In former years we have published statistics as to "moral sense" and "susceptibility to moral impressions." These were based on observations made at the time of admission, when a prisoner is at a decided disadvantage. We have come to the conclusion that they did injustice and were not of sufficient value to justify their continuance. Upon intimate acquaintance these young men as a class disclose themselves to be in their natures fundamentally about like other young men wherever found. They respond to the same influences in about the same way. As a writer in the Atlantic Monthly recently remarked: "It is true that there are peculiar specimens of humanity in prisons-cranks, freaks, degenerates, and hardened and vicious characters-but so are all these outside the prisons mixed in with the other people of the world in the different grades of society. The deliberate professional criminal with peculiar and pronounced characteristics and forming a type of man is too infrequent to constitute a definite class, unless he, with many others not in prison, be considered a member of a diseased class in the community." Though perhaps not as numerous as in a State prison, we have these abnormal creatures in the reformatory. It is no proper place for them. We can do little for them, and looking after them is a great hindrance to the general work. Fortunately there are not enough to characterize the population, which in general displays just ordinary weak human nature, with a combination of good and evil traits. The evil may predominate, but the good can be readily observed. The courts have sentenced these men to imprisonment to remove them for the time being from society, to the welfare of which their acts have shown them to be a menace. The reformatory rather than a State prison has been selected as the place of imprisonment, on the theory that there is possibly enough good in them to justify the hope that they can be changed so as to cease to be a burden on the public by becoming law-abiding and self-supporting citizens. Bringing about such a change is our commission. Punishment for some particular crime they all receive, in that such crime leads to the restraint of their liberties while they are in the institution. This, however, is but an incident. We are not asked to consider the past, but only the future. The commitment papers give us no information as to the circumstances of their misdeeds and no suggestions as to how long they should be confined. We are by statute expressly permitted, in our discretion, to "allow any prisoner to go upon parole outside the reformatory buildings and inclosures" and to give "an absolute release or discharge from imprisonment" when it appears "that there is a strong or reasonable probability that any prisoner will remain at liberty without violating the law." Conversely, with certain limitations hereafter noted, we are expected to keep them until they are educated, trained, and reformed so as to stand this test. The institution is therefore primarily a great school. We have already stated that we do not find anything mysterious or distinctive about the ordinary criminal. He is thoroughly commonplace, so the education and training he requires does not differ materially from that which would be good for the ordinary man. We have discovered no alchemy for turning base metals into gold, nor any different methods for making good citizens than those which prevail in the best public and private schools for free men. Superintendent Scott, before the National Prison Congress last year, thus, in a few words, summed up the principle under which he works: "The best method for the reformation of criminals is to subject them to a system of discipline and training which is found essential to the training of the normal youth to correct moral and social living." We try to develop what good natural qualities, physical, mental, and moral, they may possess, and add new ones, and to make them masters of themselves, so they may keep evil impulses in check. The particular crime for which he was sentenced, considered by itself, throws little light on the question what treatment a prisoner needs. It seldom happens that a man goes wrong suddenly. Usually there is something radically wrong about him long before he becomes technically a criminal. The crime of burglary, grand larceny, or forgery, as the case may be, followed naturally enough from what had gone before. We, therefore, prior to assigning him his work in the institution, find out all we can about his ancestry, environment, associations, education, habits of life, attainments, and physical and mental condition. These usually show very plainly why he became a criminal and suggest how the cure must come, if cure be possible. As a general principle it can be said that if a man does not earn enough to support himself and those dependent on him he has to beg or steal, in either case becoming a burden on the community. He can not earn living wages unless he knows how to do something which will command them. In the lowest grades there is seldom enough work to go around, and in the competition the poorest qualified laborers remain idle, and the prison or poorhouse is their natural destination. It is also a fundamental truth that, other things being equal, a man who has been a convict is at a disadvantage in securing and retaining work. If a man does not raise his industrial grade while in confinement, he will find himself on his release worse off than before. The statistics given above show that a very large proportion of the reformatory population are at the very bottom in the industrial scale. Unless they can be raised there is little hope for their remaining honest. This, therefore, is the first consideration. Scores of men, particularly the foreign born, need little more, to "reform," than the elementary instruction given in our school of letters and the mental and moral stimulus that naturally follows from it. Thirty trades are taught in our trades schools, and each prisoner is instructed in the one for which he seems best adapted. Hundreds of men each year go out of the institution with their earning capacity doubled, even if they have not become skilled workmen. This also we find powerfully makes for righteousness. Systematic physical exercise and enforced regular habits enable nearly every inmate to leave the institution a sounder and stronger man physically than when he entered, and thus better equipped for the battle of life. Military drill long continued makes neatness, order, and respect for law and authority habitual. It may be said in criticism that these things affect only the physical and mental sides of their natures, and that what these young felons need is moral improvement. It is true that the ordinary prisoner at the start earnestly applies himself to these things without any love for any of them and simply because he is told that only by a certain record of proficiency in them can he gain his freedom, but in the doing there comes in time a development of that indescribable thing that we call character, and everything comes to be looked at from a different and better point of view. He acquires the power of concentrated and persistent effort, changes his aims and ambitions, and becomes receptive to the more direct moral influences of the institution. "Ethics" is taught under that name. Faithful chaplains impart religious instruction, and we are happy to say there are numerous clean-cut, high-minded, big-hearted, whole-souled men among the officers of the institution who by their personal influence raise the level of those with whom they come in contact. Through these and similar instrumentalities the object of the institution, “reformation," is accomplished with reference to many prisoners. When we become convinced by upward of a year's observation that a man fully intends to live an honest life and has a fair equipment for it, we grant him a parole supervision for at least six months, and bringing him back to the institution if he shows signs of relapse. All do not stand the test. A gratifying proportion, however, do well and subsequently gain their absolute releases, which means that, in our opinion, they have again become a part of the community with which the administrators of the criminal law have no concern. TABLE 160.-Inmates enrolled in State reformatories and industrial schools, 1906–7. TABLE 162.—Items relating to inmates of State reformatories and industrial schools, 1906–7. United States. 1, 615 524 2, 139 1,035 168 1, 203 10, 529 2, 503 13, 032 10, 506 1, 999 12, 505 16, 440 4, 859 21, 299 N.Atlantic Division. 724 204 928 254 127 381 5,286 806 6,092 5,352 560 5,912 7, 139 1,651 8.790 S. Atlantic Division. S. Central Division.. N. Central Division. Western Division... 360 161 469 133 521 58 602 143 0 143 26 4 981 152 1,133 893 297 129 1,022 1,642 257 1,899 92 389 452 368 820 3,702 1, 175 4,877, 6, 263 2, 480 8,743 305 944 103 1,047 262 43 56 26 82 54 18 10 65 72 134 87 221 63 123 27 150 590 129, 719 529 20 447 25 472 454 34 191 223 254 2,748 |