Under the reformatory system as administered at Elmira, the principle is strictly adhered to of making the prisoner earn his own release, and all outside influences except those necessary to secure employment for the prisoner on parole are absolutely excluded. Bosses have long since learned that they have no pull at Elmira. If the value of the indeterminate sentence is to be maintained, boards of parole must be held up to the highest standard of efficiency.

The indeterminate sentence carried to its logical conclusion should have no time limit either minimum or maximum. As applied to the Elmira Reformatory in New York it has no minimum, but a prisoner can be held only for the maximum period prescribed by the statute for the crime committed. This period, of course, is an arbitrary one. It has an additional disadvantage. A prisoner who serves his maximum sentence in the reformatory receives under the law an absolute discharge instead of being placed on parole, while such a man who has failed to earn his discharge is one above all others who should be released only tentatively. Advocates of the indeterminate sentence in the United States are hoping that eventually the maximum limitation may be removed. One reason why the indefinite sentence has not been accepted by more European jurists is because they feel the difficulty recently stated by The Outlook, namely, the difficulty of safeguarding individual liberty. In Europe, where untold suffering has been occasioned by prolonged and unjust imprisonment for political or other reasons, any form of sentence the duration of which is not strictly limited by statute is looked upon with some distrust. At present the maximum limitation fixed by the statute, arbitrary though it be, constitutes a certain safeguard against the permanent incarceration of offenders. And yet it is very clear to all penologists that there are a large number of recidivists or habitual offenders who ought to be permanently segregated from society. A woman in Scotland was sent to prison more than three hundred times. The woman would not have committed two hundred and seventy-five of those offenses if she had not been liberated two hundred and seventy-five times. Is there any mercy or any wisdom in liberating an habitual inebriate or other offender when it is clear that he is incurable

without prolonged incarceration? It is one advantage of the system of probation, of the indeterminate sentence, and conditional liberation, that it serves to distinguish eventually between corrigible and incorrigible offenders. It is just as important for society that the incorrigible offenders should be detained as it is that the corrigible offenders should be released. For the incorrigible offender the only course seems to be permanent segregation by the State. How, then, shall individual liberty be guarded?

The answer is not difficult. All the protection which is now furnished by having a maximum limit of detention can be secured by law and in a better way. It can be secured, first, by having the judiciary represented on all boards of parole. Two steps in this direction have recently been taken in the State of New York. In reference to the Bedford Reformatory for women it is provided that when the question of paroling an inmate comes up for consideration, the committing magistrate shall be informed, and shall have a vote in deciding the question. A more important step in the direction of securing judicial support and responsibility has been taken in the recent law providing for the New York City Reformatory for misdemeanants. The board to develop and manage this institution is composed of nine members, four of whom are judges from the courts of New York which commit misdemeanants to this institution. The other members of the board are appointed by the Mayor, and include the Commissioner of Correction. The objection hitherto raised, that the courts have no participation in deciding the release or detention of a prisoner, is removed when four out of five members of the paroling board are judges.

The same principle can be applied to habitual criminals or confirmed repeaters. That they should be detained instead of being liberated under short sentences is hardly questioned. But even here we would have no prison or colony in which all hope should be excluded. No one can tell what a prolonged detention might do, under proper discipline, for some one who under the merciless parody of the short sentence had been regarded as incorrigible. Even among so-called incorrigibles we would provide, therefore, that at stated periods, say five or ten years, the question of conditional release might come up for review, with the

right of appeal for the prisoner to a parole board in which judicial, medical, and administrative authority should be represented. The disadvantage of the maximum sentence is that at its termination the man must be discharged, whether he is ready for release or not; under the system proposed release would not be mandatory; the question would come up simply for determination under a form in which no arbitrary warden could control the destinies of a prisoner, and the question of a conditional release under surveillance would be decided, not because of an arbitrary time limit affixed to an offense, but because of a thorough study of the character of the offender. It is the supreme advantage of the indeterminate sentence that it depends, not upon the arbitrary time limit of the code nor the caprice of the judge, nor that of the warden, but upon the character of the prisoner under a system constituted so as to develop and reveal it. There is no reason why this, the only rational method of determining the duration of imprisonment and of making imprisonment effective, should not be applied to all classes of prisoners, whether felons or misdemeanants. In several States the marking and grading system it requires has been applied to State prisons.

The indeterminate sentence has run the gauntlet of all sorts of appeals as to its constitutionality. It is a principle which has come to stay. But if it is to be successful, we must have the real thing and not a feeble imitation.--From the Outlook, January 6, 1996.

THE PAROLE SYSTEM IN NEW YORK STATE.

PROPOSAL FOR ITS REVISION.

Believing that the time had come when a revision of the parole system in this State as applied to State prisoners should be considered, the following letter was sent to Hon. John G. Wickser, President of the State Commission of Prisons:

December 1, 1905. Hon. JOHN G. WICKSER, President State Commission of Prisons, Albany, N. Y.

My Dear Sir.-The Prison Association of New York has recognized the importance of extending the indeterminate sentence so as to make its provisions apply to a large number of State prisoners. A bill passed to this end has twice been vetoed.

In a recent interview with Judge Foster of the Court of General Sessions he frankly gave the reasons for his opposition to the law. It appeared that he has no objection to the indeterminate sentence as such and he frequently sends prisoners to Elmira under its provisions. When asked if a reorganization of the parole board on a distinctly nonpartisan basis, the representation of the judiciary, on such a board and the application of a marking system in connection with the State prisoners would remove his objections to the extension of the indeterminate sentence, he replied that they would.

In the report of the committee on the treatment of the criminal of the New York State Conference of Charities and Correction, attention was given to ways in which our prison system might be improved. It was urged among others that the indeterminate sentence should be extended, but it was felt that at present the prisoner does not have sufficient incentive under the indeterminate sentence to demonstrate in positive ways that he is a proper subject for parole. An indeterminate sentence without a grading and marking system does not fulfill its purpose. The report of the committee which was read and approved by twelve of, the

fourteen members thus speaks of the extension of the indeterminate sentence:

New York was the first State to lead the way in the adoption of the indeterminate sentence. Two members of the committee, one of them a judge of long experience and the other an equally experienced prison warden, both urge a general adoption of the indeterminate sentence. In the opinion of one of them, the time has come for the removal of the maximum limit to such sentences. It is not surprising that wise and experienced judges no longer wish to take the responsibility when they send a man to prison, of deciding on just what day he shall come out, nor even of fixing the minimum or maximum time in months or years. The most important thing for a judge to decide is whether a person, who has committed an offence, is a fit subject for probation, and if not, whether he should be removed from society for discipline and correction. The responsibility of deciding when this discipline has become effective and when the offender may become conditionally released should not be thrown upon the judge alone, but upon the authorities constituted especially for this purpose. in addition to medical and administrative authority, it seems advisable to have judicial authority represented on our boards of parole, such provision can be made. New York has taken the lead in this direction by providing in the law establishing the Hart's Island Reformatory for Misdemeanants, that the courts and judges committing to that institution shall be represented on its board of parole by one member from each court. Judges are also represented on the board of parole of the Bedford Reformatory.

But the best constituted parole board will work in the dark in determining the qualifications of a prisoner for parole, unless means are provided by which the prisoner may himself demonstrate his fitness for conditional release. It is not extremely difficult for a physician to tell when a patient has reached the stage of moral convalescence, and it is safe for himself and for the community to permit him to leave the hospital and, though the conditions are more difficult, it is not impossible to devise a system of tests and conditions which a prisoner must meet and fulfill that will fairly reveal his fitness for tentative release. Such a system was devised by Maconochie and applied with great success by Sir Walter Crofton. Nowhere has it been better developed than under Mr. Brockway in our own State. It is a method applicable to prisoners of all classes, whether juvenile or adults, misdemeanants or felons. It has successfully been applied in State prisons as well as in reformatories. With the extension of the indeterminate sentence, we urge the adoption in all penal insti