supervision by state boards has helped to focus public attention on the evils of local care, and doubtless to eliminate some of the grosser abuses, but the evils are so inherent in the system that it ,is well nigh impossible to get rid of them and still retain the system. Failing this, the creation of local boards, appointed by the court and by the county commissioners as in Pennsylvania, would probably be better than leaving the jails or houses of correction under the sheriff. There is a gain, too, in placing the local prisons under a city depart- ment. In both Cleveland and Kansas City it resulted in the establishment of a workhouse on land adjacent to the city and the consequent outdoor employment of a large per cent of the inmates. ' In large cities, also, the groups which have been retained in the local prisons (drunkards, vagabonds, prostitutes, etc.) are more closely related to the inmates of the institutions of charity than would be the case in the corresponding state institutions; and the case of effecting a quick transfer from one class of institutions to another would be an advantage that could be derived from centralizing the management of all. The reader will recollect that we have not as yet attempted a verdict as to which is best of the four forms of control of state institutions. The reason is that the control is so closely related to that other phase of management, namely, supervision, that the final ver- dict must be left imtil we have learned something of the interrelation of these two functions. ^ Philadelphia already had, prior to the creation of a Department of Welfare, a house of correction located on the outskirts of the city. [296] MANAGEMENT OF INSTITUTIONS Americans have always been familiar with the idea of powers in government balanced over against each other. (The forefathers planned, for example, to balance the Supreme Court against Congress, etc.) Thus some- what similarly in the field of penology we find: first, boards to manage, to act, to be always on the job with a watchful eye and a continuity of policy; second, boards to supervise, to make periodical examinations, to pick what flaws maybe found; in a word, to criticize. Proceeding now to studying supervision, that is the criticizing function, we must turn again to the pages of English governmental history and to a study of the place and functions of the Grand Jury. As early as the seventeenth century, the Grand Jury had become a very important part of the administrative machinery of local government. It was the instrument by which county officials were held to their respective tasks. By presentment to the court, an official who had failed in his manifest duty could be properly chastised or removed from his position. Undesirable conditions could likewise be presented and a remedy sought at thehands of the court. Countyprisons and state prisons are still subject to this kind of supervision. Grand Juries inspect, make suggestions to the administrator in charge, and present the facts to the court. ^ How valuable is this service of the Grand Jury today? Undoubtedly it serves to prevent some gross abuses, although plenty that are passed over cry to Heaven. The fact is that the Grand Jury as a social institution has steadily declined in quality while the need for a scientific evaluation of the situation has increased with > It should be noted, however, that the court seldom takes action unless the District Attorney sees fit to indict. [ 297 ] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES every addition that has been made to our knowledge of penology. Once in a while a man is selected for the Grand Jury who knows something of the prison problem, and if his influence counts with the other members, the report of the Jury is a stinging indictment of the local prison — ^to be offset, however, by the report of the next Grand Jury which can see nothing wrong, because its members have probably never before seen the inside of a prison and have no knowledge of what they ought to expect. The Grand Jury is no longer able to criticize institutions which may look well enough except to the expert. The year 1863 marks the beginning of a new epoch in the history of supervision of prisons. Prior to this year, if we except the supervision exercised in certain states by societies such as the Pennsylvania Prison Society, a private society, supervision of the kind men- tioned by Grand Juries was the only supervision to which local prisons were subject. Barring the work of these private societies, just alluded to, state prisons or penitentiaries almost escaped supervision entirely. From time to time, when the conditions in the state prisons became too unbearable, legislative committees were appointed to inquire into the facts, and some states are said to have made a pretense of supervising the prisons by legislative committees appointed at each session of the legislature. In 1863, the movement for state supervision of state and local prisons begins in Massachusetts with the creation of a state board of chari- ty with general supervisory power over all charitable, reformatory and correctional institutions in the state.' ' An Act in Relation to State Charitable and Correctional Institutions, 1863, Ch. 240. [298] MANAGEMENT OF INSTITUTIONS The example set by Massachusetts was imme- diately followed by other states. By 1869, six other states had similar boards, and in 1920 there were state supervisory boards in nineteen states, and supervisory state departments in two, Oklahoma and New Jersey. It must not be supposed that these nineteen boards are all of exactly the same type or have exactly the same duties; but since we are concerned here solely with the supervision of prisons, it will not be necessary to consider these differences in so great detail as a dis- cussion of state supervision in general would demand. We may note, however, in passing, that there are three types of organization: (1) an appointed board, usually unpaid, that works through a paid secretary selected by the board; (2) a single paid official elected or appointed by the governor; (3) an ex-officio board. In some of the states having state supervisory boards, county boards of inspection have been provided by law to act in conjunction with the agents of the central board, with the idea of utilizing local knowledge and interest. Regular inspection at frequent intervals, and friendly advice to the administrative officer and some- times to the board or official directing the institutions, are the customary means used to get the individual institution to put forth its best. In addition to this work with each and every institution coming under the jurisdiction of the board, there is the larger task of promoting wise legislation and of diffusing new ideas throughout the state. Manifestly, the succ^s of such a board depends entirely on the composition of its members or rather perhaps on the paid secretary. A good man in the position of secretary has an opportunity for service of the most valuable [299] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES sort.i Unfortunately, while there has been some splen- did examples to make us see what can be done under this form of supervision, the position in several states has become the trophy of the office hunter and a sickening kind of result has been the consequence. Just as we asked about boards of management, so we must now ask: should a single board supervise all the institutions for the wards of the state, or should there be a separate supervisory board for the prisons and one for the charitable institutions or for a special set of the institutions, say those for children or the hospitals for the insane and feeble-minded. The decid- ing factor would seem to be perhaps the number of institutions in the state. We have already noted that a state with few institutions, penal or charitable, if it decides to centralize the management, tends to place them all under one board; and why, it may be asked, should not this be done in planning for state super- vision? The analogy does not hold true, for when we speak of centraUzed management, we refer to state insti- tutions only; but when we talk of state supervision, we have in mind supervision not only of state institutions but of all the innumerable local institutions as well. As ordinarily organized, the executive staff of a super- visory board consists of a paid secretary and one or more assistants, and it is extremely doubtful if such a staff can do the work which we now are asking that it do. We have, thanks largely to these state boards of supervision and to an aroused public opinion, rid our institutions of many of their most obvious abuses, and have reached what might be called the scientific stage of standard setting. An assistant secretary, staying ' In Indiana, this work has been most capably carried on for years. [300] MANAGEMENT OF INSTITUTIONS for a day in a county, visiting the almshouse, the jail, the hospital and other institutions either state or local in the county, may be able to report to his chief the presence or absence of vicious conditions, but neither he nor his chief can possibly be so versatile as to give expert advice to each of these institutions so different in type and purpose. The plan that is now being urged for Pennsylvania,! a state in which there is no centrali- zation of management, may be taken as representative of^the new point of view as regards supervision. This plan involves the wiping out of the old Board of Chari- ties and the creation of a Department of Public Welfare, the head of which will be a high-class executive on a par with the Superintendent of Public Instruction, the Director of Public Health, and the Commissioner of Labor and Industry, the iovir executives' names to con- stitute a Board of Public Welfare. The composition of the board will secure the utmost cooperation among the four departments and make easily available to the Department of Public Welfare the advice, information and help which these three other departments have to offer. Within the departments are to be at least three or four bureaus (Children, Correction, General Charity and possibly Mental Hy^ene) with experts at the head of each. Before giving now our fmal verdict— which we stated could not be given xmtil after a full discussion of the problem of supervision— in favor of one of the four forms of control, or management in the narrower sense, of state institutions for offenders let us note two inter- esting facts with regard to administrative and super- visory boards. In 1891, Wisconsin created a state 1 Passed with some modifications, 1921. [301] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES board of control, centralizing the management of its state institutions, and then decided to abolish its state supervisory board. This action of Wisconsin provoked a discussion which has lasted until the present as to the need in a state for a supervisory board in case a board of control was set up. It was not at first seen how boards managing individual state institutions could be replaced by a centralized one without depriving the supervisory board of a large part of its functions. The change would obviously call for some adjustment of powers, but time has clearly shown that there is room for both in the field, and the fact that a centralized board of management is not concerned with that com- pUcated problem of local charities and corrections makes the supervisory board an imperative necessity. The second fact of interest is that imder the decentralized type of control, boards of supervision tend to acquire powers properly belonging to centralized boards of management. 1 The log-rolling in the legislature over appropriations, when each state or semi-state institu- tion is represented in the lobbies by its friends, has been responsible in Pennsylvania for the placing in the hands of the supervisory board^ some power over appropria- tions. Each institution receiving aid from the state is compelled to lay its demands before this state board of supervision for consideration. Unfortunately, this board does not as yet have final power in the matter and the legislators quite often disregard the suggestions of the board in granting appropriations. Another instance of the giving of managerial powers to a supervisory * Frederick Howland Guild, State Supervision and Administration of Charities (Indiana University Study, No. 63), p. 66. ^Abolished in 1921 by act creating Department of Public Welfare. [302] MANAGEMENT OF INSTITUTIONS board may be also taken from the history of the Penn- sylvania board, this time in connection with local institutions. The board found that its advice was pretty much wasted on the jail authorities and demanded the power to enforce their recommendations. This power was finally given them. Perhaps one might lay it down as a general principle that the absence of central- ized state management results in the state supervisory board acquiring directive powers over the state insti- tutions. We are now prepared to state which one of the f our forms of control of state institutions is in our opinion the best. We give our verdict imhesitatingly to the fourth form, that of decentralized management supple- mented by state supervision; not of the old type repre- sented by a state board with its paid secretary and assistants supervising every kind of a charitable or correctional institution in the state, but by a speciahzed department, or bureau within a department, named by experts and capable of setting proper standards and with power to enforce these standards. With this scheme of managing state institutions, the management of local institutions for offenders can be brought into some sort of harmony through supervision carefully and adequately maintained. Our scheme is thus a more or less exact copying of our great school system, namely: local (decentralized) boards of management, impaid, disconnected as far as possible \%ith politics, plus a centralized board or department of supervision and criticism with power to insist on standards. It remains now to speak of the remaining function of management, the actual administration of the insti- tution itself. The work of a warden, a superintendent, 20 1303] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES a sheriff or a keeper varies with the type of institution he is called upon to administer. In the preceding chap- ters the nature of each class of institutions has been depicted, and from what has been said in this connec- tion, some notion of the task which an administrative head would be called upon to perform must have been made clear.^ We shall, therefore, confine our attention at this point to a few of the general problems of adnun- istration that are now uppermost iu the public mind. Let it be recognized at the outset that the job is no easy one. Even in institutions for juvemle delinquents, the problems of administration are trying in the extreme, and when it comes to handling hundreds of men guilty of all the crimes in the calendar it is not surprising that a deadly dull routine has developed, since through it the warden and the guards avoid many of the most per- plexing problems with which they have to deal. We should reserve some of our sympathy for those who do this disagreeable but necessary work of society. No matter what the kind of institution or how hedged about by laws or politics, it is surprising what a good administrator can accomplish in an institution even of the old type. It would take too long to enumerate even the most important contributions such men have made to the science of prison administration. To men- tion only a few: Zebulon R. Brockway, to whom the adult reformatory system is to be credited; Wells, WUliam George, Calvin Derrick, Thomas Mott Osborne, to whom the idea of self-government is largely due; J. S. BUtsch, who has dared to do away with all prison ' A detailed account of the admimstratioii of prisons in New York State, typical of other states as well, is given by Philip Klein, Prison Methods in New York State (Columbia University Studies in Political Science, 1920), XC, Number 1. [304] MANAGEMENT OF INSTITUTIONS guards at the Florida State Farm; Sheriff Tracy of Vermont, who allowed his men to work outside the jail for private parties; Warden Reed of Minnesota, who has shown how to make a state prison more than self- supporting; Mrs. Hodder of Massachusetts, Miss Davis of New York, and Mrs. Falconer of Pennsylvania, who have led the way in the development of institutions for women offenders. Wherever a first-class man or woman has been appointed, that person has made a contribu- tion to the treatment of delinquents. Enough has already been said on the importance of appointing a man of genuine ability as head of an institution. Not until the position is looked upon in the same Ught as the presidency of a state vmiversity can we hope for a genidne development of prison administration. As assistants to the warden, the superintendent, the sheriff or the keeper are the guards, teachers, chaplain and functionaries of various kinds who carry on the actual work of the administration. In few states are these appointed under civil service. They, too, are the beneficiaries of political life. Without gainsaying the fact that under this system many good appoint- ments are made, it has proven nevertheless a millstone on progress. 1 No wonder that prisoners grow more cynical, more convinced that graft is the rule in the outside world, and morecertain that they are merely extra unfortimate in getting caught! Probably the institutions for juve- nile offenders are less afflicted by this pernicious prac- i"Good politics is a necessary function of good government, but bad politics has, I think, done more to retard and destroy good prison adminis- tration than all other causes combined." Henry Wolfer, Warden State Prison, Stillwater, Minn., "Modem Prison Problems," NaUoncU Conference of ChccrUies and Correction (1907), p. 97. [305] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES tice of appointing political henchmen than any other class of institutions, but even these are by no means free of it. To pay a political debt by an unworthy appointment at the expense of prisoners, men shut away where they must endure whatever comes then- way, is a crime which, whatever society may now say about it, will at the last judgment outweigh even many serious ones for which men are now confined. The honor system, about which there has been much talk lately, is simply a further development of the plan of employing "trusties," men to whom a greater degree of freedom had been granted within the prison than to the average prisoner, to assist in the work of the institution. There is really no one honor system. Individual wardens have given certain prisoners various opportunities to work under conditions approximating those of freedom. In some states, laws have been enacted specifying how this shall be done. Sometimes they work outdoors on the prison farm; sometimes they build roads; and sometimes it is work about the institution. The point is, of course, that they are not guarded. The selection of these men has depended on the warden's knowledge of the individual prisoners. Very often men are picked out whose sentences will soon expire, on the theory that they will not risk loosing their accumulated "good time" and early release by attempt- ing an escape. While there have been some escapes wherever this has been tried, the results are truly bene- ficial. It would seem that under a prison system that makes any attempt to reform men, it ought to be possi- ble to give each man an opportunity to test himself as a free man imder the oversight of the prison. Self-government in prisons is often confused with [306] MANAGEMENT OF INSTITUTIONS these methods of working men on their honor. It, however, differs from them greatly. Self-government means participation in the administration of the insti- tution, and is exactly comparable to self-government or student government now existing in many of our col- leges and universities, and to the more recent attempts at self-government in industry. It does not mean that the prisoners run the entire institution any more than student government means that the students run the college or university. All that one can say is that these are matters which can be best settled by those most immediately concerned, students in one case, prisoners in the other. The problem is not dissimilar to the granting of powers to the governed in the outside world. How far can individuals be trusted to manage themselves? Do we really know? The only way to find out is to make the experiment. The movement in the prisons and in the colleges and universities is a recognition of the fact that men should be made to shoulder all the responsibility for their acts that is possible. Because a man has committed a crime does not of itseH indicate that he is incapable of making the smallest decision with respect to his relations with his fellow men. To be sure, one cannot say where the line should or could be drawn between the affairs which should be subject to the decision of prisoners themselves, and those which must be absolutely under the control of the prison authorities. Neither has this question been decided in the colleges and universities in which student governing bodies have been set up. SeK-govemment in prisons is very little developed at present. The George Junior Republic atFreeville,N.Y,,i 1 See William R. George, The Junior Republic (D. Appleton & Co., 1910). 1307] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES represented the first resurgence of the idea follow- ing the demise of the efforts at the old Boston House of Correction^. ISIr. Calvin Derrick, who assisted Mr. George at Freeville, worked out at ihe Preston School of Industry, Waterman, California, of which he became superintendent on leaving The George Junior Repubhc, what is perhaps the best scheme of self-government in any institutions for young offenders. Among adults, the work of Thomas !Mott Osborne in the Aubiim and Sing Sing State Prisons, and in the Portsmouth Naval Prison merits great consideration.^ His success in all three prisons warrants the beUef that there are genuine possibilities in it if tried out by administrators who are primarily interested in developing character; men who are willing to put up with the clumsy awkward efforts of imperfect subjects. A smooth-running govern- mental machine can probably be best attained under an aristocratic form of government, as in Germany prior to the war. But to live in a democracy seems to many of us an education in itself of very great value, and so say the defenders of self-government in prisons, in colleges and in universities, and in the greater field of industry. The analogy between prison management and corpora- tion management is as great in this undeveloped rela- tion of management and men as at other points. 1 Set Cbap. VI, p. 94. • For a partial account of the work of Thomas Mott Oabome, see his two booka. Within Prison Walls (Xew York and London: D. Appleton & Co., 1917), and Sodeiuand Pris(ms_Q^i^ Haven: Yale University Preaa, 1916). [308] CHAPTER XrV SUMMAKY AND CONCLUSIONS ROUGHLY speaking, there are five stag^ in the evolution of punishment. But so irregularly has the advance been made from the earUer to the later stages that one may still observe in our present practice of handling criminals some of the features char- acteristic of all the stages. Local government, on the one hand, makes the introduction of new methods easy in progressive communities, and, on the other hand, it allows backward communities to retain social machinery that has long been discarded elsewhere. Now because of this peculiarity in the development of penal methods, typical of course of the development of other social institutions, it will be impossible to indicate other than vaguely the period of time to which eax^h stage belongs. In describing the early^English jail, the direct ances- tor of our present jail, attention was called to the fact that there was a time when imprisonment was not regarded as a form of pxmishment.i The criminal was held in jail until he could be punished and the imprison- ment itself constituted no part of the punishment. Death, mutilation or direct injury of some sort to the person of the criminal were, in the main, the pvmish- • "Up to the middle of the twelfth century some counties were without public gaols or prisoners' cages, and Heniy II commanded their construc- tion at the Assize of Caarendon, 1166." " Bracton, who died in 1268, expressly wrote that a prison was to confine and not to punish." George Ives, A History of Penal Methods, CriminaXe, Witches, iMnatics (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co., 1914), p. 10. [309] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES ments of this stage. During the many centuries that capital punishment was a common punishment for crime, many forms of putting a man to death were evolved, all horrible and nearly all designed to produce extreme suffering in the victim before causing death. Thus, also, much ingenuity was spent in devising ways of mutilating the body. Various parts of the criminal's anatomy were removed, often with the Biblical idea of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth in mind. Flog- ging, ducking or exposing the culprit may be considered as milder ways of injuring the person of the criminal. This then is the pre-imprisonment stage of punishment when punishment takes the form of a direct injury to the body of the criminal. We still put a very few men to death but the method is as humane as it can very well be made. Hanging, electrocution, shooting and asphyxiating are the four ways by which our governments now ordain that a man shall die. In one or two of the states, the criminal is given a choice. The general pubUc as a rule is excluded and the whole matter carried on with scientific efficiency. Delaware still has its whipping post and, as has already been indicated, there are at least twenty- five crimes for which a whipping may be administered in this state. When one considers that there are now very few crimes punishable by death, that society uses only three or four relatively humane methods, that the public is excluded and that only one state still flogs offenders, we can better reaiiize how little there is left to remind us of the first stage of punishment, when practically all punishments were infliction in some form or other of an injury to the person of the criminal. The second stage is the stage of imprisonment, best [310] SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS typified by the jails of England (described by George Fox, John Howard and EUzabeth Fry) and by the old Walnut Street Jail of Philadelphia which Friends sought to reform. The most important features of these prisons have already been described in the chapter on jails. The frightful sanitary conditions, the mingUng of sexes and of young and old offenders, the idleness and the neglect of all the decencies of life, all go to indicate that just as society in the stage first described wished not merely the death of the offender but long drawn out suffering followed by a horrible ending, so now imprison- ment was to mean not alone the isolation of offenders but isolation under conditions so vile that death, often resulting from the conditions, must in many instances have seemed a longed for release to the criminal. Whether such conditions were the result of conscious choice of society at that time, or whether they were due solely to neglect, matters not, since what society allows to be done through indifference is perhaps as good an indication of its real v/ishes as what it purposely per- forms. Conditions in some of our present jails, workhouses, and even in some of our state prisons and penitentiaries, show that we have not altogether gotten away from this stage of punishment. Deplorable and frightful conditions bordering on those described by Howard and others are still found to exist in this country. Moreover, a slight experience with legislators and a careful analysis of public opinion would convince th6 candid observer that there are many of our citizens who feel that imprisonment to be punishment must be of this vicious, degrading, injurious kind. The third stage is a logical result of a public opinion [3111 PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES awakened to the evils of this second stage. It might be called, for a want of a better term, the filing system stage. One of the most useful devices of any office is a system of fiMng letters, reports and information. The cluttered-up litter disappears and all the material brought through the mail and through other channels is numbered or catalogued and then filed away where it can easily be found if ever wanted. Disorder is replaced by order and everything has its place. Though they were not perhaps intended to be such, the Auburn and Pennsylvania systems discussed in Chapter V, ushered into prisons the system of indexing and of filing crimi- nals, of putting each in his place and of keeping him there until called for. Order and system came into being within prisons. No one will deny that there was a gain but the great error that was made can be traced to the failure to distinguish between a human being and an inert, lifeless object. To file human beings away in cabinets, whether they be of stone, steel or reen- forced concrete, is to destroy that which goes to make up a man. In this stage, too, belongs the notion that the prisoner should be an economic asset to the state and that other considerations should have no weight when it came to deciding on his occupation. While the truth has finally appeared as to what this system means, unfortunately a large per cent of our state prisons and some of our jails belong to this stage in the evolution of punishment. Indeed it is hard to convince the ordinary visitor to an immaculate filing cabinet for human beings, which goes by the name of a "good" penitentiary, state prison or jail, that the goal of punishments through imprisonment has not been reached. Cleanliness may, as the saying goes, [312] SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS be next to godliness, but the devil is sometimes known to have a clean doorstep. If it has not already, in the previous chapters, been made entirely clear what the real defects of this stage of punishment are, the charac- teristics of the next stage will perhaps bring these out by contrast. The foiirth stage is characterized by the attempt to make something out of a criminal while he is imprisoned. The early houses of correction, the penitentiary systems (remember the significance of the word penitentiary), the Elmira reformatory system, and the institutions for juvenile offenders may all be classed as belonging to this stage of punishment. In them all, at least originally, may be found the idea of using the period of enforced detention to train and instruct the prisoners and improve their morals. It denotes a genuine change in public sentiment, a weaning away from the idea that the hor- rors of imprisonment are the real deterrents to crime, and a right-about-face from the notion that without awakening new desires, bringing into play new motives, or creating within the prisoner an image of a new life, he would come out of prison cured of his evil tendencies. It is the training-school stage of punishment. The institution is no longer a storage house for vile men, but a factory for making better men. Although it has been pointed out that the penitentiary systems soon lost most of their penitential character, that the houses of correction very early became indis- tinguishable from the common jails and that nowadays prison reformers are inclined to criticise rather severely many of the adult reformatories, yet the strength of this idea of education and training has in no-ways decreased nor the belief in its effectiveness as ameansof combatting [313] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES crime become less potent. It is interesting to note that the greatest freedom to experiment has been allowed to institutions for the younger types of offenders and that later the results achieved have been slowly made use of by the institutions for the older offenders. Thus the adult reformatories are beginning to resemble the refor- matories for juveniles, and the penitentiaries and state prisons the reformatories for adults. A totally new idea, not found in the early efforts, promises much improvement over anything that has gone before. There has been of late an increasing emphasis on the criminal. (Strange that he should have been neglected so long!) Little by little we are learning to know something of his nature and thus to understand what the problem is. Recidivism, the x^etition of criminal acts, has been found to be of proportions which our inadequate criminal statistics have never really revealed. Some go so far as to say that so far as adult criminals are concerned there are no_first_Qffenders. Without going into this question which will perhaps form a part of a second volume, it is sufficient to say that studies of criminals by psycholo- gists and psychiatrists have made us reaUze that some of our criminals are not trainable and that it will be difficult to adapt our old institutions for the training of others. In other words, here as in the broader field of education we have come to learn that our task is much more difficult than we at first imagined. With the power which each State has to run its institutions as it wishes, there probably will be in the next few years many experiments of an interesting character carried on in this particular field of education. The fifth stage is the stage of individualization, of [314] SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS ^case work, to use a term now much employed in the field of social work. In this stage, into which we are now entering, attention is focused on the individual. Offenders are not looked at as a mass or a group but each individual is treated after the manner which an intensive investigation (social, physical and mental) seems to warrant. While this should be an integral part of institutional poUcy, so far the best work of this kind is done by courts that have developed capable probation systems. One should place in this stage also the paroling of offenders. Both probation and parole are delicate instruments of punishment and great care is needed in their use. However, it should never be forgotten that when these delicate instruments are mishandled neither good nor harm results, save that the offender is let loose a little earlier upon society than if imprisoned. Whereas, if imprisonment as a method of treatment, is mishandled, the offender is brutalized, contaminated, schooled in crime, and let loose upon society as a twice-dangerous enemy to it. Yet the more we know about the criminal, the more we come to see that probation and parole work demand more expert officials even than the train- ing schools, but probation officers and parole officers are seldom required to possess the training which even a country school teacher would have to have to get a certificate. Will the final stage mark the elimination of punish- ment in the sense of pain? To some, our modem prisons do not seem like prisons at all and they do not feel that the criminal is punished when sent there. In Pennsyl- vania a judge not long ago sentenced a man to the county jail instead of to the penitentiary, the normal [315] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES place to send the man as the sentence was a long one, on the ground that the penitentiary was too good a place for him. To people of this mind, probation for example is, of course, not punishment. They do not realize that perhaps the hardest punishment for many a criminal would be to compel him to lead a decent hfe under threat of perpetual segregation from society. To this plan we are gradually coming. But is there any hope that offenders as a group will be finally eliminated? Certainly not within any appre- ciable period of time. We must remember that the standard of conduct is changing, new acts constantly being made crimes by legislation and penalties provided for these. The problem is, first, an environmental problem and although this is partly under our control, it is not wholly so, and even that part which is under our control remains for long periods of time relatively unchanged. Secondly, any group of animals that is allowed to breed indiscriminately will produce many individuals of abnormal type. Punishment of some form or other will, therefore, be a permanent part of our social measures of arrange- ment for the common life. It remains to make it as intelligent and useful a measure as possible. It is too soon to state what an ideal system of handling criminals would be like. It cannot be too strongly stated that we do not, as a fact, know very much about criminals. Much has been written but it is not the product of continuous scientific effort. Here and there the searchlight of science has been thrown on the problem of crime, but these flashes have served merely to throw into bold relief certain aspects of the situation rather than reveal the true inwardness of the problem. [316] SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS Much diagnosing has lately been carried on, but unfortunately there has been little testing by treat- ment to prove the truth of the diagnoses. It can be confidently asserted, however, that the method of building new penal institutions should be changed. Aleaf should be taken from progressive busi- ness men and instead of the present crude method of building the buildings and then hiring a manager to set up what processes may commend themselves, the reverse should be the case, as in Big Business. The present unfortunate method is this: Certain discerning people see the need for a new institution. They worry and worm the money for it out of the legis- lature. Perhaps the philanthropists are glad enough to be aided, in lobbying, by a firm of reputable archi- tects who scent a job in the offing. Usually the bill states the type of institution, creates a building com- mission and makes an appropriation. Next the build- ing commission junkets around to view other similar institutions, but soon votes to turn the work over to a firm of architects, probably those already interested in the matter. When the commission can report the buildings are up, they gracefully retire from the field and a new commission is appointed to begin where they left oflf — ^hire a manager and be responsible for all that happens next. Contrast all this with the best business practice. In long and deUcate manufacturing production, the engi- neers have determined ahead of time the movements of every ton of material, the heat, the Ught, perhaps the ventilation required for its manipulation. The archi- tect is merely the servant at the beck and call of the manager-to-be, or of one who has perhaps been a [317] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES manager and who knows well that the manager he will hire and the architect he is now hiring have got to stick closely to all the standardized equipments and methods which have been worked out in his industry. It is plain that it will be more difficult for the architect of a human factory to know what to build. There are as yet few standardized methods for working over human material. Therefore is it all the more impera- tive that the architect should be under the guidance of the man who is to run the institution. Select the war- den or superintendent first. Let him start his work when the first shovelful of earth is lifted and let the institution grow up around his personality and become the material instrument through which his will shall make itself felt. The whole proposition will be the more likely to attract a man of the first calibre. By the reverse, perverse method, you encourage the architect to build a storehouse for humans, rather than a factory, because many, many such storehouses have been built and the methods are standardized. So the architect feels on firm ground with a storehouse proposition and naturally is very determined to do that only which he knows he can do well. Further, when the storehouse is built, and if a really good man is by chance got for manager, it is a sight for gods and men. There he is, trying to manufacture decent physique and character, in a bran-new house built for something quite different. A great deal has been said in this book about con- verting all our prisons into reformatories. Now aside from the obvious difficulties of cost, political morality, indifference of good citizens, etc., another obstacle of no mean proportion lies in the fact that we do not know [318] SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS how to reform men. How, for example, would one start to reform a kidnapper? Just recently, the public was shocked by the stealing of a child at Norristown, Pennsylvania. The brutality of the affair was increased by the fact that there was every reason to suppose that the kidnapper suffocated the child. It will be claimed, no doubt, that the man was insane, but are all kidnap- pers insane? Will work, or further education, produce a change in heart? Is it to be a religious conversion? Is he to be preached at or labored with? A bible placed in the cell? Must some mental conflict be broken up by the aid of psychologists or psychiatrists; or is the surgeon to remove a part of his anatomy in order to promote a better frame of mind? It is one thing to talk in general terms about reforming men and it is quite another thing to plan for the welfare of a concrete individual. The matter of reforming prisoners is not, however, so hopeless as it might appear. We have been imthinkably foolish in that we have not applied to criminals the things that we know to be good for the rest of us — ^let alone giving to them the special atten- tion which the fact of their crime warrants us in believing they are in need of. Certainly we can say that in every prison the sanitation and diet should be such that the good health of the prisoners would be assured; that the work should be interesting, not drudgery of the lowest and most mechanical sort; that it should yield some kind of an income to the prisoner; that there should be training in industrial pursuits and educational opportunities; and, lastly, that there should be the chance to grow and to leave, as Oliver Wendell Holmes says, the outgrown shell. Every one of these things can be achieved if we but 21 [3191 PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES put our shoulder to the wheel. We must remember that we have not solved the problem of work for free individuals, nor yet the problem of educating our own children; and unless social progress shall take place at a very much more rapid pace in the future than it has in the past, it will take all the efforts of this generation to put into efifect in the prisons of this land the measures that we are confident are for the good of humanity in general. But even so, would this mean that every man would go out of prison free from the malady which brought him there? Paul said: "I have planted, ApoUos watered; but God gave the increase." Should we not at least follow Paul and ApoUos? Some of the next steps which we can now see ought to be taken with respect to the organization of our institutions of punishment are: I. The socializing of our criminal courts, that is, making them, as are our juvenile courts, interested not alone in determining guilt or innocence but in learning what to do with the offender. The larger courts should be equipped with staffs of investigators to aid in utilizing to the very best advantage all the machinery in the state available for the care of criminals. In view of our scattered population and the consequent smallness of many of our courts, there should be in every state some kind of a clearing-house, as has been proposed for New York, in connection with Sing Sing State Prison.^ A bureau is suggested whose task shall be to advise courts too small to have such a staff or bureau of their own. * Any court in Massachusetts may now, under the law, call upon the Com- mission for Mental Diseases for the expert services of a psychiatrist. In Ohio, a State Bureau of Juvenile Research furnishes diagnostic facilities to Juvenile Courts; and in Illinois a psychiatrist has been appointed as state criminologist. [320] SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS how best to give their offenders the benefit of the general state equipment. But all of these smaller courts should be kept closely in touch with what the clearing- house, or central bureau, is doing. In view of the ten- dencies of the legal profession to become too interested in the technicaUties of the law, the smaller courts would become machine-like if stripped of all problems beyond the mere trying of the offender. II. The further development of probation or some system of indenture, so that every court, instead of only a few, may have this excellent bit of machinery ready at hand to use with those cases for which it is peculiarly suited. Along with probation should go the practice of allowing fines to be paid by instalhnents, that no man may go to prison merely because he is poor. III. The establishment of institutions for special types of offenders. As fast as science is able to differ- entiate among them, legislatures should appropriate money for the building of institutions for their care. Twenty-five years from now, every institution ought to owe its existence solely to the fact that it cares for a special group and has a special task to perform. As a part of the treatment, or care, in connection with each of these institutions, there should be a good parole system. As much care and attention should be possible for men on parole as if they were still in the institution from which they had been paroled. IV. The elimination of county and municipal jails as places of detention for sentenced prisoners. V. Making easy the transfer from one penal institu- tion to another, and from penal institutions to those commonly known as charitable. VI. The abolition of the death penalty. [321] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES VII. Making the goal of prison administration the development of character. As has been said, nearly all of our institutions for offenders are now public. But this does not mean that the public knows anything about them. We do not have as in England a leisure class that considers it their duty to see that these public institutions are properly run. Om- leisure class has not yet adopted the noblesse oblige theory of life. The only way out which now exists is through education. We must teach democracy to our children, making them conscious of their duties as well as their rights in a commonwealth such as ours, and that the rule of demos means for them to put some weeks of their lives on studying governmental problems such as penology, the subject of this volume. What is necessary above all is an entire change in the point of view concerning prison administration. The present attitude is best characterized by the title "keeper" which is applied alike to prison officials from the warden or superintendent down to the guards. If only this word had the Biblical significance implied in the phrase, "Am I my brother's keeper?" we would feel satisfied that all was well within our prisons; but, unfor- tunately, the word frequently has no such meaning in prison administration. It often means in this connec- tion about what it would mean if applied to a keeper in a zoological garden or a travelling menagerie, that is one who holds confined certain dangerous animals. In saying this, I am not forgetting certain brave officials who have struggled against great odds, sometimes suc- cessfully and sometimes not, to make of their institu- tion a genuine "cure" for souls. The blame should be placed, where it belongs, on the [322] SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS citizens of this country who seldom think of prisons at times other than when their own special interests are at stake. PoUticians think of prisons when they need jobs either for themselves or others; manufacturers and labor men when prison-made goods come into competi- tion with those which they make; and the rest of us when the old instinctive primitive desires to kill or injure anyone or anything that has harmed us or our intimate friends, have been aroused by the acts of a criminal. Such spasmodic thinking will never make our penal institutions fit instruments for dealing with crime. In various chapters, it has been suggested that all the prisons of a state should be under the supervision of the State Department of Education. Probably there will be many to object to this, not least among whom will probably be the educators themselves. In India, the prisons are under the medical branch of the civil admin- istration, and it has been urged in the United States that all wardens should be physicians. One might go a step further and place the prisons themselves under a State Department of Health. But prison work is in its broadest and finest sense educational work, and that, too, of the most difficult character. It is not primarily a health proposition. Diagnosticians are, of course, necessary staff members, but prison work should be under the direction of men thoroughly imbued with educational ideas. It is not well to be dogmatic as to where the manage- ment should be placed, but the chances are that unless it is closely tied up with the educational program of the state, the work will continue to be regarded as mainly custodial. The problem is how to keep alive this idea of prisons as educational institutions for the making 1323): PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES or remaking of men. After witnessing the sagging in policy of institution after institution and system after system, one comes to believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with prison organization. The only explanation that seems plausible is that science has not yet got a foothold in the prisons, and until it does the backsliding is inevitable. Can not the door be kept open for science by the Department of Education taking over the supervision of the prisons? One other suggestion for keeping alive the spirit of progress in prisons might be made. Our educational institutions themselves have been singularly slow to help the student to become a better citizen. How much do our medical schools, for example, offer towards the solution of the problems of crime? To an outsider they seem much more interested in developing the individual practitioner than in helping a community to an under- standing of its health problems and of the relation of these to other civic problems. The student of crimi- nology does not get much assistance from the Depart- ments of Sociology and Psychology in our colleges and universities. Perhaps he has no right to expect it from them; but aside from courses in general sociology and psychology there ought to be something offered to those who are interested in our defendants, defectives and delinquents. Our law schools seem likewise to be intent only on training men to practice law. In Phila- delphia, learned judges still continue to sentence men to separate and solitary confinement at hard labor in the Eastern Penitentiary when the crowding has made impossible separate and solitary confinement and the administration and organization of prison industries in the state are such that only about one hundred out of [324] SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS sixteen hundred can be employed. Surely there is something wrong in their education when these judges, either knowing nothing of the life to which they con- demn men, or else knowing it, sit with folded hands. In reading that excellent discussion by De Beaumont and De Tocqueville, of our early prison system, to which reference has repeatedly been made, no one could fail to be impressed by their clear understanding of the relation of prison discipline to the choice of prison officials. They say: "In investigating the organization of new establishments, we have been struck with the importance which is attached to the choice of the indi- viduals who direct them. As soon as the penitentiary system was adopted in the United States, the personnel changed its nature. For jailor of a prison, vulgar people only could be found; the most distinguished persons offered themselves to adminster a penitentiary where a moral direction exists."^ It is unquestionably true that the introduction in state prisons and state penitentiaries of features of the Elmira system made for higher-class prison appoint- ments. And it is still possible to see to-day the same phenomenon, which De Beaumont and De Tocqueville witnessed, of highly educated men, well qualified in every way for the position, willing to undertake the arduous duties of warden, if it can be demonstrated that the position is not that of a mere keeper of men. Above all, let us cease to store the criminal away for ' a few years to deteriorate, and then to hand him back to f the world to rob, cheat, and assault every weaker per- ^ On the Penitentiary System in the United States, and Us Application in France, with an Appendix on Penal Colonies and also Statistical Notes (Philadelphia: Carey, Lea and Blanchard, translated by Francis IJeber, 1833), pp. 29-30. [325 J PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES son who gets in his path. Rather let us have factory- plants to which our criminals shall come as the raw material — some of it rather damaged, to be sure. An institution can certainly alter men's physiques if it goes about it as definitely as a factory would treat silk or steel. Wise, consecrated endeavor will find a way to alter their minds and habits, too. 1326] BIBLIOGRAPHY* Account of the Principal Lazarettos in Europe, with Various Papers Relating to the Plague, together with Further Observations on Some Foreign Prisons and Hospitals, and Additional Remarks on the Present State of Those in Great Britain and Ireland. John Howard (Warrington: WilUam Eyres, 1789). Acts of the General Assembly of the Province of New Jersey from the Surrender of the Government to Queen Anne, on the 17th Day of April, in the year of our Lord 1702, to the 14th Day of January, 1776. Samuel Allison (Burlington: 1776). Administration and Educational Work of American Juvenile Reform Schools. David S. Snedden (New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1907). Adult Probation, Parole and Suspended Sentence. 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Evelina Belden HTnited States Department of Labor, Children's Bureau, Bureau Publieation, No. 65 . Die Todesstraffe, Ein Gutachen mit einem Nachwort. Dr. M. liepmann rBerlin: J. Guttentag, 1912). Digest of Laws Establishing Reformatories for Women in the United States. Helen Worthington Rogers. Journal of the Ameriean ImtUnie of Criminal Law and Criminology (November, i9irj. Discussion of the Report of Committee "A" of the Institute. Mr. Eaman. Journal of the American InstUuie of Criminal Law and Criminology ^November, 1915;. Duties of a Board of ControL L. A. Rosing. Proceedings of the National Conference of Charilies and Correction fl90T). Early History of English Poor Relief, The. E. M. Leonard (Cam- bridge: University Press, 19(X)). Eirenarcha, or of the Office of the Jusdees of Peace. William Lam- bard (London: Thomas Wight, 1599). Employment and Compensation of Prisoners in Pennsylvania. Report of the Penal Commission (1915). EmplojTnent of Convict Labor on Road Construction in Northern States. Sydney WQmot. Proceedings of the Academy of Polii- ieal Sdenee in ft« City of New York (January, 1914). Eugenical News. May, 1918. English Local Government — ^The Manor and the Borough. Parts I and n. Sidney and Beatrice Webb (Longmans, Green & Co., 1908). English Local Government — The Parish and the County. Sidney and Beatrice Webb (Longmans, Green & Co., 1906). English View of the American Penal System. Sir Evelyn Rug^e&- Brise. Journal of the Ameriean Institute of Criminal Law and Criminoilogy (September, 1911). Facts about Flogging. Joseph CoUinson. Humanitarian League Pamphlet (1902 . Federal and State Laws Relating to Convict Labor, Senate DocwnerU, Xo. 4.94, 6-3d Congress, 2d Session. Fee and the County Jail, The. John E. Orchard, Friends Social Service Series, Bulletin No. 2^, issued by the Central Bureau of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends, 150 North Fifteenth Street, Philadelphia. Fifty Years of Prison Service. Zebulon R, Brockway (New York: (Jharities Publication Committee, 1912). Feature of Parole, The. Edith N. Burleigh. Journal of the Ameriean InslUuie of Criminal Law and Criminology CMay, 1920). George Junior Republic, The. William R. Gaorge (D. Appleton & Co., 1910). Government of the Colony of South Carolina. Edson L. Whitney (Johns Hopkins University Studies, 1895). Hearing Before the Committee on Interstate Commerce, United States 63d Congress on S. 2321 a914' . Handbook of the New York State Reformatory at Elmira (1906). [328] BIBLIOGRAPHY Handbook on Capital Punishment, issued by National Committee on Prisons. H. L. Baldensperger (1916). Historical Origin of the Prison Sjrstem in America. Harry E. Barnes. Journdl of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology (May, 1921). History and Organization of Criminal Statistics in the United States. Louis N. Robinson (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1911). Historyof Penal Methods, A: Criminals, Witches, Lunatics. George Ives (London: S. Paul & Co., 1914). History of the English Law. Pollock and Maitland (2 ed.; Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1903). Honesty. William Healy (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Com- pany, 1915). House of the Dead, The. Everyman's Library. Dostoieflsky (New York: E. P. Button & Co.) Indenture of Prisoners: An Experiment. Jessie D. Hodder. Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology (May, 1920). Indeterminate Sentence, The. A Prisoner. AUantie Monthly (Sep- tember, 1911). Individual Delinquent, The. William Healy (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1918). Individualization of Punishment, The. Raymond Saleilles (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., translated from the second French edition by Rachel Szold Jastrow, 1913). In Prison. Kate Richards O'Hare (1920). International Prison Congress at Washington, The. Paul U. Kellogg. Survey (November 5, 1910). Judicial Discretion versus Legislation in Determining Defendants Suitable for Probation. Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. 2, No. 5. Jukes, The. R. S. Dugdale (6th ed.; New York: G. P. Putnam's Son's, 1900). Justices in Colonial Virginia. O. P. Chitwood (Johns Hopkins Uni- versity Studies, 1905). Juvenile Courts and Probation. Bernard Flexner and Roger N. Baldwin (New York: The Century Co., 1916). Kjilli ^<^ak Family, The. Henry H. Goddard (New York: The Mac- millan Co., 1912). Laws— Established by the Authority of his Majestie's Letters patents granted to his Royal Highness,' James, Duke of Yorke and Albany; Bearing Date of the 12th Day of March in the Sixteenth Year of the Raigne of our Soveraigne Lord,' Kinge Charles the Second. Legal Legislative and Administrative Aspects of Sterilization. BvUetin 10 B, Eugenics Record Office (1914). Letter— Mr. Brockway. — Charles L. Chute. — Martha P. Falconer. — Herbert C. Parsons. ^ ., ^, , . c 4. tj * Boone Williams, Warden of the Oklahoma State Refonnatory. [329] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES Manual for Probation Officers in New York State, prepared by the State Probation Commission (Albany, 1913). Medico-Legal Services of Prisoners' Aid Societies. Howard C. Hill. Journal of the American Institute of Crhniiml Law and Crimi- nology (November, 1920). Mental Conflicts and Misconduct. William Healy (Boston: Little, Brown «& Co., 1917). Modern P>risou Problems. Henry Wolfer, Warden State Prison, Stillwater, Minn. Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Correction (1907). Modern Prison Systems. Charles Ricliraond Henderson (Washing- ton, 1903). Offidum Vicecomitum or the Office and Authority of Sheriffs. Michael Dalton (London: Richard Atkins and Edward Atkins, 1682). On the Penitentiary System in the United States and its Application in France, with an Appendix on Penal Colonies and also Statis- tical Notes. G. de Beatunont and A. de Tocqueville (Philadel- phia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard, translated from the French by Francis Lieber, 1833). Operation of the new Parole Law in Illinois. John H. Whitman. Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Crimi- nology (November, 1918). Organization and Development of Our City Infirmary or Colony Farm. Harris H. Cooley. Proceedings of the Natiomd Con- ference of CkarHies and Correction (1912). Outdoor Labor for Convicts — A Report to the Governor of Illinois. Charles Richmond Henderson (1907). Parole an Institution of the Future. B. W. Brown. Journal of the American Instiinic of Criminal Law and Criminology (May, 1915). Parole and Probation— A Symposium. Warren F. Spalding. Pro- ceedings of the Annual Congress of the American Prison Associa- tion (1916). Paroling of Prisoners Sentenced to County Jails with Special Reference'to Wisconsin. J. L. Gillin. Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology (January, 1916). Part of the Reformatory Institution in the Elimination of Prostitu- tion, The. Martha P. Falconer. Social Hygiene (January, 1919). Pathological Lying, Accusation and Swindling. William Healy (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1917). Payment of Fines in Installments by Offenders. Bulletin No. 4 of the Municipal Reference Lih-nry, Chicago Public Library (November, 1914). Possible and Actual Penalties for Crime. Frederick Howard Wines. Prison Reform and Criminal Law — Correction, and Prevention (Russell Sage Foundation, Charities Publication Committee, 1910). Possible Developments of Schemes for Payment of Prisoners on the Basis of Service which they Rendered. Frank L. Randall. Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Correc- tion (Baltimore, 1915). Prison Labor, Comments by a former Prisoner of the Philadelphia County Prison. [3301 IJlBIJOfiRAPTIY Priflon Methods In New York State. Philip Klfin. Columbia Uni- iwrsUy t^ludim in Polilical Hcima; (Vol. X(;., No. 1, 1920). I'rison SchoolB. A. C. Tlill. Bulletin No. 27 of thr; United States Bureau of Education OOl.'t). I'riHonrir —Ward or Slave, 'J'ho. Kurl W. Kirch woy. The Prison and Ike Prisoner (HoHton: Little, Brown & Co., 1917). PriHonorH and Juvenile Delinquents in the United States (Bureau of the CenHUB, 1910). I'rohation and Parole LoKiHlalion. Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology (Vol. 2, 1911 12). Probation System, The. Cecil Leeson (London: P. S. King & Son, 1914). Probation System. The. Charlton T. Lewis. Proceedlngo of the National Conference, of Charities and Correction (1897). Problems of Child Welfare. George B. Mangold (New York: Mac- inillan, 1910). Punishment and Reformation. Frederick Howard Wines (New Edition, RoviHed and Enlarged by Winthrop D. Lane; New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1919_). (Quarterly Bulh^lin of the State Board of Charities and Correction of South Carolina (Soptembcr, 1918). Quostionniiirc! Attorneys General. Rationale of I'unishmcnt, The. Iloinrich Oppenheimer (University of London rr(!HH, 19IU). Recent Progresa in DetermininK the Nature of Crime and the Charac- ter of Criminals, liernurtl Glueck. Proceedings of the National Conference on Social Work (1917). Reformatory Prison Discipline as Developed by the Rt. Hon. Sir Walter Crofton in the Irish Convict PrisonH. Mary Carpenter (Longmans, 1872). Reformatory Treatment of Women in the United States. H Isabel C. Burrows. Penal and Reformatory Inslilulions — Correction and Prevention (Russell Sage Foundation, Charities Publication Committee, 1910). Report — Colorado: Report of the Colorado Reformatory (1915-1916). — Illinois: Biennial Report of the Illinois State Reformatory (1914- 1916). — Iowa: Biennial Report of Board of Control of State Institutions for Period ending .lune 80. 1918. — Iowa: Biennial Re[)ort of Board of Control of State Institutions for Period ending .lune !!0, 1916. Iowa: Report of the Reformatory at Anamosa, Iowa, for the Biennial Period ending June 80, 1918. — Iowa: The Report of the Committee Appointed to Investigate the Character of the Warden and the General Management of the Iowa Penitentiary at Port Madison, together with A Report Concerning the .Tail System of Iowa (1912). — Kansas- Biennial Report of Board of Administration, for the Biennial Period ending June 80, 1918. ^ . ,^ . , Kansas: First Biennial Report of the Kansas Board of Admmis- — MussachusettH: Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Prisons of MaBsachuBotts, for the Year 1917. [3311 PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES — Missouri: Report of the Missouri State Prison Board, Covering the Biennial Period ending December 31, 1918. — Nevada: Biennial Report of the Warden of the Nevada State Prison (1917-1918). — New Jersey: Annual Report of the New Jersey State Prison (1917). — New Jersey: Report of the New Jersey Prison Inquiry Commission Vol. I (1917). — New Jersey: Report of the New Jersey Prison Inquiry Com- mission, Harry E. Barnes. Vol. II (1917). — New Mexico: Report of the Board of Commissioners and Super- intendent of the State Penitentiary to the Governor of New Mexico, for the Fifth Fiscal Year Ending November 30, 1917. — Ohio: Annual Report of the Ohio State Reformatory in Fiscal Year ending November 15, 1912. — Pennsylvania: Report of the Pennsylvania Industrial Reformatory (1917-1918). — Philadelphia: Report of the Philadelphia Municipal Court (1919). — South Carolina: Annual Report of the South Carolina Peniten- tiary (1918). — South Carolina: Fifth Annual Report of the State Board of Chari- ties and Correction of South CaroUna (1919). — United States: Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1914, Vol. II. : Report of the Industrial Commission on Prison Labor, Vol. Ill (1900). : Reports of the United States Commissioner of Labor, 1886; 1895; 1905. : Statistical Abstract, 1909. : Twentieth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, Convict Labor (Washington: 1905). — West Virginia: Fifth Biennial Report of the West Virginia State Board of Control (Vol. 5, Part 1, 1919). — Wisconsin: Eighteenth Biennial Report Wisconsin State Prison (Biennial Period ending June 30, 1918). Report of all such English Statutes as Existed at the Time of the First Emigration of the People of Maryland, and which by ex- perience have been found applicable to their Local and other Circumstances and of such others as have since been made in England or Great Britain, and have been introduced, used and practiced, by the Courts of Law or Equity, and also such parts of the same, as may be proper to be introduced and incorporated into the body of the Statute Law of the State. William Kilty (Annapolis: Jehu Chandler, 1911). — of Proceedings of the Seventh International Prison Congress (Hungary, September, 1905). — of an Investigation of the Methods of Fiscal Control of State Institutions. Henry C. Wright (New York; 1911). Restoration of Whipping as a Punishment for Crimes, The Hon. Simeon E. Baldwin, The Green Bag (Vol. XIII). Review. Adalbert Albrecht. Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. Ill (1912-1913). [332] BIBLIOGRAPHY Review of County Jails in Pennsylvania. Albert H. Votaw (Penn- sylvania Prison Society, 1920). Road Making by Convict Labor, Bulletin No. 1 of the National Free Labor Association (1913). Rules and Regulations of the Ohio State Reformatory (1911). Seven Years of the Honor System in a Small County Jail. P. H. Tracy, Sheriff of Washington County Jail, Montpelier, Vermont. The Delinquent (November, 1913). Social Problems of Alabama. Hastings H. Hart (Russell Sage Foundation, 1918). Social Service in the Courts, Being the Annual Report and Proceed- ings of the National Probation Association (1920). Society and Prisons. Thomas Mott Osborne (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1916). Some Suggestions in Ethics. Bernard Bosanquet (London: Mac- millan & Co., Limited, 1918). State of the_ Prisons in England and Wales with Preliminary Observations and an Account of Some Foreign Prisons. John Howard (Warrington: William Eyres, 1777). State Prisons of the United States Under Separate and Congre- gate Systems. Frederick G. Pettigrove. Penal and Reformatory Institutions — Correction and Prevention (Russell Sage Foundation, Charities Publication Committee, 1910). State Supervision and Administration — Report of the Committee. Frank A. Fetter. Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Correction (1909). State Supervision and Administration of Charities. Frederick Howland Guild (Indiana University Studies, No. 33). Statistical Directory of State Institutions for the Defective, De- pendent and Delinquent Classes (Bureau of the Census, 1919). Statutes, English: — of the Realm from Magna Charta to the End of the Reign of Queen Anne. — 23 "Henry VIII, C. 2. — 18° Eliz. C. 3. An Acte for the setting of the Poore on Worke, and for the avoyding of Ydleness. — 39° Eliz. C. 3. — 7 James I, C. 4. — 7° Jac. I, C. 4. — 11 Gul. Ill, C. 19. Statutes, United States: — Massachusetts: Acts and Laws passed by the General Court and Assembly begun and held at Boston, May 31, 1699, Ch. V. — Massachusetts: Act passed November 1, 1785, making additional Provisions for the Punishment of Frauds and Misdemeanors. — Massachusetts: Statutes of 1850, Ch. 294. Massachusetts: An Act in Relation to State Charitable and Correctional Institutions, 1863, Ch. 240. — Minnesota, 1911. Chap. 298, S. F. No. 9. , . . New York: Act passed March 26, 1796, makmg alterations m the Criminal Law of this State and for erecting State Prisons. — New York: 1876, Ch. 207. — Pennsylvania: 1st M°, March, 1683. [333] PENOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES — Pennsylvania: 1699, Ch. V. ,_„ .„„„v — Pennsylvania: Colonial and Provincial Laws (Iblb-i-iw)- — Pennsylvania: March 27, 1789, p. 483 of Smith s Laws. — Pennsylvania: An Act passed April 5, 1790, Chap. MUV. — Pennsylvania: 1807, April 4; 4 Sm. L. 393. „ — Pennsylvania: An Act in Relation to State Charitable ana cor- rectional Institutions, 1863, Ch. 240. — Pennsylvania: 1871, June 2; P. L. 1301, If 3. — Pennsylvania: June 13, 1883, P. L. 112. — Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Laws, 1915. P. L. 656. — Tennessee: An Act to Authorize Subscriptions for Erecting a Penitentiary in Tennessee, 1813, Ch. LXXVI. Sterilization Studies of the Committee on Cacogenic Control. Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. IX (1918-1919). Sterilization of Criminals. Joel D. Hunter. Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. V. Sterilization of Criminals. William A. White. Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. VIII (1917-1918). Studies in Forensic Psychiatry. Bernard Glueck (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1916). Study in County Jails in California, Made by the State Board of Charities and Correction (1916). Study of One Hundred Consecutive Parole Violators, reprinted from Annual Report of Elmira State Reformatory for 1913. Frank L. Christian. Study of Wage Payments to Prisoners'as a Penal Method. L. D. Weyand. Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology (February, May, and August, 1920). Summary of Dr. Liepmann's Die Todesstraffe. System of Physical Culture Taught at the New York State Reforma- tory, Elmira, N. Y. (A Bulletin of the Institution). System of the Laws of Connecticut, A. Zephaniah Swift (Windham: John Byrne, 1796). Three Prison Systems of the Southern States of America. A. J. McKelway. Penal and Reformatory InMitutions — Correction and Prevention (Russell Sage Foundation, Charities Publication Com- mittee, 1910). Truancy Problems in Massachusetts, 1854-1890. John William Perrin. Journal of Pedagogy (March, 1905). Truant Problem and the Parental School, The. James S. Hiatt. United States Bureau of Educaiion Bulletin No. S9 (1915). Tuberculosis in California State Prisons. B. L. Stanley. Journal of the Outdoor Life (August, 1919). Uncle Sam: Jailer, A Study of the Conditions of Federal Prisoners in Kansas Jails. Winthrop D. Lane. Survey, Vol. Jf2 (1919). Unemployment, A Social Study. Seebohn Rowntree and Bruno Lasker (London: Macmillan & Co., Limited, 1911). University of North Carolina Record, Extension Series, No. 25 (October, 1917). Wage Earner and the Prison Worker, The. John Mitchell. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (March, 1913). [334] BIBLIOGRAPHY Whipping Post in Delaware, The. Louis N. Robinson (Committee on Philanthropic Labor of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends, Bulletin No. 5). Within Prison Walls. Thomas Mott Osborne (New York and Lon- don; D. Appleton & Co., 1917). [335] 22 INDEX Administration, SOS assistaDts, 305 difficulties of. 30i honor system, 306 politics in. 305 possibilities for good, 304 sdf-go%xmment, 306 "trusties" as assistants, 306 Almshouses, 59 Amusement in prison life, S7 Asphyxiation of criminals, 247 Asylums, mana^ment of, 293 Auburn penitentiary s>'steiu, 73 Beocari»j Cesare, 25, 6S Beggars in Kngland, 53 Bentham, Jeremy, 67, t>S Bills pro\-idin8 punishment for crime, 18 BUtsch, J. S., 304 Bot and tcite, 269 Bridewell house of correction; 55. 58, 93 Brockwaj". Zebulon R., 123. 134, 304 plan of reformation, 124 Buildings, erection of, 317 Bj"©, RajTUond T., vii, 252. 254 Capital punishment., 242 abolition of, 243 aigumeots against, 24S, 252 arguments for, 250 brutaliain^ effect of, 255 by asphyxiation, 347 by electrocution, 247 by hanging, 247 commuted to imprisonment^ 254 coimtrics which ha\-e abolished. 2ci4 crimes punishable by d^tth, 244 early use of, 242 _ influence of publicity of, 256 influence on prevention of crime, 253 in United States. 243 methods of. 247 number of deaths by, 246 prevents conviction. 256 public executions, 247 reformation before death, 2ol, 25o substitution of indeterminate sen- tence for, 256 substitution of life imprisonment for. 245 Census Bureau statistics, 13 Christian, Dr. Frank L., 134, 161 Citiienship, loss of. 2S1 Ci\-il disabilities, 2S1 Classical theory of punishment, 25, ISS Commutation of sentence, 21S I Compensation of prisoners, ITS basis of, 184, ISS during parole, 191 how spent, 190, 192 in proportion to cjime, ISS in relation to conduct, 154 laws of Austria and Giarmany, 181 laws of Peruisj-h-ania, 190 origin of, ITS Pennsyl\'ania first state to pro- \-ide. ITS plan of George Junior Republic, 192 principles governing in United States, 1ST problems of. ethical. ISO problems of. practicjJ, 1S2 purposes of, 181 reward %T?rsU8 pimishment, 1S2. 1S3 support of dependents, 1S3, 1S7, 189, 193 to whom paid. 189 when port of, 117 of the future, 118 Cotmtj" prisons, inefficiency of, 45 inefficiency of superintendent, 46 Court, social work of, 205 Crime and truancy, rdation be- tween, 113 pre\-ention of. by brutal punish- ment, 21^2 theories of, 22 Crimes, statutori-, IS Criminal, problem of the, 314 responsibility of the, 27 (337 INDEX Criminal courta, socializing of, 320 Criminality, heritability of, 279 Criminals Jannual number released, 14 normal and abnormal, 24 Criminology, definition of, 12 study of, 324 Crofton, Sir Walter, 122 Death penalty, reduction of, 77 Death, putting to (see Capital pun^ iahment) De Beaumont, G., 67, 99, lOi; 115, 325 Dependents of prisoner, support of, 183, 187, 189, 193 Derrick, Calvin, 304, 308 Detention houses, 51 for juveniles, 51 for women sex offenders, 51 separate for different classes, 51 Detention, length of, in reformato- ries, 146 De TocqueviUe, A., 67, 68, 99, 101, 115, 325 Disease, statistics of, among adult prisoners, 134 Divorce, imprisonment a ground for, 281 Doctrine of equality, 26 Domestic relations cases, 202 Dostoieffsky, 262, 265 Education, lack of, for prisoners, 43 of juvenile deUnquenta, 99 Educational ' work in reformatories for adults, 132 industrial, 136 intellectual, 141 religious, 144 Electrocution (see also Capital pun- ishment), 247 Elmira State Keformatory, 77, 85, 86, 123, 220 Employment for juvenile delin- quents, 100 Executions, brutalizing effect of, 255 pubUc, 247 "Eye for an eye" theory, 248, 259 Falconer, Mrs., 305 Farms, industrial State, 47, 64 prison, 89 reformatory, 141 Fear, part played by, in conduct of man, 29 Feder, Dr., 267 Female prisoners, care of, 83 separate prisons for, 84 Fines, 269 enforcing payment of, 271 Fines, imprisonment sometimes pref- erable to, 277 inequality of justice, 272 methods of imposing, 269 payment of in installments, 273 reformative and corrective in- fluence of, 274 probation and payment in install- ments, 273 substituting imprisonment for, 271, 272, 273, 275 use of, as penalty, 276 Flogging, 256, 310 after-effect of, 262 arguments against, 259, et seq. arguments in favor of, 258, et seq. as punishment for xual crime, 259 early use of, 256 effect on executioner, 267 in Delaware, 257, 263, 264 influence of on crime, 261 influence on society, 264 in United States, 257 to enforce discipline, 268 Fox, George, 311 Friends, influence of, in prison reform, 71, 76, 311 Fry, EUzabeth, 46, 311 George, William R., 304, 308 Girls, institutions for, 103 Good time laws, 218, 222 Grand juries, 297 Hanging (see also Capital puniah- ment), 247 Health conditions in reformatories for adults, 133 Hodder, Mrs., 305 Honor ^stem, 306 on prison farms, 90 Hospital facilities in state prisons, 79 "Hospitals," English vagrancy, 55 House of correction, 53 English, Acts of Parliament pro- vi(fing for, 56 Bridewell, 55, 58 coimty houses, 56 early composite character of, 57 transformation from workhouse to, 58 history of, 53 in United States, 58 character of inmates, 62 colonial laws governing, 60 combined with other institu- tions, 62 confusion of with workhouse, 58 number of institutions, 61 work feature of, 64 [338] INDEX House of refuge, 92, 97 Housmg accommodations of reform- atories for adults, 132 Howard, John, 35, 46, 67, 68, 311 Idleness, in jails, 43, 63 in relation to income, 154 Imprisonment, 21, 23, 310 a ground for divorce, 281 for life, 252 loss of citizenship during, 281 Incorrigibility, 104 Indeterminate sentence in relation to minimum and maximum pen- alty, 224 Industrial farms. State, 47, 64 schools, 97 training, 154 Institutions, building of, 317 contrasted with business practice 317 selection of manager first, 318 for juvenile delinquents, 92 as schools, 96 classification of inmates, 105 contract labor, 101 cottage system, 105, 117 early principles of management, 93 economic problem, 112 educational system in, 99 employment of children in, 100 first institutions in United States, 92 girls, 103 legal status of, 95 lessening of prison features in, 99 manual training in, 102 mingling of sexes, 112 moral training in, 104 musical instruction in, 109 names of, 97 number of, 95 parental or truant schools, 112 parole supervision, 110 parole system, 109 period of confinement in, 116 physical development in, 99 private, 284 reading matter in, 109 religious instruction in, 107 republics. 111 separation of the sexes, 105 source of maintenance, 96 success of, 114 for offenders, ignorance of public concerning, 322 management of, 283 management of, four forms of, 288 private, 283 Irish or Crofton reformatory BjrBtem; 123 Italian school of thought, 2S Jail, the (see also Prison), 32 disgrace of, 40 prisoners, work for, 50 reform (see Prison reform) Jails, abandonment of, as places of detention, 44 arguments for, 48 as boarding houses, 42 better utilization of, 50 colonial laws establishing, 37 counly, 34, 39 maintenance of, 39 early English, 34 maintenance of prisoners in, 3S early United States, 36 effect of, on society, 52 English, reform in, 46 food in, 42 history of, 33 idleness in, 43, 63 in Pennsylvania, 37 influence of state prisons on popu- lation of, 40 lack of educational facilities in, 43 libraries in, 43 management of, 294 modem United States, 39 municipal, 34, 39 number of, 32 officials in charge of, 39 reading matter of, 43 replacement of by state institu- tions, 45 source of maintenance of, 39 sanitary state of, 41 uses of, 33 work in, 35, 39 Jukes family, 277 Justice, what it is, 26 Juvenile commitments, 13 Juvenile court, and probation, 196 Juvenile delinquents, home training of, 117 institutions for, 92 social history sheets of, 118 Juvenile probation, 40, 203 Juvenile reformatories, 39 Kallikak family, 278 "Keeper," 322 Kilty, WiUiam, 38 Labor, prison (see Prison Tahor), 153 Law, indeterminate sentence, 223 Laws, first, governing prison reform, 70 good-time, 218 state, vi [3391 INDEX Lease system of prison labor, 155, 156 evils of, 157 Leonard, E. M., 54, 149 Libraries in jails, 43 Liepmann, Prof., 251, 252, 253, 264, 255 Life imprisonment, 245, 252, 254 Lindsey, Judge, 209 Lombroso, Cesare, 28 Lynohings, 260, 252 Maconochie, Capt. Alex., 122 Management of institutions, best form of, 303 centralized, 289 combined with decentralized, 293 decentralized, 289 direction of industries, 291 educational work and scientific feeding, 293 for feebleminded and insane, 293 four forms of, advantages and disadvantages, 291 local jails and workhouses, 294 parole work and accounting, 293 psychological [and psychiatric work, 292 purchase of supplies, 292 selection of administrator, 290 State board of control, 301 State care of convicted prisoners, 295 supervision (sef; Superneion) , 296 uniting of charitable and prison groups, 293 Management of prisons, 163 centralized, 163 decentralized, 163 Manual training for juvenile delin- quents, 102 Mark system, 106, 122, 124, 144 Military system in reformation for adults, 137 Misdemeanants and criminals, dis- tinction between, 128 Montesquieu, 26 Musical instruction for juvenile delinquents, 109 Neo-clasncal school, 27 OBbome; Thomas Mott, 304, 308 Overcrowding in reformatories for adults, 133 in State prisons, 78 Pardon, 219 conditional, 222 Parental or truant schools, 112 Parole, 114, 146, 315 Parole, and probation, 212, 221 boards of (see Parole boardf), 231 bond required against violation of, 236 compensation of prisoners during, 191 differentiation of, from similar methods, 218 extent of use, 217 "first friend," 236 limitation ol use, 227 prisoners eligible to, 227 publication of recommendation for, 237 release from, 240 Bimilarity of, to probation, 194 supervision of prisoners on, 148, 234 by probation officer, 235 previous history useful, 236 supervision of released prisoners, by indenture, 239 by volunteer organizations, 238 violation of, 150 who shall grant, 229, 238 Parole boards, composition of, 230 creation of State boards, 235 principles governing, 231 work of, 236 Parole officers, 234 ratio of, to men, 233 Parole systems, 217 and conditional pardon, 222 and good-time laws, 222 composition of parole board, 230 distinction of from jjarole, 221 elements of, 220 for juvenile delinquents, 109 forms of, 221 indeterminate sentence in, 221, 222 separate powers to parole and supervise, 232 supervision of released prisoners, 233 cost of, 233 uncertain status of, 228 Penal institutions, use of term, v Penalties (see also Punishment) determination of, in advance, 26 early forms of, 20 power to fix, 26 Penalty, apportionment of to degree of responsibility of criminal, 27 Penitentiary, meaning of word, 67 reformatory, characteristics of, 68 State (see Slate priton), 40, 66 Penitentiary system, 67 arguments pro and con, 74 employment of prisoners under,' 71 ■340] INDEX Penitentiary system, employment of prisoners under, early difficul- ties of, 72 establishment of, 71 in Europe, 74 origin of. Auburn, N. Y., scheme, 73 Philadelphia plan, 72 rule of sUence, 73 Pennsylvania penitentiary system, 72,73 Penology, definition of, 11 interest in, 12 introduction to subject of, 11 problems of, 16 pubUcations on, vii statistics of, 13 Philadelphia penitentiary system, 72 Philaddphia Society for Relieving Distressed Prisoners, 70 Physical training for juvenile delin- quents, 99 in reformatories for adults, 135 Piece-price system of prison labor, 55, 159 Politics in prison management, 82 in prison reform, 47 Prevention of crime, 22 Prison, oldest, 33 use of term, v Prison administration, 81, 90 politics in, 82 Prison discipline in relation to prison officials, 325 Prison farms, 89 northern, 90 southern, 89 Prison labor, 153 abuses in, 80 competition with free, 55 80, 161, 166, 171, 177 restriction of, 172 in Pennsylvania, 174 contract system of, 158 for girls, 103 for women, 141 industrial training, 154 in place of drill and separate instruction, 139 institutions for juveniles, 100 State prisons and penitentiaries 87 lease system of, 156 peculiarities of, 171 piece-price system of, 55, 159 principles of, 175 prison-made goods, 172 public-account system of, 160 public-works-and-ways system of, 167, 291 ; I Prison labor, self-sufficiency system; 176 State-use system of, 169, 291, 294 systems of, 155 comparative table of number engaged under, 170 under-production, causes of, 173 Prison life, 82 amusements, 87 training and development, 88 work, 87 Prison-made goods, cost of produc- tion of, 172 marking of, 173 value of, 172 Prison reform, 44 beginning of, 70 detention houses, 51 Friends the leaders in, 71, 76 in penitentiaries, 67 in Philadelphia, 70 first laws governing, 70 of the future, 320 poUtical hindrances to, 47 results of, 77 steps already taken in, 50 Prison work as educational work, 323 Prisoners, compensation of (see Compensation of prisoners), 178 congregation of, in penitentiaries, 73 education of, in jails, 43 female, care of, 83 jail, work for, 50 place for detention of, awaiting trial, 51 return to society, 24 right of, to compensation, 179 short term, care of, 49 support of dependents, 183, 187, 189, 193 Prisons as laboratories, 177 county (see County prisons) distinction between State and local, 66 management of, 163, 286 analogous to a corporation, 286 Federal, 286 ignorance of citizens of, 287 ignorance of legislators of, 288 modem conception of, 45 public, divisions of, 286 self-government in, 307 State (see State prisons) supervision of, 298 by private organizations, 298 Probation, 13, 194, 315 and individualization, 215 and juvenile court, 196 341] INDEX Probation and paiole, 212, 221 and suspended sentence, 199, 200 causes of failure, 214 diagnosis of cases, 215 essential features of, 199 extent of adoption, 196 for payment of fines, 273 importance of probation officer, 206 in domestic relations cases, 202 informal, 205 in juvenile cases, 202, 203 investigation of personal history, 202 limits of use, 198 origin of, 195 similarity to parole, 194 State commissions, 212 suitabUity of individual for, 201 use of social agencies, 204 Probation officer, 110, 200 chief, 211 importance of, 206 judge in the capacity of, 209 methods of appointment, 210 number of cases assigned to, 204, 214 official status of, 207 overloading of, 214 paid versus volunteer workers, 208 paroled prisoners supervised by, 235 qualifications of, 205 saving time of courts, 202 specialized, 202 technical training for, 215 volunteer workers, 207 work of, 200 Probation officers. State, 212 supervision over, 211 use of court officials as, 209 Probation system, 40 adult, 40 juvertile, 40 Psychology, in connection with criminology, 324 Public-account system of prison labor, 137, 138, 155, 160 comparison with State-use, 162, 166, 167 Public-works-and-ways system of prison labor, 155, 167, 291 in relation to road work, 168 Publications on penology, vii, 327 Punishment, bills providing, 18 brutal, prevention of crime by, 262 classical theory of, 25 dependent on nature of criminal, 28 effectiveness of, 20 Punishment, elimination of, in the sense of pain, 315 evolution of, 309 death, 310 filing system stage, 312 imprisonment, 310 stage of individualization, 314 training-school stage, 313 forms of (see also Capital punisK- ment,Flogging, Imprisonment) ,2' ignorance of problem, vi in proportion to criminal's respo sibility, 27 jail, as part of, 32 methods of, 12 neo-classical theory of, 27 of the future, 316 origin of, 16, 18 probation and parole, 314 reforms necessary in institutii of, 320 similarity of throughout world theory of, 17 use of word, vi Randall, Frank L., 184 Reading matter in jails, 43 Recidivism, 21, 314 Reed, Warden, 305 Reform, prison, 44 Reform schools, 97 Reformation, problems of, 318 Reformatories, 85 definition of word, 121 Elmira institution, 77, 85, 86, ;20 estabUshment of, 77 for adults, 120 class of inmates, 127 defects in selection of inmates, 130 educational work in, 132 Elmira institution, 123 housing accommodations, 132 indeterminate sentence, 145 intellectual education, 141 medical facilities in, 133 number of, 126 overcrowding in, 133 physical culture in, 135 relation of discipline in to that in juvenile institutions, 121 release on parole, 145 religious and moral instruction in, 144 success of, 149 trade instruction in, 136 contract system, 137, 138 piece-price system, 138 public-accountsystem ,1 37,138 venereal diseases in, 133 [342] INDEX Reformatories, for women, 126| restriction of age, 128, 129 work in relation to health, 140 juvenile, 39 ^ leformatory farms, 141 . '.eformatory schools for adults, 142 Reformatory system, adult, 120 beginnings of, 122 heligious instruction for juvenile ''- delinquents, 107 in reformatories for adults, 144 ■epublics. 111 J dley, Bishop, 54 ^ lusseau doctrine of equality, 26 lie of silen ce, 73 nitation in jails, 41 in State prisons, 79 ■hools in reformatories for adults, ■-. 142 r self-government. 111 egation, 316 government institutions. 111 Si government system, 306 Sei sufficing system of prison labor, 176 S. snce, commutation of, 218 determinate, 221, 222, 223 wer to de termine length of, 229 31 ort, 49 SI spended, 199, 200 Separate and soUtary confinement (see So litary confinement) Sh( i£f as boarding-house keeper, 42 Soo Jizing of criminal courts, 320 Soc! ^logy, in connection with crim- inology, 324 Solitary confinement, 12, 70 evils of, 73, 75 overcrowding a hindrance to, 78 State boards of charity, 298 types of organization, 299 State boards of control, 301 State boards of parole, 235 State care of convicted prisoners, 295 State Department of Education, 323 State farms, 47, 64, 89 State institutions to replace jails, 45 State laws, vi State peniten tiary, 66 State prisons, 66 administration of, 81, 90 administra tors of, 46 amusements in, 87 changes in regime of, 83 care of women, 83 conditions in, 79 defects in, 83 distinction from local pnson, 66 employment in, 80 State prisons, establishment of, in Connecticut, 69 in Massachusetts, 69 in Pennsylvania, 68 reason for, 68 honor system in, 90 hospital facilities of, 79 influence of on jail population, 40 insane cases in, 79 location of, 88 number of, 76 number of prisoners in, 76 opportunities to work and earn in, 49 origin of, 68 overcrowding of, 78 sanitation in, 79 tuberculosis in, 79 work in, 75 working conditions in, 87 State probation commissions, 212 State reformatories (see Reformato- ries), 85 State supervisory board, 302 State-use system of prison labor, 137, 138, 155, 162, 169, 291, 294 and labor unions, 166 comparison with public-account, 162, 166, 167 organization of, 162 forms of, 164 Statutory crimes, 18 Sterilization, 277 laws concerning, 278 possible effects of, 280 results of, 280 versus segregation, 280 Stubbs, Judge, 208 Superintendent of county prisons, 46 Supervision of institutions, 296 by department of public welfare, 301 by grand juries, 297 by private organizations, 298 by State boards of charity, 298 types of organization, 299 by State department of educationi 323 Supervision of prisons, 298 appointed board, 299 ex-officio board, 299 single paid official, 299 Suspended sentence, 199, 200 Swift, Zephaniah, 69, 72 Theory; classical, 25 Italian, 28 neo-classical, 27 of punishment, 17 Tracy, Sheriff, 305 [343] INDEX Trade mstruction for women prison- Wages of prisoners (see Compensa- ers, 140 tion) in reformatories for adults, 136 Wardens, 325 Tribe of Ishmael, 278 of penitentiaries, 81 Truancy, 112 Whipping post of Delaware, 268, 264, and crime, relation between, 113 310 Truant schools (see Parental or Wife, 269 truant achooU) Witzwill house of correction, 65 "Trusties," 306 Women, reformatories for, 126 Tuberculosis in State prisons, 79 Work in State prisons, 75 control of, 87 Workhouse, 53 history of, 53 Vagrancy in England, 53 in United States, 58 reasons for growth of, 52 colonial laws governing, 60 Vagrancy in United States, 63 confusion of with house of cor- punishment no cxu"e for, 59 rection, 58 Venereal diseases among women sex number of institutions, 61 offenders, 51 management of, 294 in reformatories for adults, 133 of New Castle County, Del., 62 Vocational education (see Trade work feature of, 64 inatnuiion) Wright, Hemy C„ 293 [344] >; '.^' ",?». - "■^■■^m-t^t *' - ^'^^ i-M Uii^fiSfSi