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Title: The Journal of Prison Discipline and Philanthropy (New Series, No. 46)
Author: Society, Pennsylvania Prison
Language: English
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NEW SERIES No. 46
PUBLISHED ANNUALLY
BY THE
PENNSYLVANIA PRISON SOCIETY
INSTITUTED MAY 8TH, 1787.
THE JOURNAL
OF
PRISON DISCIPLINE
AND
PHILANTHROPY
JANUARY, 1907
OFFICE: STATE HOUSE ROW
S. W. CORNER FIFTH AND CHESTNUT STREETS
PHILADELPHIA, PA.
CONSTITUTION OF THE PENNSYLVANIA PRISON SOCIETY.
When we consider that the obligations of benevolence, which are founded
on the precepts and example of the Author of Christianity, are not
canceled by the follies or crimes of our fellow-creatures, and when
we reflect upon the miseries which penury, hunger, cold, unnecessary
severity, unwholesome apartments, and guilt (the usual attendants of
prisons) involve with them, it becomes us to extend our compassions
to that part of mankind who are the subjects of those miseries.
By the aid of humanity their undue and illegal sufferings may be
prevented; the link which should bind the whole family of mankind
together under all circumstances, be preserved unbroken; and such
degree and modes of punishment may be discovered and suggested as may,
instead of continuing habits of vice, become the means of restoring
our fellow-creatures to virtue and happiness. From a conviction of
the truth and obligations of these principles, the subscribers have
associated themselves under the title of “THE PENNSYLVANIA PRISON
SOCIETY.”
For effecting these purposes they have adopted the following
Constitution:
ARTICLE I.
The officers of the Society shall consist of a President, two
Vice-Presidents, two Secretaries, a Treasurer (who may be an undoubted
first-class Trust and Safe Deposit Company regularly chartered by the
State or National Authorities), and two Counselors.
The Committee on Membership in the “Acting Committee” shall be the
nominating committee of the Society, whose duty it shall be after
careful consideration to nominate members of the Society most suitable
in their judgment for the above named offices. The officers and the
Acting Committee shall be chosen by ballot, at the Annual Meeting of
the Society, which shall be on the fourth Thursday in the First month
(January) of each year and they shall continue in office until their
successors are elected. A majority of the whole number of votes cast
shall be necessary to the choice of any nominee for office.
In case an election for any cause shall not be held at the time above
mentioned, it shall be the duty of the President to call a Special
Meeting of the Society, within thirty days for the purpose of holding
such election, of which at least three days’ notice shall be given.
ARTICLE II.
The President shall preside in all meetings, and subscribe all public
acts of the Society. He may call special meetings whenever he may
deem it expedient, and shall do so when requested in writing by five
members. In his absence one of the Vice-Presidents may act in his place.
ARTICLE III.
The Secretaries shall keep fair records of the proceedings of the
Society, and shall conduct its correspondence.
ARTICLE IV.
The Treasurer shall pay all orders of the Society or of the Acting
Committee, signed by the presiding officer and the Secretary, and shall
present a statement of the receipts and expenditures at each stated
meeting of the Society, and an annual report at the annual meeting in
the First month (January).
All capital moneys, investments, securities and property belonging to
the Society may be placed in the care and custody of such trust company
as the Society may by resolution direct, for safe keeping and for the
collection of the income and principal thereof.
All investments and re-investments of capital money shall be made by
direction of at least three members of the Finance Committee of the
Society.
All bequests and life subscriptions which may be received shall be
safely invested, the income only thereupon to be applied to the current
expenses of the Society.
[CONTINUED ON THIRD PAGE OF COVER.]
[Illustration: JOSHUA L. BAILY.
President Pennsylvania Prison Society, 1907.
See page 15.]
NEW SERIES No. 46.
THE JOURNAL
OF
PRISON DISCIPLINE
AND
PHILANTHROPY
PUBLISHED ANNUALLY
UNDER THE DIRECTION OF “THE PENNSYLVANIA PRISON SOCIETY”
INSTITUTED MAY 8th, 1787
JANUARY, 1907
OFFICE: STATE HOUSE ROW
S. W. CORNER FIFTH AND CHESTNUT STREETS
PHILADELPHIA, PA.
The
PENNSYLVANIA PRISON SOCIETY
(FORMERLY CALLED THE PHILADELPHIA SOCIETY FOR ALLEVIATING THE
MISERIES OF PUBLIC PRISONS.)
Place of Meeting, State House Row, Philadelphia.
S. W. Cor. Fifth and Chestnut Sts.
The 120th Annual Meeting of “THE PENNSYLVANIA PRISON SOCIETY”
was held on the afternoon of the First month (January), 24th, 1907,
with SAMUEL BIDDLE as Chairman, and GEO. S. WETHERELL
as Secretary. The Minutes of the 119th Annual meeting were read and
approved, after which the Treasurer presented his report.
Memorials on the death of the President, GEO. W. HALL, and
the First Vice-President, the REV. JAMES ROBERTS, D. D., were
submitted and ordered spread on the Minutes.
The officers and the members of the Acting Committee for 1907 were
elected (See next page).
Article IV of the Constitution as amended was adopted.
The Editorial Committee was directed to print 7,500 copies of the
JOURNAL, and to make such alterations and additions as might
be necessary.
JOHN J. LYTLE, _Gen. Secretary_.
Editorial Committee for 1907: REV. R. HEBER BARNES,
Chairman; REV. J. F. OHL, DEBORAH C. LEEDS,
JOSEPH C. NOBLIT, DR. WILLIAM C. STORKES.
Persons receiving the Journal are invited to correspond with, and
send any publications on Prison and Prison Discipline, and articles
for the Journal to the Chairman of the Editorial Board, 600 North
Thirty-second Street, Philadelphia, Pa., or S. W. Cor. Fifth and
Chestnut Streets.
The National Prison Congress of the U. S. for the past eight years
designated the fourth Sunday in October annually as Prison Sunday.
To aid the movement for reformation, some speakers may be supplied
from this Society. Apply to the chairman of that Committee.
👉 JOHN J. LYTLE, S. W. Cor. Fifth and Chestnut Streets,
Philadelphia, is the General Secretary of the Society, giving
especial attention to the Eastern Penitentiary.
👉 FREDERICK J. POOLEY is Agent for the County Prison,
appointed by the Prison Society. Address mail to 500 Chestnut
Street, Office of Pennsylvania Prison Society.
OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY FOR 1907.
PRESIDENT
JOSHUA L. BAILY
VICE-PRESIDENTS
REV. HERMAN L. DUHRING, D. D. REV. F. H. SENFT
TREASURER
JOHN WAY
SECRETARIES
JOHN J. LYTLE FREDERICK J. POOLEY
COUNSELORS
HON. WM. N. ASHMAN HENRY S. CATTELL
MEMBERS OF THE ACTING COMMITTEE
P. H. Spelissy, Miss C. V. Hodges, A. J. Wright,
John H. Dillingham, Rebecca P. Latimer, Charles H. LeFevre,
Dr. Emily J. Ingram, Rev. Floyd W. Tomkins, Mrs. E. M. Stillwell,
William Scattergood, Samuel L. Whitson, Solomon G. Engle,
Mrs. P. W. Lawrence, Harry Kennedy, Richard H. Lytle,
Mary S. Whelen, Layyah Barakat, Charles P. Hastings,
Isaac Slack, Rev. J. F. Ohl, Rev. C. Rowland Hill,
William Koelle, William E. Tatum Isaac P. Miller
Rev. R. Heber Barnes, Mary S. Wetherell, Elias H. White,
Dr. William C. Stokes, George S. Wetherell, John Smallzell,
William T. W. Jester, Henry C. Cassel, Jacob Hoffman,
Mrs. Horace Fassett, Albert Oetinger, John D. Hampton,
William F. Overman, Rev. Philip Lamerdin, Charles McDole,
Deborah C. Leeds, David Sulzberger, Jonas G. Clemmer,
J. Albert Koons, Mrs. E. W. Gormley, Susanna W. Lippincott,
George R. Meloney, Frank H. Longshore, John A. Duncan.
Joseph C. Noblit, Rev. H. E. Meyer,
_Visiting Committee for the Eastern State Penitentiary_:
John J. Lytle, Harry Kennedy, Rev. Solomon G. Engle,
P. H. Spellissy, Layyah Barakat, Charles P. Hastings,
John H. Dillingham, Rev. J. F. Ohl, Rev. F. H. Senft,
Isaac Slack, William E. Tatum, Rev. C. Rowland Hill,
Rev. R. Heber Barnes, Mary S. Wetherell, Isaac P. Miller,
Dr. William C. Stokes, George S. Wetherell, Elias H. White,
William T. W. Jester, Albert Oetinger, John Smallzell,
Deborah C. Leeds, Henry C. Cassel, Jacob Hoffman,
Mrs. Horace Fassett, Rev. Philip Lamerdin, John D. Hampton,
George R. Meloney, David Sulzberger, Susanna W. Lippincott,
Joseph C. Noblit, Frank H. Longshore, Charles McDole,
Rebecca P. Latimer, Rev. H. E. Meyer, Jonas G. Clemmer.
Samuel L. Whitson, Charles H. LeFevre,
_Visiting Committee for the Philadelphia County Prison_:
F. J. Pooley, Mrs. E. M. Stillwell, George S. Wetherell,
Deborah C. Leeds, William T. W. Jester, Layyah Barakat,
Miss C. V. Hodges Mrs. P. W. Lawrence, John A. Duncan,
David Sulzberger, Mrs. Horace Fassett, Susanna W. Lippincott.
Rev. H. E. Meyer, Mary S. Wetherell,
_For the Holmesburg Prison_:
F. A. Pooley, Isaac Slack, David Sulzberger.
Layyah Barakat,
_For the Chester County Prison_:
William Scattergood, Deborah C. Leeds,
_For the Delaware County Prison_:
Deborah C. Leeds.
_For the Western Penitentiary and Allegheny County Prison_:
Mrs. E. W. Gormley.
_For the Counties of the State at Large_:
Mrs. E. W. Gormley, Deborah C. Leeds, Frederick J. Pooley,
Layyah Barakat.
_For the House of Correction_:
F. J. Pooley, Layyah Barakat, Isaac Slack.
Deborah C. Leeds, David Sulzberger,
STANDING COMMITTEES FOR 1907.
_On Library_:
Rev. J. F. Ohl, Rev. R. Heber Barnes, F. J. Pooley.
_On Accounts_:
Charles P. Hastings, Albert Oetinger, John Smallzell.
_Editorial Committee_:
Rev. R. Heber Barnes, Deborah C. Leeds, Dr. William C. Stokes.
Rev. J. F. Ohl, Joseph C. Noblit,
_On Membership in the Acting Committee_:
Dr. William C. Stokes, Albert Oetinger, Charles P. Hastings.
George S. Wetherell, Elias H. White,
_On Finance_:
George S. Wetherell, David Sulzberger, William Scattergood,
A. J. Wright.
_On Employment of Discharged Prisoners_:
Isaac Slack, John D. Hampton, Mrs. Horace Fassett,
Albert Oetinger, Rev. H. L. Duhring, D. D., John A. Duncan,
William Koelle, Frederick J. Pooley, Mrs. P. W. Lawrence.
Henry C. Cassel,
_Auditing Committee_:
Joseph C. Noblit, John H. Dillingham.
_On Police Matrons in Station Houses_:
Mrs. P. W. Lawrence, Dr. Emily J. Ingram, Mary S. Wetherell.
_On Prison Sunday_:
Rev. R. Heber Barnes, Rev. J. F. Ohl, Rev. F. H. Senft.
Rev. H. L. Duhring, D. D., Rev. Philip Lamerdin,
_On Legislation_:
Rev. J. F. Ohl, Joseph Noblit, William Scattergood.
Rev. H. C. Meyer, Rev. R. Heber Barnes,
[Illustration: THE PENNSYLVANIA PRISON SOCIETY.
Exterior of Office, S. W. Cor. Fifth and Chestnut Streets.]
JOURNAL OF PRISON DISCIPLINE
ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTIETH YEAR
1787 OF 1907
THE PENNSYLVANIA PRISON SOCIETY
ANNUAL REPORT OF JOHN J. LYTLE, GENERAL SECRETARY
In submitting this, my Seventeenth Annual Report, it is with renewed
feelings of devout thankfulness to my Heavenly Father that He has
spared my life through another year, and given me the health and
strength to perform a service so near and dear to my heart.
In one respect the work of the Pennsylvania Prison Society is unique.
Besides the General Secretary, whose labors are confined chiefly to the
Eastern Penitentiary, and the Agent for the County Prison, the Society
has an “Acting Committee” of fifty members, who by two legislative
enactments have the rights of official visitors. The first of these
acts became operative in 1829. This was supplemented by the act
approved March 20, 1903, which is as follows:
AN ACT
To make active or visiting committees, of societies incorporated
for the purpose of visiting and instructing prisoners, official
visitors of penal and reformatory institutions.
SECTION I. Be it enacted, etc., That the active or visiting
committee of any society heretofore incorporated and now existing
in this Commonwealth for the purpose of visiting and instructing
prisoners, or persons confined in any penal or reformatory institution,
and alleviating their miseries, shall be and are hereby made official
visitors of any jail, penitentiary, or other penal or reformatory
institution in this Commonwealth, maintained at the public expense,
with the same powers, privileges, and functions as are vested in the
official visitors of prisons and penitentiaries, as now prescribed by
law: Provided, That no active or visiting committee of any such society
shall be entitled to visit such jails or penal institutions, under this
act, unless notice of the names of the members of such committee, and
the terms of their appointment, is given by such society, in writing,
under its corporate seal, to the warden, superintendent or other
officer in charge of such jail, or other officer in charge of any such
jail or other penal institution.
Approved--The 20th day of March, A. D. 1903.
SAML. W. PENNYPACKER.
The foregoing is a true and correct copy of the Act of the General
Assembly No. 48.
FRANK M. FULLER,
_Secretary of the Commonwealth_.
THE EASTERN PENITENTIARY
Under the rights thus conferred those members of the Acting Committee
of the Pennsylvania Prison Society assigned to the Eastern Penitentiary
visit prisoners in their cells. It is found that this personal work of
Christian men and women is productive of good results. In the privacy
of the cell hearts and lives are laid open, impressions are made,
resolutions are formed, and changes are brought about that under a
less personal and individual system of treatment would be well-nigh
impossible. The corridor for female prisoners is in charge of a matron,
and is regularly visited by women members of the Acting Committee.
During the past year I made over three hundred visits to the
Penitentiary; and have had more than three thousand personal interviews
with men. Those who need it receive a complete outfit of new clothing
on their discharge. But looking after the physical well-being of a
man when he leaves I regard as the least important of my duties. I
ascertain what his past has been, what his prospects are for the
future, and in what way he can be aided in carrying out the good
resolutions he may have formed. Thus with good advice and helpful
service the man is again given an opportunity to rehabilitate himself.
Besides caring for those just discharged, the General Secretary and
the Agent of the County Prison also extend aid to men who have been
released for some time, but who have failed to secure employment. This
is done at the relief station maintained near the Penitentiary, which
is open every morning. Here men who are found to be really deserving
are supplied with meal tickets, lodging-room rent, and goods to sell.
The total amount expended during the past year from the Fund for
Discharged Prisoners was $3,795.56. Tools were given to men to the
amount of $69.16.
As heretofore, Divine services were held in the different corridors
each First Day morning under the direction of the Moral Instructor, the
Rev. Joseph Welsh. The speakers were supplied by the Local Preachers’
Association of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Protestant Episcopal
City Mission, and the Lutheran City Mission.
The Sunday Song Services at 4 P. M. by choirs from different
churches, arranged for by the Rev. H. L. Duhring, D. D., Superintendent
of the Protestant Episcopal City Mission, were continued during the
year.
I am greatly indebted to all the officers and overseers of the
Penitentiary for their uniform courtesy and their valuable assistance
in the prosecution of my work. Charles C. Church has proved himself
to be an able and efficient warden, to whose administrative ability
and genial manner the discipline and good order of the institution are
chiefly due.
From the Annual Report of the Penitentiary I gather the following
statistics:
POPULATION
White Colored Total
Males Females Males Females
Remaining from 1905 859 13 257 13 1,142
Committed during 1906 303 8 111 9 431
----- -- --- -- -----
Total population 1,162 21 368 22 1,573
Discharged during 1906 336 6 96 5 443
----- -- --- -- -----
Remaining at the close of 1906 826 15 272 17 1,130
THE DISCHARGES WERE AS FOLLOWS:
By Commutation Law 406
“ Order of Court 7
“ Department of Justice 8
“ Order of Huntingdon Reformatory 4
“ Pardon 3
“ Suicide 1
Died 14
----
Total 443
Average daily population, 1906 1,144
Largest number in confinement during year 1,175
Smallest number in confinement during year 1,103
TABLES RELATING TO THE 431 CONVICTS RECEIVED DURING 1906.
(1) SCHOOL
No. of Convicts.
Attended public school 348
“ private school 8
“ public and private school 6
Never went to school 69
---
Total 431
(2) EDUCATION
Read and write 312
“ “ “ imperfectly 56
Illiterate 63
---
Total 431
(3) TRADES
Number having trades 159
“ “ no trades 272
---
Total 431
Number idle at time of arrest 116
(4) AGE OF CONVICTS
Age White Colored Total
From 15 to 20 years 31 14 45
“ 21 “ 25 “ 74 34 108
“ 26 “ 30 “ 61 36 97
“ 31 “ 35 “ 53 14 67
“ 36 “ 40 “ 31 7 38
“ 41 “ 45 “ 26 6 32
“ 46 “ 50 “ 15 3 18
“ 51 “ 55 “ 11 2 13
“ 56 “ 60 “ 5 1 6
“ 61 “ 65 “ 2 1 3
“ 66 “ 70 “ 2 1 3
Above 70 years 1 1
--- --- ---
Total 311 120 431
(5) CONVICTIONS
First Conviction 268
Second “ 1st time here 63
“ “ 2d “ “ 31
Third “ 1st “ “ 16
“ “ 2d “ “ 11
“ “ 3d “ “ 8
Fourth “ 1st “ “ 8
“ “ 2d “ “ 4
“ “ 3d “ “ 1
“ “ 4th “ “ 1
Fifth “ 1st “ “ 2
“ “ 2d “ “ 2
“ “ 3d “ “ 1
“ “ 4th “ “ 2
“ “ 5th “ “ 1
Sixth “ 2d “ “ 3
“ “ 3d “ “ 2
Seventh “ 2d “ “ 2
“ “ 6th “ “ 2
Eighth “ 5th “ “ 1
Eleventh “ 3d “ “ 1
Fifteenth “ 7th “ “ 1
---
Total 431
PARENTAL RELATIONS AT 16 YEARS
Parents living 295
Mother “ 65
Father “ 38
Parents dead 33
---
Total 431
CONJUGAL RELATIONS
Single 254
Married 152
Widowed 25
---
Total 431
NUMBER HAVING CHILDREN
Number having children 112
Number of children 301
NATIVITY
Born in the United States 346
Foreign born 85
---
Total 431
Of the foreign born, naturalized 31
Of the foreign born, Not naturalized 54
--
Total 85
RECEPTIONS CLASSIFIED AS TO DISTRICTS
Received from Manufacturing Districts 161
“ “ Mining Districts 70
“ “ Agricultural Districts 200
---
Total 431
The following figures were gathered by the Moral Instructor, the Rev.
Joseph Welsh, in his interviews with the prisoners admitted during the
year:
Total number received during the year 431
Number who attended Sunday School 286
“ “ “ Church 232
“ “ were members of Church 157
“ “ “ abstainers from use of liquor 63
“ “ “ moderate users of liquor 159
“ “ “ intemperate users of liquor 170
“ “ “ users of tobacco 356
“ “ gambled with cards 29
“ “ “ on horse races 11
“ “ visited immoral women 158
“ “ kept mistresses 2
THE PHILADELPHIA COUNTY PRISON
This Prison still keeps up its record as a well managed institution.
Unfortunately, the Convict Department at Holmesburg is somewhat
overcrowded, and it is to be regretted that funds have not yet been
provided by the City Councils for additional corridors, so that each
man could be separately confined as the law provides. It is admitted by
the advocates both of the separate and of the congregate system, that
those awaiting trial should be strictly separated. To place a first,
and especially a young offender, with a hardened criminal, simply means
the production of another criminal, and places the State itself in the
position of committing a wrong against one of its own citizens.
Frederick J. Pooley, one of the Secretaries of the Society and Agent
at the County Prison, is more untiring than ever in his efforts for
the betterment of those incarcerated in Moyamensing, at Tenth and
Reed Streets, and in the New County Jail (Convict Department), at
Holmesburg. He visits both institutions during five days in the week,
seeks to aid men temporally and morally, is instrumental in having
cases brought to speedy trial, and in some cases even looks after the
destitute families of prisoners. At Moyamensing, women members of the
Acting Committee also visit in the Women’s Department.
During the year 1906 there were received at the County Prison, Tenth
and Reed Streets:
White males 17,085
“ females 2,180
Black males 3,106
“ females 1,005
Total committed, 1906 23,376
“ discharged, 1906 23,452
After trial many were sent to Holmesburg.
THE ASSOCIATED COMMITTEE OF WOMEN ON POLICE MATRONS
The Associated Committee of Women on Police Matrons in Station Houses
meets monthly with three representatives from each of a number of
the charitable associations of Philadelphia. On this Committee, the
Pennsylvania Prison Society is represented by Mrs. P. W. Lawrence, Dr.
Emily J. Ingram and Mary S. Wetherell. The following is the report of
the Committee for the past year:
The Committee on Police Matrons held ten regular and one special
meeting during the year ending December 31, 1906.
The membership of this Committee is now twenty-one women who represent
seven societies, namely, the Pennsylvania Prison Society, Women’s
Christian Temperance Union, Civic Club, New Century Club, Young Women’s
Christian Association, Christian League, and Mothers’ Club. The usual
attendance is from eight to twelve members. Reports are received from
all the Matrons at each meeting. There are twenty-two. The fourteenth
district (Germantown) was supplied with a Matron in March, 1906. The
effort is made that each Matron shall receive at least one visit a
month. The meeting of the Conference of Charities in Philadelphia in
May last brought us unusual interest in the work of Police Matrons
elsewhere, and we formed a permanent committee to secure knowledge of
it in other cities, and comparison of methods with them. At several
meetings of this year, four Matrons at a time were invited to meet with
the Committee, and offer suggestions and state experiences requiring
help and study. The Needle Work Guild coöperates with the Committee
for supplying clothing to the Matrons for their use with needy women
and children under their care. Mrs. Fletcher, our Senior Matron,
completed her twentieth year of service, and was given a reception by
the Committee, at which the Directors and other officials were present.
In this time she has had 9,000 women and 2,900 children under her care.
The Director of Public Safety, Robert McKenty, has been especially
interested in an effort to give personal help to erring women and
girls, and extends every facility for our communication with such,
by directing the Lieutenants to coöperate with our efforts to redeem
them from disgrace and despair. The numbers given in our reports are,
of course, from twenty-two districts only. There are fourteen others
without Matrons, where many women and children are received. We have
been assured that a Matron will be appointed in West Philadelphia very
soon, and there is also a prospect of more effective systematic work in
coöperation and supervision of this branch of police administration.
STATISTICS
(Except as to totals and conditions when received, statistics cannot be
made absolutely accurate, especially as to “Nationality and Disposal.”)
_Women under care from January, 1906, to January, 1907_ 9,295
Arrested 7,475
Lost or seeking shelter 379
Mothers 2,898
Intoxicated 3,679
White 6,502
Colored 2,288
_Disposals._
Discharged with and without fines 2,074
Sent to Reformatories 672
House of Correction 923
County Prison 2,255
Americans 5,320
Foreigners 2,934
_Children under care from January, 1906, to January, 1907_ 6,839
Arrested 3,417
Lost or ran away 2,846
White 5,497
Colored 651
Brought with parents 468
_Disposals._
Sent home 4,695
S. P. C. C. and Aid Society 387
Charities and Reformatories 449
House of Detention and Juvenile Court 572
Respectfully submitted,
MRS. P. W. LAWRENCE.
CHESTER COUNTY PRISON
William Scattergood, President of the Board of Inspectors, makes
weekly visits to this prison, and reports it in good condition. It is
considered a model prison. Deborah C. Leeds, a member of the Acting
Committee, has also visited it during the year.
COUNTY PRISON AT MEDIA
Deborah C. Leeds has visited this prison several times during the year,
and reports it a well conducted institution.
ALLEGHENY COUNTY
Mrs. E. W. Gormley, Superintendent of the Prison and Jail Department
of the W. C. T. U., is also a member of the Acting Committee of the
Pennsylvania Prison Society, and as such an official visitor to the
penitentiaries, county jails and reformatories of the Commonwealth. We
are highly favored in having a member who is doing efficient work in
the western part of the State.
DOOR OF BLESSING
This institution for discharged female prisoners was established and
is under the supervision of Mrs. Horace Fassett, who is an official
visitor at the Eastern Penitentiary and the County Prison. She writes:
“The Door of Blessing goes steadily on in its good work under its noble
matron, Gertrude Brown. Since January, 1906, fifty women and four
babies were sent there from our County Prison, the House of Correction,
and the Eastern Penitentiary. All of these were placed in situations
in the country, mostly on farms. Some have returned to go to better
positions, some have remained, and very few have gone back to their old
life. The Door of Blessing is a home for these dear children in every
sense of the word--a haven of rest and peace. All love it and look
forward to their afternoons out, that they may go there and have supper
with the matron and tell her of their joys and sorrows, to which she
listens with loving sympathy. Six women were sent to their homes, their
families being willing to receive them after a short stay at the Door
of Blessing.”
HOME OF INDUSTRY
This institution extends help to men discharged from the Eastern
Penitentiary and the County Prison. It provides board and shelter for
these, gives them employment in broom-making, for which they receive
compensation, and seeks to bring all who enter it under the saving
power of the Gospel. The efficient Superintendent is Frank H. Starr,
who makes every effort to place men in situations when they leave the
Home.
GALILEE MISSION
This is under the care of the Protestant Episcopal Church. A large
number of men from the Penitentiary and County Prison have been sent
there for meals and lodgings, sometimes only for a few days, and at
other times for a week or two until they could obtain work.
HOPE HALL, NEW YORK. UNDER THE CARE OF MRS. BALLINGTON BOOTH
During the year a number of men have been sent to this place from the
Eastern Penitentiary. Mrs. Booth always receives such with a warm
welcome, and often obtains good situations for them.
PRISON SUNDAY
In the early part of October, 1906, the Committee on Prison Sunday sent
out a circular letter, urging the observance of October 21st as Prison
Sunday, to thirty-three hundred ministers of the Methodist Episcopal,
the Presbyterian, the Baptist, the Lutheran, the Protestant Episcopal,
and the Reformed Churches in Pennsylvania, and to six hundred daily and
weekly newspapers.
FROM THE MINUTES
MEMORIALS OF DECEASED MEMBERS
GEORGE W. HALL
George W. Hall, former member of the State Legislature and of City
Councils, a well-known financier, and President of the Pennsylvania
Prison Society, passed away on December 14, 1906, in the 77th year
of his age. He was a member of the Franklin Institute, a director
of the School of Design for Women, a director of the Home for
Feeble Minded Children at Elwyn, a member of the St. Andrew’s
Society, a trustee of the Second Presbyterian Church, and an
inspector of the Philadelphia County Prison.
It seems proper that there should be a minute of record of one who
for years has been an active member, besides being a life member
of the Society. He spent much time in looking after the welfare of
the prisoners at the County Prison, Tenth and Reed Streets, and at
Holmesburg, where he will be greatly missed.
May this minute be recorded and a copy sent to the surviving
members of his family.
REV. JAMES ROBERTS, D. D.
Rev. James Roberts, D. D., was born at Montrose, Scotland, December
25, 1839.
He came to this country with his parents at an early age, and was
graduated from the Princeton Theological Seminary in 1868. His
first charge was at Coatesville, Pa., where he remained until 1885,
when he took charge of the Church at Darby, Pa. After remaining
there ten years he accepted a call to Lambertville, N. J. On
leaving this charge he became Superintendent of the Mercer Home for
Aged and Retired Ministers, which position he filled until called
suddenly from earth on September 27, 1906. His genial, affectionate
ways widened the circle of his friends, who were found among
all classes. It is with sincere sorrow that our Society records
the departure of another of its most honored members and Second
Vice-President.
Resolved, That this minute be entered on our records and a copy
thereof with our sympathies be sent to the bereaved family.
[Illustration: THE PENNSYLVANIA PRISON SOCIETY.]
I close my report with the earnest wish that the Pennsylvania Prison
Society may constantly widen its scope of operations and grow in
efficiency and usefulness as it grows in years.
The work I have performed during not only the last, but for many
years, has been very dear to my heart, and I have felt that I have
had an especial call to the service. Conscious, however, of my need
continually of Divine guidance in all that I have done in His name, I
have earnestly sought for that wisdom which will enable me to do all
for Him.
With sincere desire that I may be a humble instrument in His hands in
winning souls unto Christ, this report is respectfully submitted.
JOHN J. LYTLE,
_General Secretary_.
* * * * *
Joshua L. Baily was elected President of The Pennsylvania Prison
Society at the annual meeting, January, 1907. His membership in the
Society dates from 1851 and he is the oldest member now living. For a
number of years he was a member of the Acting Committee and a regular
visitor of the Eastern Penitentiary. His great interest in prison
discipline induced him, some years ago, to visit voluntarily all the
penitentiaries in the Atlantic States, as well as some of those in the
States of the Central West, and he visited also many of the County
Prisons in Pennsylvania and other States. His interest in correctional
institutions was further shown by ten years’ service on the Board of
Managers of the House of Refuge.
Mr. Baily has been no less actively interested in charitable
institutions, having been for more than fifty years a manager of The
Philadelphia Society for the Employment and Instruction of the Poor, of
which he is now President. He was one of the founders, and for eighteen
years the President of The Philadelphia Society for Organizing Charity.
He is also a member and manager of a number of other benevolent
societies, so that by reason of long experience, in both correctional
and charitable service, Mr. Baily comes to the Presidency of the Prison
Society well equipped for the duties devolving upon him. Although still
engaged in mercantile business, Mr. Baily gives a large portion of his
time, as well as his means, to benevolent purposes, and devotes thereto
a degree of vigor, both mental and physical, quite unusual in one of
his advanced years.
THE NATIONAL PRISON CONGRESS
ALBANY, NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER, 15-20, 1906.
The National Prison Association met in its annual Congress, in the
Senate Chamber of the State Capitol, at Albany, N. Y., on the evening
of September 15, 1906. The meeting was called to order by the Chairman
of the Local Committee, Mr. James F. McElroy, and prayer was offered by
the Rev. W. F. Wittaker, D. D., pastor of the First Presbyterian Church.
The Hon. Julius E. Mayer, Attorney-General, represented the Governor in
the address of welcome in behalf of the State, and the Mayor of Albany,
the Hon. Charles H. Gans, spoke for the city. The Rev. Dr. Frederick
Howard Wines made the response, in which he dwelt in reminiscent vein
on some of his experiences since the first meeting of the Association,
and spoke especially of the leading men who were connected with it
during its early history. Dr. Wines advocated three reforms: 1, the
abolition of the “sweating” or “third-degree” system, which he called
an outrage on the rights of prisoners; 2, the reorganization of the
jury system, so that juries could no longer be selected by the “Gang”
for the express purpose of defeating justice; and 3, the dismissing of
small misdemeanants on their own recognizance, instead of crowding the
jails with these.
Dr. Wines then introduced the President of the Association, the Hon.
Cornelius V. Collins, Superintendent of Prisons of New York State.
PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS
Mr. Collins, after alluding briefly to the purposes and work of
the Association, rehearsed the part his own State had taken in the
development of plans for the scientific treatment of criminals. Having
traced the successive steps in prison reform, in which he showed that
New York State had taken the lead, he said:
“Public sentiment has always called for the education and training of
the young. How much more important and of what inestimable value is the
saving of the adult. Situated as we are here, at the gateway of the
republic, we admit at Ellis Island more than a million new people each
year. Vital statistics in New York City gave 59,000 births last year,
only 11,000 of which were of American parentage. Austria, Russia and
Italy each sent us 200,000 immigrants last year. What is more natural
than that many of them, wholly unacquainted with our country, our
language and our laws, should in their first effort at living in the
land of liberty run counter to our laws and find their way to prison.
Surely they do come, and the number is constantly increasing. There
are now 12,000 convicts in the prisons of this State, made up largely
from this cosmopolitan army of ignorance and superstition. This is
the problem we have to solve in New York State, and while it is no
doubt a fact that our State will always have more than others, it is
nevertheless true that every State in the Union will have this class of
prisoners to deal with in increasing numbers as time goes on.”
Superintendent Collins detailed the good that followed the separation
and classification of prison inmates into groups or grades and the
training of the mental faculties through the plan of education in vogue
in New York State prisons. The labor and industrial training provided
in connection with mental training was spoken of and a plea was made
for the indeterminate sentence. In conclusion Superintendent Collins
made a timely argument in favor of a reform in county jails. In this
connection he said:
“We who are familiar with the facts know that many convicts are
received at the prisons who are morally poisoned and contaminated while
awaiting trial in the jails by the intimate association with confirmed
and degraded criminals which is permitted in these institutions.
This is especially true of the younger class of offenders, who come
to the jail having respect for authority and dread of confinement.
At no period of their penal term are they so susceptible to external
influences. If at this period a practical reformatory influence is
exerted upon them, their correction can in most cases be accomplished,
but if they are left in idleness and subject to the evil influences of
degraded companions their respect for law is soon destroyed, and they
become hardened and defiant and accept the theories and ambitions of
the confirmed criminals as their own. Thus the man who enters jail in
such condition that proper treatment would readily turn him from his
criminal course often reaches the prison a most discouraging subject
for its reformatory system.
“For the interest of society, as well as the protection of young
offenders, the jail system should be corrected. The jail buildings are
improved and the prisoners are better fed than they were fifty years
ago; otherwise the system remains practically the same. Its conspicuous
defects still exist. No chain is stronger than its weakest link;
the extensive schemes of penal administration in the several States
have their fatally weak part in their jails. Genuine and effective
organization in the United States for the salvation of criminals and
alleged criminals must take heed of these facts, which are notorious.
“May I now suggest that a committee, to be called, if you please, the
Committee on Plan and Scope, be appointed at this session of the Prison
Congress to consider the following recommendations:
“First. A rational and uniform system of jail administration.
“Second. A uniform system of education for prison officers.
“Third. A uniform system of education for convicts.
“Fourth. So far as possible, a uniform system of prison discipline.
“Fifth. A uniform system of classification.
“Sixth. A uniform system of parole, and a careful consideration of all
other matters that in their judgment would tend to make further reforms
in the treatment of the criminal classes.
“This committee to make a report of their conclusions at the session of
1907.”
The Congress, deeply impressed by Mr. Collins’ recommendations,
subsequently appointed a strong committee to report at the next meeting
on the jail system in the United States.
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 16TH
MORNING
The Conference Sermon was preached by the Rt. Rev. William Crosswell
Doane, D. D., LL. D., Bishop of the Diocese of Albany, in the Cathedral
of All Saints, where the delegates attended in a body. The Bishop’s
text was Matt. 25:36, “I was in prison and ye came unto me.” He said
in part: “Almost by an instinctive impulse these words come first to
the mind of the preacher at such a service, and by a striking and happy
coincidence this service falls upon the Sunday when our Book of Common
Prayer appoints for the second morning lesson the chapter which ends
with this intense expression of our Lord, containing, I think, the seed
principle upon which the noble work of this Association was founded
and has been carried on. Last year the preacher took the earthly
ministry of our dear divine Lord as the pattern of this work, ‘Who went
about doing good.’
“I am only supplementing and carrying along the line of his thought
when I ask you to think of the divine Master as giving not the pattern
only, but the principle of your work. There is no contradiction in the
double presentation of our Lord’s personality along this as along so
many other lines. He is so essentially by His incarnation in our human
nature that we bring Him to those to whom we minister in His name and
find Him in those to whom we bring Him. And in either of these sides
the truth is set forth and enforced that the object of all Christian
service, whether it be the work of Christianity in religious teaching,
or the work of Christianity in the administration of civic affairs, is
not the violent denunciation or vindictive infliction of punishment
upon a sinner, but the offer of help and the opportunity of reform.
The Prison Reform Association may well claim that it describes and
expresses in its name the purpose for which in Christian lands prisons
exist. ‘He came not to condemn the world, but to save it.’ ‘The Son of
Man has come to seek and save the lost.’
“Curiously enough, whatever technical differences may lie in the use of
the various words prison and gaol and reformatory, there is one that
stands out as having in its root meaning the very thought of that on
which we are dwelling, because the penitentiary is certainly the place
where men are led and drawn, through real penitence, to seek and find
pardon and peace.
“I am not losing sight of the purpose of imprisonment both to stamp
crime as crime and to protect society from the criminal. I am only
advocating the thought of reform for which this Association stands. If
a man is a murderer condemned to die, then there is the overwhelming
duty and responsibility of bringing him to repentance, that he may die
forgiven. If he is serving a sentence indeterminate or for a fixed
time, then surely the influence and effort of prison discipline must
be not to harden him into sullen hatred of law and of all that the
law stands for, not in a harbored purpose to revenge himself in some
way, when once he is free, upon the society which has condemned him;
but to waken in him such a sense of shame as shall force him back
to the possibility of self-respect, and bring him to that point of
realized wrong by means of which he shall ‘come to himself.’ That is
the Master’s own description of the prodigal son. Far as he had strayed
from his father’s house, he had strayed farther from his real self, the
self of his innocent childhood, the self of his home and surroundings,
the self of his true nature, and it was when the true man wakened in
him that, coming first to himself, he came next to his father’s house.
“In this recognition of the criminal’s sin there must be enforced
the discipline of penalty, and of penalty as punishment, but it must
be carefully dealt with, so as in no sense to convey the thought of
retribution or of vindictive retaliation. The strides of progress which
have been made in the last century and a half under the methods of such
real reformers as Howard and Wines (whom, as a boy, I remember very
well), and Elizabeth Fry and Dorothy Dix, have, among other things, set
the stamp of this idea in the fact that capital punishment, which used
to be inflicted for many crimes, is reserved to the one for which it
was divinely ordered, and from which, I trust, it will never be taken
away, namely, the sin of shedding another’s blood. Meanwhile, more and
more, in the selection of wardens, in the appointment of chaplains,
in the abolition of the fearful cruelties of physical torture, in the
decent sanitation of prisons, we have grown more and more to realize
that the condemned criminal is to be treated as a man who needs
protection, systematic discipline, the training of the prison, to
protect him from himself, to put into him the purpose and set before
him the possibility of a better life, rather than to humiliate and
crush him into desperation and despair. It is quite true that no amount
of legislation and no method of enforcing laws can make a man moral,
but it is also true that the law which defines and punishes sin deters
men from the commission of crime, and when the criminal is condemned
and sentenced and his punishment begins, only the power of religion can
reach him to convince him of his sin, to convert him from his habits,
to reach the motives of his life, to change the tendency of his will,
to form in him new habits, to give him the spiritual help by which his
conscience may be enlightened and his character changed.
“And there are certain human, natural, physical reasons for the right
attitude to the convicted criminal which more than warrant us in
assuming it as the groundwork and motive of our dealings with him. It
is told, I think of an English bishop, seeing a criminal drawn in a
tumbril to execution on Ludgate Hill, in London, that he said, ‘There
go I but for grace.’ Somehow I know it is true that now and then
men whose lives have been surrounded from childhood up to the very
moment of their fall with the best influences, suddenly lapse into
great sin. We have instances in the last year which have startled and
staggered communities, men in places of trust who have betrayed it,
and have either been flung down from the position of confidence and
honor or fallen themselves, and found in flight or in suicide the fatal
termination of what has seemed to be a career of honorable service.
I am bound to say a word even for these. I believe the vindictive
personalities which have assailed some of these men are in some cases
absolutely unjust.
“There ought to be, thank God, there is, more and more in the great
movements in our cities, a strong, set effort of prevention, which is
far better than cure. The prisons will be emptier when we have reached
the root and reason of crime. If we can control the use of liquor and
stop at least its excess; if we can stamp out the curse of drunkenness;
if we can more and more arrest the degradation of our slums; if we can
train up a race of children in surroundings of physical healthfulness,
of moral decency and dignity; and still better, if we can instil into
them from earliest childhood the principles and pattern of Jesus
Christ, we shall have begun, at the right end, the restoration and the
reformation of humanity. Meanwhile, until all these movements have
ripened into some result, it becomes us to remember from what sources
and in what surroundings the grown-up criminal has come; to realize
how far we, by our neglect and indifference, have been responsible for
them; and to reach out the helping hand of deep sympathy and pity in
the effort to reclaim, to restore and to reform.
“The great revealed truth of universal redemption is full of grace and
help. Still more, the truth of individual indwelling of the Christ in
us, the hope of glory. It is true that in a way this is a doctrine, a
dogma, as people say who think of a dogma as a tyrannical imposition
upon their intellectual liberty; but it is truer still that, like many
another thing which we call dogma, it is a fact on which depends not
merely our holding right faith in Jesus Christ as the God-man, but on
which also depend the method and the hope and the value of our dealing
with humanity at large or with the individual man. It has in it besides
the very highest human hope possible for you and me, that in the great
day of eternal decision there shall be for us who have recognized
Jesus in those to whom we ministered here the full revelation and
manifestation of His glorious God-head, with the word of ‘well done’
and welcome into ‘the kingdom prepared for us from the foundation of
the world.’”
EVENING
At many churches of the city various phases of the work of the
Association were presented by delegates to the Congress. At the
Cathedral Mr. Thomas M. Osborne, President of the George Junior
Republic, Auburn, N. Y., spoke on “The True Foundations of Prison
Reform”; Mr. George B. Wellington, of Troy, on “The Duty That We Owe
the Convict”; and Prof. Henderson, of Chicago, on “Preventive Work with
Children.” The latter maintained that the proper training of a child to
keep it from becoming a criminal began before it was born. Crime was
not a heritage, but criminal tendencies sometimes were. Judge Lindsay,
the great enthusiast in behalf of children, had said that the Juvenile
court was organized to keep children out of jail, but that now the
problem was to keep children out of the Juvenile court. The problem is
to get back to childhood, back to infancy. Babyhood determined whether
there should be a large or a small criminal class. Place the child from
earliest infancy into such a physical environment and under such mental
and spiritual influences as will produce the habit of right living.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 17
MORNING
The meeting was called to order by President Collins and opened
with prayer by the Rev. Thomas D. Anderson. After the appointment
of committees and other routine business, the Wardens’ Association
went into session. In the absence of the President, Mr. N. N. Jones,
Iowa State Prison, Fort Madison, his address was read by Mr. Frank L.
Randall, Minnesota, who had been called to the chair. The paper was a
compact statement of the warden’s relation to current prison reform.
With reference to prison labor it showed how small a portion of the
total product is contributed by prisoners. Regarding the relation of
discipline to reformation, the writer said: “Discipline is the medium
through which all reform becomes effective. The attitude of the warden
toward reform should be sympathetic and receptive.”
A paper on “Prison Labor,” by the Hon. John T. McDonough, Ex-Secretary
of State, was listened to with considerable interest, because Mr.
McDonough, as a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1894, had
much to do with framing the constitutional amendment wiping out the
contract labor system and prohibiting the sale of prison-made goods in
the open market. Under the present laws of New York no work can be done
by convicts in competition with outside labor. Whatever is made in the
prisons of the State must “be disposed of to the State or any political
division thereof, or for or to any public institution owned or managed
and controlled by the State, or any political division thereof.” At the
same time every inmate of the several State prisons, penitentiaries,
jails, and reformatories in the State, who is physically able, must
be set to work. By a strong array of figures and apparently favorable
comparisons Mr. McDonough undertook to demonstrate the merits and
success of the new system. In replying to the paper, Dr. Barrows
maintained that in spite of the law several thousand prisoners in the
jails and penitentiaries of the State are supported in idleness.
Mr. John E. Van De Carr, Superintendent of the New York City
Reformatory of Misdemeanants, on Hart’s Island, read a paper in which
he gave an account of said institution and its work. This reformatory,
which is the only one in the United States solely for misdemeanants,
is the child of Greater New York’s charter. By that charter it became
the duty of the Commissioner of Correction “to cause all criminals and
misdemeanants under his charge to be classified as far as practicable,
so that youthful and less hardened offenders shall not be rendered more
depraved by association with and the example of the older and more
hardened,” and “to set apart one or more of the penal institutions in
his department for the custody of such youthful offenders.” By an act
of the Legislature, passed in 1904, the charter of the reform school
on Hart’s Island was amended, and the institution was continued and
known after January 1, 1905, as “The New York City Reformatory of
Misdemeanants.” To this “any male person between the ages of sixteen
and thirty, after conviction by a magistrate or court in the city of
New York of any charge, offense, misdemeanor, or crime, other than a
felony, may be committed for reformatory treatment.” The time of such
imprisonment, which must not exceed three years, but must continue
at least three months, is terminated by the Board of Parole, which
consists of nine commissioners who serve without compensation for a
term of one year. The first three rules under the system by means of
which an inmate may work out his release on parole (which is determined
by merit marks based on demeanor, labor, and study) are as follows:
1. All inmates enter the New York City Reformatory of Misdemeanants
in the second grade. 2. If such inmate shall obtain 900 merit marks
he shall thereafter enter the first or highest grade. 3. If such
inmate shall violate any rules of the Reformatory, or shall in any way
be disobedient or ungovernable, he shall be reduced to the third or
lowest grade; and no such inmate shall reënter the second grade unless
he shall have obtained 300 merit marks. When an inmate is eligible
for release on parole, and is so recommended by the superintendent,
he is placed on parole in charge of a parole officer for a period of
six months, provided he has a home to go to, or employment whereby
he can become self-sustaining. Should he violate his parole at any
time, the Board of Parole has power to revoke the same and cause his
rearrest and reimprisonment as if said parole had not been ordered.
To make the system effective, the spiritual welfare of the inmates is
faithfully cared for by the Catholic, Protestant, and Hebrew chaplains
of the Department of Correction; mental training is provided for by a
teacher from the Board of Education; and six different trade-schools
furnish industrial instruction. The results so far have proved very
satisfactory, the conduct of over eighty-three per cent. of those
paroled being reported as satisfactory. “Our experience has already
convinced us,” declares the superintendent, “that the modern ideas
on this subject are purely scientific, and not sentimental, and that
many sent to prison should first be placed in some reformatory where
the class of institution in which they should justly be detained could
safely be determined. We also feel that it may become necessary to
extend the minimum term of three months to a longer period. A sentence
is really not reformatory if the minimum is three months; at least
the reformation is but temporary. Permanent reformation requires the
teaching of a trade, and a trade cannot be learned in that time,
although we have accomplished surprising results in that period. To
secure the greatest good to the boy, the trades taught should be those
that are best paid, namely, the building trades.”
AFTERNOON
The principal address of the afternoon was by Mr. Warren F. Spalding,
Secretary of the Massachusetts Prison Association, on “Principles and
Purposes of Probation.” He said in part:
“The probation system is the natural outgrowth of modern theories
regarding the treatment of lawbreakers. The acceptance of the
proposition that the State should reform and reclaim the offender led
to the establishment of reformatories. Later it was realized that some
might reform without imprisonment, even in a reformatory, and the
probation officer became their supervisor and custodian. His functions
are to investigate cases and report regarding past offenses, if any;
general character, home, dependents, etc., and the probability of
reformation without imprisonment, and he must visit probationers and
help them in the work of self-reformation.
“Probation is better than imprisonment for suitable cases, because it
saves the offender from the prison stigma, while it keeps him under
restraint, controlling his companionships, compelling him to work and
support those dependent upon him.
“The probation officer has custodial as well as supervisory powers,
and may surrender the probationer for misbehavior. Probation turns the
attention of its subject to the future rather than the past. Punishment
deals with one past act. Probation deals with the future--with the
establishment of character. It puts the emphasis upon what the
probationer must do, not upon what he has done.
“Probation as a means of securing reformation has an excellent record.
Punishment has failed in a great proportion of its cases. It is only
reasonable that the records of the two systems shall be compared. If
the law of the survival of the fittest is to prevail in this domain,
it is certain that the use of probation is destined for increase, and
the use of imprisonment to decrease, as a method of dealing with those
who have broken the laws. It will be adopted more and more generally
because it succeeds, while imprisonment will be more generally
abandoned because it fails.”
Papers were also read by Mr. H. F. Coates, Alliance, Ohio, on
“Probation for First Offenders,” and by Samuel J. Barrows, New York,
on “The Organization of Probation Work.” Mr. J. G. Phelps-Stokes, New
York, spoke on “The Justice of Probation.” Charlton T. Lewis once said:
“We are not dealing with acts, but with actors; not with crimes, but
with the men who have committed them.” A man is largely the creature of
environment. Too often we overlook the fact that crime is not always
chargeable to the individual, but to his surroundings. If punishment is
to be just, we must know that he who is punished is justly punished.
Some of the prolific causes of a criminal career are evil associates,
street training, and bad homes. Do we ask as we should, whether those
now in prison had such favorable surroundings as the reputable portion
of society? How many children grow up without proper home training!
Their parents must go out to hard work to the neglect of the children.
There is no play for the child except under evil influences; and in
New York alone there are 85,000 children deprived of the benefits of
a public school education because of deficient school accommodations.
Among those who can go to school, truancy is not uncommon. The
recreation which every child needs is found by many in saloons, dance
halls, cheap theatres, and other demoralizing places. The stress of
hard work and long hours also makes it impossible for many parents
to care properly for their children. Do we wonder that under such
circumstances only harmful influences come to them? Punishment is just
only in proportion to culpability; and yet how many have no opportunity
to learn what is right or wrong!
The conditions to which first offenders are subjected in many prisons
are simply appalling. Hundreds are thrown in with the vilest beings
and the most hardened criminals, and are, in addition, obliged in the
majority of prisons to endure a living death by reason of the most
unsanitary surroundings. It is horrible to sentence a man, woman or
child, not only to moral degradation, but to a physical death as well.
Imprisonment as a corrective and deterrent is a failure. Punishment can
have but two justifications: the correction of the offender, and the
protection of society. Probation, on the other hand, at least results
in making one refrain from such criminal acts as will send him to
prison.
EVENING
The speaker of the evening was Mrs. Maud Ballington Booth, of the
Volunteers of America, who delivered a most eloquent and sympathetic
address on “The Hopeful Side of Prison Work.” Mrs. Booth began her
work among “her boys” behind the bars ten years ago, at the time of
the division in the Salvation Army, which resulted in the formation
of the Volunteers of America. To-day she is everywhere known among
prisoners and ex-convicts as “The Little Mother.” Mrs. Booth said in
part: “I am not here to instruct wardens and chaplains, nor have I
come to represent myself, but the work of the organization for which
I stand. I see before me another audience to-night, namely, those
behind the bars. All I know regarding this work is from within the
walls, and I speak, therefore, from the standpoint of the prisoner. I
was always told that the task with criminals was a hopeless one, but
I have learned to know better. People who talk like that have never
been behind the walls of a prison. The theorist looks upon convicts as
men who are generally unredeemable. Not so the wardens and chaplains
and other prison workers, who have had practical experience. No man
or woman would be any good among prisoners without hope. Where there
is life there is hope. I do not forget the crime or the stain, and am
not a sentimentalist regarding the reformation of criminals; but I
firmly believe that no one has fallen so low as to be absolutely beyond
redemption. Many of those behind the bars have from earliest childhood
never known anything of human or divine love; but have only been cuffed
about in the world. Bring these the touch of sympathy, and tell them
something of the Father’s love and of the Saviour’s power to save, and
you again bring hope into their lives. This must be the foundation of
our work _within_ the prison; and where those who have served their
time come out, it is love again--mother love, if you please--that
must direct their course. In dealing with the convict, our first
endeavor must be to enkindle new hope within his heart; and toward the
ex-convict the public must assume a better attitude. Finally, if we
leave God out we shall not succeed.”
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18
MORNING
This day of the Congress had been set apart by the New York State
Prison Department for an excursion to beautiful Lake George. At 8.30
o’clock over three hundred delegates left Albany by special train. On
arrival at Lake George the steamer _Horicon_ was boarded, and after a
sail of several hours on the lake, the excursionists were landed at
“The Sagamore,” where a basket luncheon was served, after which the
meeting of the Chaplains’ Association was held, the Rev. William J.
Batt, D. D., of the Massachusetts State Reformatory, in the chair.
After a brief paper by the Rev. W. E. Edgin, Chaplain of the Indiana
State Reformatory, Jeffersonville, on “Soul-Winning in a Reformatory,”
and an address by Prof. Edward Everett Hale, the president introduced
Mr. Joseph F. Scott, of the Elmira Reformatory, whose admirable paper
on “The Chaplain from the Warden’s Point of View,” we here reproduce in
full:
“Because prisoners are men, they have the same impulses, motives,
hopes, and aspirations, and are susceptible to the same influences and
amenable to the same forces as other men, though possibly in a less
degree. Because some men are prisoners they need the same inspiration,
faith, strength, and courage that other men find themselves in need of.
“In the prison of which I am superintendent, there are burglars,
pickpockets, and thieves of every description. There is no law on the
statute books that has not its offenders there, and they are thought
of and spoken of by people in general as such. But when the parents of
one of these write me, they say, ‘My son’; or if the brother or sister
write, they say, ‘My brother’; and I believe if it were possible for
me to hear the words of the Father in Heaven, concerning one of these,
they would be, ‘My son,’ or the words of Jesus, ‘My brother.’ Should
not our words be the same?
“If I had a son of my own I should insist upon such rules of diet,
sleep, and exercise as would insure to him a healthful body and a good
constitution, such education, necessary to a well-disciplined mind,
such works or pursuits to assure success in life; such disciplinary and
moral training as would build up a stable character; all to the end
that his place in life would be that of a useful citizen. The need of
the prisoner and the prison discipline brought to bear upon him need be
nothing more, and should be nothing less than this. He needs physical
development, mental quickening, industrial training, discipline and
moral instruction, if he is to be returned to society a self-sustaining
and useful citizen; and no prison is doing its proper work that does
not in some way afford means for these essential elements of discipline.
“The moral instruction is the especial work of the prison chaplain,
and he should be given that freedom of action and breadth of scope to
make his work efficient. I believe that Christianity is the greatest
moral force in the lives of men to-day, because it has humanity as the
basis of its ethics. It has come down through the years as a forming,
transforming and reforming force in the lives of men, and I believe
it is to go on through the ages until selfishness shall have been
uprooted, and men brought closer and closer together; when we shall
love our neighbor and be willing to work for him as for ourselves,
and will do unto others as we would be done by; when we shall live
in one great fraternal organization; when wars, and robberies, and
strife shall cease and poverty shall be no more; when the strong shall
carry the burden of the weak, and succor the unfortunate, and men will
live together in brotherly love, under a Christian socialism or in the
New Jerusalem, or such designation as you may please to give it. This
force, which has accomplished and is to accomplish so much for the
world, we cannot deny a place in transforming the lives and characters
of prisoners, to that of upright living.
“The prison chaplain, in his work among prisoners, should thoroughly
believe that these great Christian forces which have done so much
for the world are applicable to the men under his charge and are
as efficient in their lives as in the lives of other men; and any
Christian clergyman, desirous of helping his fellow men and entering
into the service of the Lord and humanity, and of placing himself
where he can do the most good, should not hesitate to accept a prison
chaplaincy; and a call to such a place should be in his mind equal to
the call to one of the best churches in the land.
“It is not my purpose to give a detailed outline for the work of a
prison chaplain. No two men can perhaps be successful and do their
work in the same way; but every person connected with the prison, be
he superintendent, warden, or chaplain, or other officer, should seek
every inspiration and good example and ideal within his possibilities,
and then simply be his natural self in dealing with the prisoners’
needs.
“When I was superintendent of the Massachusetts Reformatory at Concord,
it was the custom there to avail ourselves of the services of the
students from Andover Theological Seminary. One student, fresh from his
work in the seminary, came into my office one day and asked me what he
should do in the prison. I told him that if I were to get some one to
do what I wanted done, I would probably get some one else, but that I
expected him to go into prison, mingle freely with the prisoners, and
find something, some place where he thought he could be of use to them,
and give those qualities in himself that he thought would be of the
most help. And that is what I would say to a prison chaplain entering
the work. Where one is strong another may be weak, and each should work
along those lines where he himself feels that he can do the greatest
good. The compensation of a prison chaplain should be sufficient to
command the services of clergymen of high attainments, and to support
themselves and families in a comfortable way. And never should a
chaplaincy be looked upon as a place for a broken-down clergyman, or
one who has failed in other fields of activity. The chaplain should
be given, as I have previously said, sufficient latitude and freedom
of action in the prison to carry on the work in such lines as he
himself feels that he can be of the greatest service. Therefore, the
superintendent, or warden, should not place upon the chaplain such
routine duties as will interfere with his doing this. It is recognized
by all that the Sabbath is the special day for the chaplain’s work. I
believe that we should go further than this, and set aside to him some
portion of each day for such religious work as he deems best. He should
not be burdened with such work as supervising inmates’ correspondence,
the library, teaching school, or the many routine duties which are
foisted upon him in many instances, unless he feels that they may be
avenues through which he may do his best work.
“If there was one injunction of the Saviour which has given more
impetus to Christianity in the world than another, it was His last,
‘Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations,’ or, as found in the other
gospel, ‘Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every
creature.’ I believe this injunction is especially applicable to
prisoners, and that the chaplain, first of all, should be a teacher,
and his intercourse with the prisoners should be in the form of
teaching. Most prisoners are without the truth, and they need to be
instructed in the truth, and my experience is that most of them are
desirous of learning the truth. And I believe that no chaplain ever
failed to interest or impress prisoners when he preached to them a
sermon teaching them the simple gospel. I have never failed to see,
in a prison chapel, the attention of the men arrested by the simple
reading of the gospel, or anything pertaining to the life or teachings
of Jesus Christ, or the explanation, by the chaplain, of what those
simple truths and teachings consist in. I believe that any chaplain
makes a mistake when he goes before his congregation of prisoners with
other subjects than the simple gospel, if he thinks thereby to awaken
greater interest in other ways.
“Phillips Brooks, when he used to visit the institution at Concord,
it was said, never varied his sermons one jot or tittle in presenting
them to the prisoners of that reformatory, than in giving them to
his cultured congregation in Trinity Church, and he never failed to
instruct, impress, and move his congregation of prisoners as no other
man to whom I ever listened. And that leads me to the point that I
believe that all religious services in a prison should be carried
through with the same care on the part of the clergyman, and with the
same dignity with which he would conduct the services in any church.
The ritual of the church service always appeals to prisoners. The
services of the mass, or the ritual of the synagogue, never fail in
receiving the reverent attention of the devotees of those faiths; and
my observation is that prisoners always respond to those services in
which they themselves are largely participants. Congregational singing,
responsive readings, repetition of Psalms and the Lord’s Prayer are
usually entered into with interest and satisfaction.
“The prison chaplain should be keen in his appreciation of human
nature, in dealing with the individual prisoner, that he may see the
good that exists in each prisoner with whom he comes in contact, and
work upon that side of his character. Humanity is much alike the
world over. Race and condition have not so much influence upon the
characteristics as we sometimes believe. In the modern American prison
will be found prisoners from nearly every nationality under the sun.
Their methods of evil are about the same, and they all respond to the
same influences, and are actuated by the same motives, each as the
other; and the prison chaplain who has learned this, and has learned
that there is always something in every prisoner which he can draw out
and develop, is well on the road to successful dealing with them. It
is not so much the work of the superintendent, warden, or chaplain, to
make over a man into something else, as it is to develop him along the
lines of his better self.
“When the Saviour called the fishermen, Peter and Andrew, to be his
disciples, he did not say to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you
into great orators, or great preachers,’ but, ‘I will make you fishers
of men.’ So, when we approach the prisoner, we should not ask him to
be something different from himself, but should try to bring out and
develop his better self; by holding before his vision the ideal Man,
which is Jesus, and the ideal society, which is Christianity in its
perfection.”
EVENING
The evening session was again held in the Senate Chamber of the
Capitol. The first address was made by Mr. Frederick G. Pettigrove,
Chairman of the Massachusetts Board of Prison Commissioners, on “What a
Central System May Do to Promote the Efficiency of Prison Methods.”
“A world-famous essayist and statesman said that a complete theory of
government would be a noble present to mankind, but he added, it is a
present that one could neither hope nor pretend to offer. We are forced
to remember this limitation when we examine the various systems of
prison government and attempt to suggest remedies for the deficiencies
in them. I shall try to show that in whatever way the prisons are
governed there are certain reformatory methods and agencies that can be
made much more effective and available by the aid of a central system
than by being left entirely to local administration. I shall make no
attack upon any system, because it would be unjust and ungracious not
to remember the great service that has been rendered to the State
by the able and philanthropic men and women who have devoted their
services to the prisons, and have striven to lift them from mere places
of detention to a condition of high public service.
“If all the corrective methods that are now stamped with the approval
of public sentiment could be maintained to the best advantage in a
single prison, there would be no need of any central authority. It
could not be contended that a general board would be any wiser in
appointments than the local boards of management. Nor could there be
any larger or more humane interest in the affairs of a particular
prison, than is shown by the supervisors who have only one prison under
their charge. But it would be manifestly impossible, in the larger
States at least, to include in a single establishment all the various
agencies that are needed for the discipline, the training and the
treatment of prisoners; and it is therefore essential that different
places should be provided to furnish opportunities best suited to the
capacities and the needs of the widely differing individuals.
“The managers of one prison cannot command a knowledge of all the
prisons as well as a central board, and if the methods that are now
employed are to be used for the greatest good, and to be made available
for the largest number of offenders, there must be some general
authority to rearrange and reassign prisoners after they have been
committed.
“I have no intention here of proposing that the State should take
absolute control of all the penal institutions, or even that the
authority of all boards of management should be measurably disturbed;
but only that some central board should so far possess authority over
all the penal establishments as to be enabled to make a rearrangement
that would promote efficiency of effort.
“In order to show how such a degree of centrality might be sufficient
for large reforms let me outline briefly what I believe would be the
best method of classification of prisoners if all suitable facilities
could be given by the legislature:
“I would recommend the establishment of one receiving prison for all
persons convicted of serious crimes and sentenced to hard labor; in
this place prisoners would be held under continual observation for
a period long enough to allow the authorities to decide where the
prisoner would apparently be likely to receive the most benefit, or
where he could be kept with the most advantage to the State.
“As accessories to this place I would provide departmental prisons,
in each of which some particular element of instruction or discipline
or treatment should be brought to the highest possible degree of
efficiency, such as schools for the illiterate, the manual-training
school and schools for trade instruction.
“Another department should be assigned to those who are mentally weak,
so that they could be put constantly under special guardianship. There
are in the prisons, as we all know, many persons who, while not so far
below the normal intelligence as to warrant the experts in declaring
them to be insane, are nevertheless incapable of performing any useful
work or of taking any benefit from prison agencies. In most States
provision has been made for the removal of prisoners who are actually
insane to an asylum specially provided for that class; but so far
there has been no similar establishment created for the safe detention
of prisoners who are found to be so far deficient in intelligence as
to need the sort of treatment that is given in the schools for the
feeble-minded.
“Another humane department would be a hospital prison, an establishment
that should combine the needed safeguards for custody with all the
essential features for the most scientific and skillful treatment of
the different ailments. To be sure it would be necessary to maintain
a small infirmary in each prison for emergency cases, but all cases
requiring long and continuous treatment would be removed to the
hospital prison.
“The last stage of all in such a plan as I outline should be a prison
where the guardianship over the prisoner would be relaxed by degrees,
so that he could approach his freedom in such a way as to regain some
degree of self-reliance.
“To make the general plan of a classified prison system harmonious
and effective, the particular place of imprisonment should not be
unalterably fixed at the outset. In effect to-day the court in
Massachusetts does not absolutely determine the place of imprisonment.
The central board has the power to make transfers from one prison to
another, with the single exception that no person can be put into the
state prison from another place.
“I have seen in other places, however, many prisoners who manifestly
belonged in the state prison.
“It would be needless to recite cases of inequitable sentences that
show the need of classification. As a type of many others I mention
one instance where, through lack of knowledge of the prisoner’s
antecedents, a justice sentenced to the reformatory a man who had been
six times under imprisonment, including a term in the state prison,
and as far as one human being can judge of another, had shown himself
incapable of amendment or unwilling to accept the means of reformation.
“Information that may be immediately available to the prison
authorities when the prisoner is committed, so that they can assign
him to his fit place, is in most cases lacking when the prisoner is
before the court. The needed adjustment of prisoners I think could be
made by a central authority having all places within its purview, after
conference with the prison officials.
“In what other ways can we make centrality help a prison system? We
can do it by requiring, as many States have done, that all reports of
prisons shall go to a central office so that there shall be available
to the central board the needed information in regard to the prisons.
We can do it by the establishment of a more effective method of
registration, so that there shall be available for the guidance of the
transfer board all the records of prisoners, whether obtained in one
State or another.
“Under the same authority with the bureau of registration and
identification, all the data possessed by that department would be
accessible to the agent who was seeking to discover how far it might
be practicable and useful to assist a prisoner at liberty. A central
registration office would in the end yield a large return to the State
by securing a comprehensive oversight of prisoners on parole. In the
central office in Massachusetts we endeavor to keep a record of all
prisoners at liberty from the prisons under our supervision. This, to
be sure, is not always easy to do, because names are readily changed
and it is not difficult to conceal identity. The only reliable method
of following up the prisoners at liberty is to maintain a system of
identification based upon the plan that does not rely on names, or upon
any data that is subject to change.
“What the scheme of registration has done for this State and for other
States cannot now be measured, but the interest that has been excited
in this subject and the information that has been spread from the
central office must prove invaluable to the police and prison officials
of the entire country. When all the States adopt this plan it will not
only be difficult for a paroled prisoner to evade his obligations to
keep the terms of his release in his own State, but he will find if
he returns to evil practices in another State that his record will be
readily brought against him.
“All that I have said so far has seemed to apply mainly to persons
convicted of felonies, but I intended that there also should be
comprehended in the scheme a large number of misdemeanants, who need
generally the same sort of correction and training as felons.
“There is one class of misdemeanants, however, which I would exclude
as a rule from any elaborate prison system, although the place for
their detention might be made one of the departments of the plan I
have described, and that is the large number of persons committed
for drunkenness. Most of these have passed beyond the age when they
would be the best subjects for an industrial reformatory. They have
no criminal instincts, are merely social disturbers, and what the
State does in the way of their correction should be different from the
means employed in the care of criminals. And the persons committed for
drunkenness can be dealt with in a better way than now prevails if they
are drawn into larger groups where fitting employment can be given; and
this arrangement would need the intervention of a central board.
“Under a well-organized and thoroughly equipped system, with such a
degree of centrality as I have indicated, all the beneficent methods of
the prisons would be sustained and strengthened.”
The second address of the evening was by Dr. Frederick Howard Wines,
on “The Prisons of Louisiana.” Residence in the South and an intimate
acquaintance with Southern people and Southern prisons, gave the
utterances of Dr. Wines authoritative value. The prison question in the
South, he said, is almost exclusively a negro question. The greater
proportion of crime in the South is committed by negroes. Hence most of
the prisoners are negroes. The negro prisoner is a distinct problem.
The methods we apply to white prisoners are not applicable to him. The
religion of the negro, for example, is altogether emotional and has
little connection with morality. As to education, the Southern people
do not greatly favor the education of the negro. A partly educated
negro thinks he belongs to a select class and must no longer work. As
to the question of labor, he is not fitted for indoor work, nor wanted
by the industrial classes.
As conditions are in Louisiana, I can think of nothing better than the
large plantations on which the convicts are employed. The barracks
are absolutely clean and sanitary. There are no chains. The guards
are unarmed. After breakfast the prisoners go to the cotton and sugar
fields, accompanied by armed guards and hounds. There are few escapes
and very little punishment. Hospital and physician are provided. All
the convicts are well fed, and at the close of the day’s work all must
take a bath. As the labor is steady it is more profitable than that of
the free man. All the earnings go to the support and improvement of the
prisons and prisoners. The lease system is gone in all the counties
but one. Baton Rouge has the only prison of the old style, with walls,
etc. Camps are now the thing, on plantations. Since the abolition of
the lease system, and the adoption of State control, the health of the
prisoners is much better.
A third address by Mr. F. B. Sanborn, Concord, Mass., on “Prison Reform
and Prison Science,” was largely a review of the results accomplished
in the past forty years, and reminiscent of the many eminent men
associated with the movement since its inception.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19
MORNING
The session of the Physicians’ Association, held this morning, was most
interesting, and was marked by some notable features. The President,
Dr. S. H. Blitch, Ocala, Florida, presented a paper on “The Open versus
the Close Penitentiary System of Handling Prisoners,” in which he took
strong ground in favor of the former, especially in the South. He
defined the “open” penitentiary system as that mode of social restraint
according to which the prisoner sentenced to hard labor is required to
perform skilled and unskilled service in fields, woods, and surface
mining, and in such industries and occupations as do not necessitate
his daily cellular or circumscribed confinement, as is the case under
the “close” system. He claimed that in spite of criticism, the “open”
system, wherever climatic conditions make it practicable, is far more
conducive to the mental and physical rehabilitation of the convict than
the “close” system. In the South, especially where the vast majority of
prisoners are negroes who have been accustomed to life in the open air
and to outdoor employment, the confinement in a “close” penitentiary
would be most detrimental. The open-air system puts these men at work
under conditions to which they have been accustomed from youth up, and
the results demonstrate the wisdom of the plan.
In the discussion which followed this paper, Dr. Barrows said that many
penologists felt that the Southern system had many advantages, but
that other industrial and reformatory elements should be added. Dr.
Wines saw an immense advantage in the Southern method, and claimed that
Northern prisons would find it very beneficial to have farms connected
with them for the outdoor employment of convicts.
The paper on “Prison Sanitation,” by Dr. W. D. Stewart, West Virginia
Penitentiary, Moundsville, was followed by that of Dr. S. A. Knopf, of
New York, on “The Tuberculosis Problem in Prisons and Reformatories.”
The presentation made by this eminent specialist on tuberculosis was
probably the most exhaustive on this subject to which the Congress ever
listened. This very valuable paper, any condensation of which would do
it injustice, is published in full in the _New York Medical Journal_,
November 17, 1906, to which the reader is referred.
Dr. J. W. Milligan, Indiana State Prison, Michigan City, read a paper
on “Mental Defectives Among Prisoners,” of which the following is
a synopsis: Where reformation, not punishment, is the aim, a just
estimate of the prisoner’s mental state is essential. Without this the
indeterminate sentence cannot be successful. Communities as well as
courts too frequently overlook mental defect as an important element
in crime. Too many prisoners on admission are insane, epileptic, or
feeble-minded. Epilepsy is not an infrequent factor, especially in
atrocious crimes without motive, and overlooked because _not of the
pronounced type_ popularly considered characteristic of this disease.
Indiana prison records show among the defectives, a percentage for
murder _three times_; for murder, manslaughter, and rape, _twice_;
but for larceny, _two-thirds_ that of the average for all classes. On
admission, forty-four per cent. admit mental defect or criminal record,
in the personal or family history. This tainted influx, and the fact
that defectives are not paroled, explains why twelve per cent. of our
population is insane, epileptic, or feeble-minded.
The psychosis are chiefly degenerative in type. Insane among prisoners
are not especially difficult to manage; no harsh measures are ever
justifiable. Indiana has as yet no institution for insane criminals;
it needs one badly. A ward in the prison hospital gives good results,
though far from ideal. Insane criminals should be judged in the light
of modern psychiatry, and their rights and the safety of society
carefully guarded.
AFTERNOON
Mr. C. W. Bowron, Superintendent of the Wisconsin State Reformatory,
Green Bay, presented the Report of the Committee on Prevention and
Reformatory Work, in a paper entitled, “Reformatory Sentences and
Discharges,” which concluded with the following propositions:
1. That the authority to transfer prisoners from the reformatory to
state prison is an essential safeguard to the successful management of
a reformatory; and this power on the part of prison officials has been
abundantly upheld by the courts.
2. That the so-called indeterminate sentence has been repeatedly held
valid, but apparently upon the construction that it is a definite
sentence for the maximum limit. It is therefore a misnomer.
3. That the fixing of a minimum period in the indeterminate sentence is
illogical, and detrimental to reformatory purposes.
4. That the power of parole is purely an administrative function
exercised in the establishment of a prison regulation, the validity
of which has been upheld by the courts; and that the determination of
parole should largely if not wholly rest with the principal officers of
the institution.
5. That the parole system does not depend upon the so-called
indeterminate sentence, or any other form of sentence, but stands apart
from it as a separate and distinct reformatory element.
6. That a definite and uniform sentence fixed by statute, subject to
modification through the legal powers of the administrative officers to
parole and discharge, is not inconsistent with reformatory purposes,
and in some respects is an advantage to reformatory management.
7. That final discharge after a suitable term of probation on parole
is a just and essential feature of the merit system, in which the
pardoning power should coöperate with the reformatory officials.
8. That the indefinite sentence does not exist, probably cannot
constitutionally exist, possibly ought not to exist, and certainly
would be the object of severe criticism if it did exist.
9. That a central bureau of identification operated by the general
government is so essential to the proper ends of justice that its
establishment would mark an important advancement in our criminal
jurisprudence.
“Methods of Reformatory Administration” was the subject of a paper by
Mr. W. H. Whittaker, Superintendent of the Indiana State Reformatory,
Jeffersonville. Mr. Whittaker claimed that in many institutions methods
had not kept pace with advancing civilization. Ideal reformatory
management must, first of all, have a solid foundation to stand upon.
Said foundation consists of the men in charge of an institution. These,
from the superintendent down, should be men of broad intelligence,
good morals, and clean habits, who thoroughly believe that they are
their brothers’ keepers, and who, in the discharge of all their duties,
will constantly have in view the reformation of the prisoner. No good
results can come from physical punishment or the employment of such
methods as humiliate the prisoner. All methods should aim to secure the
harmonious training of the heart, the head, and the hand, and should
have for their one purpose the building of character.
In a paper on “The Delinquent Girl,” Mrs. Lucy M. Sickels,
Superintendent of the State Industrial Home, Adrian, Michigan,
pointed out that the real delinquent in most cases is the parent.
The delinquent girl is not born so. She comes into the world with
all the winning graces of babyhood; but when she reaches the years
of girlhood, she is allowed to have her own way and to run wild. The
mother is perhaps so busy attending missionary and temperance meetings,
endeavoring to save others, that she has no time for her own daughter.
If the girl has no mother, or a widowed mother, who, in order to
support her little family, is obliged to go out to hard work day after
day, until she becomes nervous, impatient, and petulant, an equally
unfortunate situation again presents itself. Or parents are constantly
quarreling, until divorce stalks in, breaks up the home, and sets the
children adrift. In eight cases out of ten, ill temper and divorce in
the home are the cause of delinquency. Delinquency or incorrigibility
is only another name for parental neglect. What we want are laws to
protect the children and punish the delinquent parent, for this is the
root of all the evil we are striving and contending against.
Mrs. Sickels outlined the methods followed in the institution which
she directs. “We go back to the first home principles, a mother and a
mother’s love. A manager or mother is at the head of each family home,
of which we have eight, each family having a kitchen, dining room, and
laundry, just as complete in itself as you are from your neighbor.
Each family cooks its own food, makes its own bread, and does its own
laundry work. Each girl has a nice little room all to herself, in which
is a single bed covered with a clean white spread, a pretty pillow
sham on the pillow, a dresser, a mirror, a rug and a chair. Each room
has a large airy window. The girl may beautify the walls and dresser
according to her own taste and skill.
“The first requisite for a girl as she enters the Home is _occupation_,
not work only. It may mean work, but instruction is given along all
lines most necessary and useful to every woman in order to fit her
to be a housekeeper and home-maker.” A chapel, in which two services
are held each Lord’s Day, a schoolhouse and graded school with eight
teachers, a hospital and trained nurse, a sewing school, a cooking
school, a dressmaking department, a greenhouse, and an orchestra and
brass band composed of girls, form part of the equipment. There is no
wall or fence around the Home, but a clear open space and beautiful
lawn, with walks and flowers, shrubbery and trees. The results obtained
have been most satisfactory, at least seventy-five per cent. of the
girls so far received having turned out good, true women, many of them
being devoted wives and mothers.
EVENING
Mr. Alexander Johnson, General Secretary National Conference of
Charities and Correction, Indianapolis, Indiana, spoke on “The
Reformation of Jails.” Many county jails, he declared, are a blot on
civilization. Should this be the case when we seek the reformation of
the prisoner? Reform has begun at the top of the prison system, but
the jails have made little progress upward, and a great number deserve
to be called “schools of vice.” What is the remedy? The physical
condition of the county jail must be improved. Each prisoner should be
separately confined. The fundamental error is that the jails are used
for two dissimilar purposes: for men awaiting trial, and for men who
are sentenced. The two do not belong together. I have seen these two
classes together in the same cell, and treated perfectly alike. When a
man has been convicted he no longer belongs to the county, but to the
State, and should be sent to a State institution. Then the jail would
remain only as a place of detention for those awaiting trial. But why
the State? Because the county would hardly be justified in going to the
expense of supporting a real work-house. Another reform imperatively
needed is speedier trials. It is infamous to hold a man in jail for
months awaiting trial. “I hope the time will come when the question
will be, ‘What kind of a man is this, that we may fit him for society.’
When we make our prisons hospitals for the moral reformation of men, we
will realize that the jail will be the place in which to begin.”
“The Juvenile Court: Its Uses and Limitations,” was the title of
a paper by Dr. Hastings H. Hart, Superintendent of the Illinois
Children’s Home and Aid Society, Chicago. The juvenile court is an
evolution. Some twenty States have juvenile court laws--all within
about six years. This evolution is still in progress, and the matter
still in its infancy.
The juvenile court is founded on three great ideas: 1. The value of the
child for its own sake and for the community. 2. The abandonment of the
_lex talionis_, _i. e._, the infliction of a punishment commensurate
with the wrong done. This is impossible as well as a wrong. No man is
wise enough to adjust the punishment accurately to the crime. 3. The
recognition of the responsibility of the mother State for the children,
especially for the erring and neglected ones.
The first essential feature of the juvenile court is the breadth of
its scope: it deals with delinquents and dependents. The second is
the character of its proceedings. “What is the best possible thing
to be done for the good of the child?” This is the question which
the juvenile court endeavors to solve every day. A third feature of
the juvenile court is that it places the child in such hands as will
do what is best for it. Having such a high character and such noble
purposes, no jurist is too eminent to serve as a juvenile court judge.
Another distinctive mark of the juvenile court law is the probation
officer, who is the very heart of the work, and who not only learns
to know the child in the home, but also represents it in the court.
Finally the juvenile court recognizes the great fundamental principle
that the home and family, when properly constituted are the great
molders of character.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20
MORNING
From the proceedings of Thursday morning the following admirable
paper by Mr. C. E. Haddox, Warden of the West Virginia Penitentiary,
Moundsville, is selected and reproduced in full:
SOME ELEMENTS OF PRISON DISCIPLINE
Old Noah Webster, in that charming book of his entitled “Dictionary,”
of which Bill Nye says his chief criticism is that it changes the
subject too often, gives the following definition of discipline:
“Education, instruction, cultivation, and improvement; comprehending
instruction in arts, sciences, correct sentiments, morals, and manners,
and due subordination to authority.”
These are not all the elements Webster says constitute discipline, but
they are quite enough upon which to base a paper, and it is well enough
to keep this definition in mind, especially for such as may have the
impression that discipline consists solely and alone in administering
punishments for real or imaginary, deliberate or unintentional,
breaches of good conduct.
To the unthinking, the sole object of imprisoning a convict may be
regarded as the making him suffer for the crime he committed, and that
the judge in imposing sentence should calculate how much suffering will
be commensurate with the crime, and adjust the sentence accordingly,
the prison authorities then taking hold of him, holding him in “durance
vile” for the period of his sentence, keeping him as quiet and orderly
as they can, and when his sentence has expired, discharging him without
further concern or responsibility for him or his future.
THE SCOPE OF DISCIPLINE
Discipline comprehends in its fullest scope absolutely everything that
has to do with the convict, as to his training physically, morally,
intellectually, and spiritually, and embraces in its application
every agency that has to do with his development as a laborer, his
advancement as a student and a thinker, his uplifting morally and
spiritually, and his complete and perfect rounding out as a man.
It does not refer alone to the agency of the dark cell, the strap, the
taking of good time, the bath, the ball and chain, and similar devices;
and in a properly conducted, well-ordered, and painstaking institution,
these agencies are far and away the smallest, least used and least
effective of all those which make and promote this thing called
“discipline.”
In a rightfully planned and properly manned prison, the officers
maintain much the same attitude toward the heterogeneous population
there gathered--most of whom are children in mental attainments,
children in moral culture, children in industrial bent--that a parent
occupies toward his child. The motive, the hope, the desire, the
object, the plans, and the efforts should be much the same, changed and
modified only as the conditions necessarily demand a modification of
plans.
The thoughtful and intelligent parent ponders and studies about the
future of his child. He knows that he must fit and prepare him for the
solemn duties of life, and upon the preparation or lack of preparation
he gives him, the discipline or the lack of discipline the child
undergoes, will depend that child’s future welfare or misery.
If the parent is wise he carefully arranges for the child’s physical
well-being, he plans for his mental cultivation and discipline, and
provides systematically for proper environments and training for his
moral and spiritual growth and strength. Nothing is left to chance,
little to precept, much to example, and the use of the rod or other
correctional methods or devices, is an obvious confession of a failure
on the part of the parent to take all the necessary care and precaution
in training or drilling the child. No child ever needed physical
correction at the hand of its parent, that the parent was not also
some to blame in neglecting precautions that would have obviated this
necessity.
Rev. Samuel J. Barrows, to whom prison people are under so many lasting
obligations for his invaluable contributions to prison literature, said
no truer thing than when in his admirable address at Kansas City, in
1901, on “Jesus as a Penologist,” he said:
“The ideal discipline is that which educates and strengthens the will
without breaking it, and which develops a man without crushing him.”
LABOR AS DISCIPLINE
The first and prime requisite to discipline is a proper labor system
that calls for a reasonable amount of satisfactory, productive,
remunerative labor from every convict fit to labor. It is altogether
the greatest problem that confronts any prison, and is most vital.
Idleness in prison is grossly wasteful, utterly uneconomical, terribly
demoralizing, and prevents almost entirely all plans for a regimen that
looks to discipline. For those in health there should be no wasted
hours at any time or any place in prison.
A score of idle or partly idle convicts can do more mischief, subvert
more discipline, destroy more regularity and system than a regiment of
men kept at proper, legitimate employment. So the key to discipline is
a labor system that embraces in its scope every person in prison.
To devise a system of labor for an institution that will keep everyone
sufficiently employed and underwork none (for strange to say, in
practice, the prison that overtaxes convicts probably does not exist),
is the hardest problem, requiring the most labor, care, and attention
that could possibly be imagined, and means that the warden who
accomplishes it and continues it will be the most severely taxed of
all. It is not the convict that is likely to do an honest, just day’s
work, but the management who undertake to see that this most vital and
salutary agent of discipline is always in full force and effect.
THE CONTRACT SYSTEM
I have no sympathy with those who inveigh against contract labor in
prisons. A contract system in which the State receives the proper
compensation for the labor of convicts, and the convict receives a just
compensation for surplus work, a system which eliminates the abuses
formerly found in contracts, a system in which the government, control,
and treatment of the men is in the hands of the prison officials only,
and the amount and the kind of labor is adjusted by the warden only,
may be the best practicable economic system.
The abuses formerly chargeable to the contract system, and possibly
chargeable now in sections, are not necessary, and existed and exist
only because prison officials permitted them or fostered them; and
instead of abolishing the system, men should have been substituted who
would prepare a proper contract, obtain the right compensation, secure
rational treatment for the convicts, and get just conditions generally,
and have the invaluable experience of expert manufacturers to teach the
men deft and skillful labor at something they know becomes a factor in
the world beyond the walls.
Shall the meat packing and producing business be destroyed because
great abuses have recently been unearthed, or shall it be reformed and
corrected?
Shall the oil industry be wiped out because an undue share of the
benefits are absorbed by a few, or shall the conditions be changed, the
wrongs be righted?
Just think of the consistency of the people who rail at the contract
system in prisons, but view with complacency the spectacle, in the
East Side of New York, of almost countless thousands of children
of four years of age, and sometimes younger, working in basements
fourteen hours a day, making paper bags at four cents per thousand; or
three-and-a-half-year-old children making artificial flowers on Mott
Street, at eight cents per gross! Twenty-three thousand licensed, not
to speak of the unknown thousands of unlicensed, tenement houses (home)
factories in the city of New York, of the State of New York, which
sternly forbids any form of contract labor in prison!
Far be it from me to criticise the State account system, ideal,
utopian; but the superintendent who can combine the business qualities
necessary to run successfully and economically the factories with the
executive qualifications requisite for the other duties of prison
governments, is certainly a prodigy, and cannot often be found.
THE REFORMATORY
Neither have I anything to say against the reformatory system of manual
training, so called, which builds only to destroy again, except to
regret that the only way the State provides manual training for its
young men is through the passport and credentials of crime.
THE HABIT OF LABOR
It is not so necessary that a convict shall know a trade, in these
days of machinery and constant and continual changes in the methods
of manufacture, as it is that he shall have developed in him habits
of industry and the willingness to work at what he can do. The great
trouble with the average convict is, that he not only does not know
a trade, but that he has not been drilled in any kind of labor,
and prefers to obtain his substance from the labor of others, by
surreptitious, unlawful and unjust means. The _habit_ of labor is what
he needs more than the specific kind of work.
As Superintendent Brockway said many years ago: “Only motivelessness is
the seat of incorrigibility. To discover or create a want is to find
a motive. Given a motive, you may direct a habit. To form a habit is
to create character. Habit is the school of conscience. Conscience and
habit reinforce one another.”
Let us have the _habit_ of labor rather than the expensive training in
trades, which in countless thousands of great industrial establishments
will be of no additional value.
LITERARY DISCIPLINE
Next to education in labor, I place as the most important factor in
prison discipline the development of the mind through the medium of the
various agencies that may be employed for that purpose, not forgetting
that labor develops the mind as well as the muscle.
An overwhelming majority of the inmates of any prison are densely and
grossly ignorant, and mentally deficient. The polished, scholarly,
shrewd criminal is a creature of fiction, not of fact, the exception,
not the rule. The average convict is a living example of Horace Mann’s
aphorism, that “ignorance in this country is a crime.”
THE PRISON SCHOOL
The convict’s mental discipline can be accomplished in many ways,
one of which should be the prison school. The work here will often
have to be of the most elementary character. This work should not be
merely perfunctory, but should have the most careful attention and
consideration. The eagerness with which even comparatively old men
undertake to master the simplest primer is one of the pathetic but
encouraging aspects of prison-school life.
As the school will probably have to be an evening school of but few
hours’ duration, the course of study will necessarily have to be
comparatively brief, in order that all inmates needing its help may
have their turn.
But the brief term in school should be supplemented by a course of
reading and study in the cells, or elsewhere, which should have the
same attention, the same systematic oversight and encouragement that
the work in the school had. This serves a twofold purpose: first, to
drill and discipline the minds, furnish them with concrete information;
and second, to fulfill a vital necessity in proper prison discipline,
the continual occupation of the subject in his waking hours, with
labor, study or proper recreation.
The writer recalls reading recently with some curiosity and interest a
stricture written some nineteen years ago on the methods of the Elmira
Reformatory referring to the study in the cells of “The Prologue of
the Canterbury Tales,” “The Tragedy of Hamlet,” Emerson’s “May Day,”
Browning’s “Paracelsus,” and similar literature, and the critic stated
that if the convicts are to remain in prison for life, there can be no
objection to such reading, but otherwise, the time thus occupied is
worse than wasted.
But there is where the critic is wofully mistaken. No man can read
even such classics as are here named without being substantially and
materially benefited and strengthened, and better able to cope with
the practical bread-and-butter part of life. This statement may seem
far-fetched, but it is true.
But he does not need to be confined to such books. In this intensely
practical age, books are as practical as other things. In the
institution over which I preside, scores of men are taking courses
in the correspondence schools, doing well, and neglecting no prison
requirements. Let the library be stocked with practical handbooks
that tell men how to do things, such as to mix concrete, lay brick,
build houses, construct telephone lines, run machinery, and similar
enterprises.
Prison libraries are generally the result of heterogeneous and
indiscriminate donations, the aftermath of the spring house-cleanings
of the philanthropically inclined. Such donations should be accepted in
the spirit in which given, graciously, thankfully, then where proper,
classified, catalogued and used. But this source should not be depended
on entirely, or even largely, to supply the library. The books should
be selected with as much care and fidelity as they are selected for a
university or a public library, for they are to accomplish the same
purpose.
THE DAILY AND WEEKLY NEWSPAPER
The writer never shared in the fear of the daily or weekly newspaper in
the prison. He acknowledges their necessity to himself, and feels that
what is helpful to him ought not seriously to injure his men. In this
day, the yellow journals, so called, are mighty agencies for reform,
and they and their associate muck rakers, the magazines, are uncovering
frauds and wrongs in high places, and driving powerful wrongdoers to
cover; and when their work is completed, the smaller criminals will not
have the baleful example of some people in high places to justify them
in their evil ways. The taste for a blood-and-thunder paper, magazine
or book, is infinitely preferable to none at all. The taste will pall
eventually on such pabulum and call for better.
Every prison is a community of itself and to itself. The things that
elevate people outside, should be found inside the walls. There should
be neatness and cleanliness and sanitary conditions everywhere. The
lawns should be green, neat and carefully kept. Every prison should
have a greenhouse, and flowers should abound in profusion, for
civilizing, ennobling and disciplinary powers of nature at her fairest
cannot be over-estimated.
The reading courses should be supplemented by instructive lectures and
literary entertainments, for such times as are practicable. Theatricals
should be permitted and encouraged at intervals. Such relaxation is a
great lubricant. Quartettes, octettes and choirs should be organized,
and all the men possible taught vocal music under a competent
instructor. Orchestras and brass bands should be maintained from the
inmates, and music should be a feature of very proper occasion.
To the timid soul who fears that all these pains will pamper the
convict and make him love the prison and do something to be returned,
let me say that the greatest punishment is in being immured behind
great walls beyond which he cannot go, and any deprivation of the
elements of reform and enlightened discipline is a mere bagatelle
compared to the main fact of imprisonment. As Chaplain Tribou forcibly
says: “Men are not sent to prison to be punished, they are punished by
being sent to prison.”
Let the great aim be to show the men the many legitimate avenues of
improvement, enlightenment, enjoyment and amusements that are open to
those who never transgress the law.
Convicts are not to be classed as a peculiar species of genus homo, but
are to be regarded as _individuals_, amenable to the same influences,
the same treatment, the same hopes as other men. Charles Reade, in
his famous book “It Is Never Too Late to Mend,” tells of two little
children who come to see a thief just arrested. “Farmer Fielding,” says
the little girl, courtesying, a mode of reverence which was instantly
copied by the boy, “we are come to see the thief; they say you have
caught one.” “Oh dear!” and her bright little countenance was overcast,
“I couldn’t have told it from a man.”
Prison sentiment is a powerful auxiliary in discipline, and the
consciousness among the men that “a square deal” from the management
can be depended upon for the cause of enlightenment, refinement, cheer
and relaxation, is worth more than a regiment of soldiers.
RELIGION AS A FACTOR
Religion ought to be a mighty factor in correct prison discipline. If
_good_ men need religion to help them and sustain them, certainly _bad_
men need it far more. This department of discipline should be presided
over and directed by a strong, level-headed, pious God-fearing man, who
may have at once the confidence of the warden and his subordinates, and
the inmates as well, a very difficult undertaking.
A chaplain who mistakes his mission and attends to matters not within
his province, can tear up and destroy the discipline of a prison more
quickly and effectively than anyone else in it. But his opportunities
for good are as great as, or greater than, for evil, and if he can
discern between those who desire real spiritual consolation and those
who are after the loaves and fishes, between spiritual pardon and
official clemency, and devote himself unreservedly to the one and
resolutely eschew the other, no man can overestimate his value.
The warden and the chaplain should go hand in hand, each sustaining the
other. They need to have a perfect understanding, neither mistrusting
the other. And with such an understanding, let the chaplain have entire
charge of his church and other spiritual services, and resolutely
exclude the self-constituted evangelist, the chance visitor, and forbid
absolutely the spectacular and highly emotional harangues of people
utterly unacquainted with the population with which they seek to deal.
In nothing should there be more rigid censorship and more careful
espionage than in the chapel and other religious services.
To quote from an address made by me before the National Prison
Association in Louisville in 1903: “The influence of sightseers
and idle visitors to prisons, always bad, reaches the acme of its
perniciousness in the chapel service, if unrestrained and unguided
by prison officials of experience and firmness, who alone are in a
position to know that sickly sentimentalism is the worst possible
pabulum to offer men already too eager to justify their evil deeds.”
THE DISCIPLINE OF OFFICERS
The question at once comes up, how are all these elements of discipline
to be arranged for in a prison. Who are to provide and arrange for them?
This is altogether the most difficult question to answer. The most
careful and exacting discipline is not for the _convict_, but for the
_officials_ of a prison.
If convicts are to be gradually educated and turned from crime into
virtue, out of slothfulness and viciousness into habits of industry,
thrift, sobriety, regularity and evenness of life, it must be through
the agency of officers, themselves disciplined, educated and schooled
in self-control. “No man is fit to command who has not first learned to
obey.”
No man can hope to have zeal, skill and care, the patience and
fidelity to bring up men from the depths of ignorance to the level of
intelligence, who has not himself gone over a part of the road. “Such
officers are not found.” “They must be taught and trained.”
Superintendent Brockway has said: “The warden of a prison receives
into his charge with the bodily presence of the prisoners, their very
soul life, and is clothed with the authority and the duty to develop
that life for fullness and perfection. He who enters upon the work
of soul culture, touches the life and forces of a mysterious realm.
His attitude should be profoundly reverent, for he invades a sacred
precinct.”
This being the case, nothing but high grade, intelligent, educated men,
should be permitted to have charge of this soul life. It is absurd to
hope that any other can administer the discipline necessary to build up
men whom society has failed or neglected to cultivate.
Every employé of a prison should be a man of good appearance, no
physical blemishes, a man of high character, and should possess at
least a good English education and be a student.
In many States, only those who have certain views upon the tariff and
finance, or who are supposed to have, are permitted to have positions
as officers in the prisons. But even there, a schedule of requirements
within that limit may be arranged for, and rigidly adhered to. There
ought to be an age limit, height, and other physical requirements, and
an educational test. A mere recommendation from a politician, however
high, is usually not worth the paper upon which it is written, chiefly
because the aforesaid politician has only the most vague idea of the
actual requirements of the prison official, and is under the impression
that anybody who can occupy space will do.
There ought to be a school for the preparation of persons for
institutional work. Such a school should be a national one and would be
immensely profitable in the increased reformatory results in prisons,
the saving of many insane from helpless insanity, and the reclaiming of
many dependents.
With crime costing $300,000,000 a year, and every criminal saved worth
a least $1,600 a year to the nation, the necessity for such a school
for training specialists is very great.
DRILLING OF NEW OFFICERS
The evolution of a new guard is one of the interesting, but soul-trying
experiences of every prison warden. Perhaps the warden, before
assigning the new man to duty, talks to him, admonishing him as to
his procedure, and aiming to tell him of the pitfalls that experience
has pointed out. But he talks “to ears that hear not.” He closes his
first interview by handing the new man a book of rules for his perusal.
But they are given “to eyes that see not.” That book of rules is the
result of the experience, the mistakes, the observations, the failures
and the successes of generations of prison officials, and can no more
be fathomed by a new guard at once, than can the Constitution of the
United States, upon first reading, be comprehended by one of Upton
Sinclair’s Lithuanians on his journey to the Chicago stockyards.
Under the present system, that guard must learn largely by mortifying
experiences, the commission of serious mistakes, alike costly to the
institution and its wards.
While there are no general schools for the preparation of officers for
institutional work (the School of Philanthropy of New York possibly
excepted), yet there may be organized in every prison a school for the
education and development of officers, and this should be done. Let
there be a definite course of reading and study arranged for officers
by the superintendent, and have frequent examinations and discussions
bearing on prison problems.
Fortunately our literature is rich in books worthy the most careful
study and research. There is Prof. Henderson’s admirable text book
on “Dependents, Defectives and Delinquents;” Dr. E. C. Wines on “The
State of Prisons and Child Saving Institutions,” the many valuable
contributions of Rev. S. J. Barrows, Superintendent Brockway, Joseph F.
Scott, Frank L. Randall, Revs. August Drahms, F. H. Wines, A. McDonald,
Beccaria and Howard, Lombroso and Dugdale, Eugene Smith and Charlton T.
Lewis and scores of others.
Charles Reade’s great muck-rake book “It Is Never Too Late to Mend,”
which drove the separate and silent system out of England, deserves the
most careful study and thought. Victor Hugo’s valued “Les Miserables”
cannot be read too carefully or critically. Dickens’ “American Notes”
gives a most graphic account of the separate system, and his “Pickwick
Papers” portray most powerfully the debtor’s jail.
Every report of the National Prison Association and the Conference
of Charities and Correction, replete as they are with invaluable
discussions of vital topics, should be read by every prison official,
as well also as the different annual or biennial reports issued by the
different institutions throughout the country, which contain points of
inestimable value on conducting prisons.
In one of the offices of the model prisons of this country is a great
round table capable of accommodating thirty or forty people. Around
this table at intervals officers are seated to listen to lectures
and hear and participate in discussions upon approved methods of
accomplishing the best work. This might well be emulated in every
similar institution.
There should be a fund set aside in every institution to defray the
expenses of a number of officials, annually to visit other institutions
for the purpose of observing how the work is done elsewhere, and thus
by actual contact to obtain the most approved methods. And this ought
not to be confined to the heads of departments alone, but should be
open to even the humblest official in his turn. In addition to its
practical value, it makes him realize that his work is a profession not
to be despised or made light of, and that the curing of moral ailments,
the helping of those who cannot help themselves, is a grand and a
glorious calling, exceeded in its value to the world by no other.
THE OFFICERS’ SOCIAL ENVIRONMENTS
When the day’s work is done officers should ordinarily leave the
institution and its incidents behind them. They should participate
actively and zealously in the outside social and religious matters of
the community in which they are located. This balances them and gives
them tone, and prevents pessimism, which may otherwise control them.
An officer’s usefulness is measured by the amount of good influence
he exerts upon those under his charge. But every warden has at times
the melancholy experience of observing that instead of some officers
elevating and uplifting their men by their examples, the convicts’
influence has become the greater, and the officer’s ideals are
gradually shattered, his resiliency lost, and his influence vanished.
It is to guard against this melancholy possibility that officers should
be urged to cultivate the best part of outside social, moral, and
religious life.
All of the progress and reform that has occurred in penal legislation,
prison rules, and procedure has come as a result of the study, care,
thought, and efforts of prison officials and students of penology.
All the legislation that has taken away from prisons the gospel of
labor, that has robbed them of the full opportunity of doing what was
intended for them, has come largely as a result of the cowardice or
lack of energy of prison officials who have not stood up against the
unreasonable, unrighteous demands of thoughtless labor agitators, or
who have not in time remedied and improved their labor systems and
conditions so they might escape just criticism.
If there is a bad prison law on any statute book, or if a good one
needs to be placed there, zealous, informed prison officials should
never cease agitation until the defect is remedied. These reforms will
come from no other source.
In this strenuous age the people have shown that they desire to do the
right thing if the way be pointed out, and the age is ripe for reforms
in prison laws and customs as it is in all other lines.
All those who have to deal with offenders of the law should be brought
in touch with one another. Judges and district or prosecuting attorneys
should be required, as part of their duties, to visit the institutions
which house the men sent there through their efforts, and should know
the conditions and be in a position to offer and receive suggestions.
Whenever a likely man, once discharged, reënters a prison, let the
thoughtful warden not ask, “What did this man to be returned?” but
rather let him inquire: “What did I fail to do? Where is my institution
defective? What precaution did society fail to take that this man fell
again?”
Precepts count for _something_ in prison and elsewhere. Example counts
for almost _everything_. We proceed not from the abstract to the
concrete in our daily lives. To-day the eyes of America are turned upon
our strenuous president, not for precept, but for example; strenuous
in his sports, therefore everybody becomes athletic; strenuous in
literature, and all America reads; strenuous in the enforcement of the
law and a “square deal” for every man, and the whole nation emulates
his example and takes on a new lease of civic righteousness.
As Napoleon rode at the head of his legions through Egypt, past the
pyramids, he halted, and in an impassioned address he said, “Soldiers,
from the summits of these pyramids forty centuries look down upon you.”
But the modern warden, within his castled home, environed by frowning
walls, at the head of his scores of officers and superintendents of
departments, may say, “Officers, from these depths of crime, misery,
degradation, and despair hundreds of imprisoned souls look up to you
for example, for inspiration, for guidance, and for help.”
And as officers thus receive the message and the tacit command may each
resolve that his heart shall be so moved, his mind be so cultivated,
strengthened and disciplined, and his actions be so guarded and guided,
that the pathetic call thus made by those below him shall not be made
in vain.
AFTERNOON AND EVENING
At the afternoon session Judge Simeon E. Baldwin, of Connecticut,
presented the report of the Committee on Criminal Law Reform, and in
the evening brief addresses were made by Miss Katharine B. Davis,
Women’s Reformatory, Bedford, N. Y.; Chaplain D. H. Tribou, of the
United States Naval Home, Philadelphia; Superintendent Frank L.
Randall, of Minnesota, and others.
The following is a list of the officers for the current year:
President, E. J. Murphy, Joliet, Ill.; First Vice-president, J.
L. Milligan, Allegheny, Pa.; General Secretary, Amos W. Butler,
Indianapolis, Ind.; Financial Secretary, Joseph P. Byers, New York;
Assistant Secretaries, H. H. Shirer, Columbus, Ohio.; L. C. Storrs,
Lansing, Mich.; W. C. Graves, Springfield, Ill.; Treasurer, Frederick
H. Mills, New York; Official Stenographer, Isabel C. Barrows, New York.
Wardens’ Association: President, F. L. Randall, St. Cloud, Minn.;
Secretary, C. E. Haddox, Moundsville, West Virginia.
Chaplains’ Association: President, Rev. A. J. Steelman, Joliet, Ill.;
Secretary, Rev. W. E. Edgin, Jeffersonville, Ind.
Physicians’ Association: President, Dr. W. D. Stewart, Moundsville,
West Virginia; Secretary, Dr. O. J. Bennett, Allegheny, Pa.
Committee Chairmen: Board of Directors, Henry Wolfer, Stillwater,
Minn.; Executive Committee, Joseph F. Scott, Elmira, N. Y.; Criminal
Law Reform, S. E. Baldwin, New Haven, Conn.; Preventive and Reformatory
Work, W. H. Whittaker, Jeffersonville, Ind.; Prevention and Probation,
Julian W. Mack, Chicago, Ill.; Prison Discipline, J. A. Leonard,
Mansfield, Ohio; Discharged Prisoners, Mrs. Maud Ballington Booth, New
York; Statistics of Crime, S. J. Barrows, New York.
In 1907 the Association will meet in Chicago.
J. F. OHL, _Official Delegate_.
JOHN WAY, _Treasurer_,
IN ACCOUNT WITH
THE PENNSYLVANIA PRISON SOCIETY
1906.
January 25. To Balance on hand. Principal $2,365 37
“ Income 633 19 $2,998 56
“ Life Membership fee 20 00
“ Sale $1,000 Lehigh Valley R. R. Co., 4% 997 50
“ Membership Dues and Subscriptions 274 00
“ Interest on Deposits 41 02
“ Income from I. V. Williamson Legacy 630 00
“ Income from Investments 1,728 41
---------
$6,689 49
PAYMENTS
By Amount reserved account Goodwin Mortgage $1,100 00
“ Bond and Mortgage R. W. C. 5 years 4½% 2,500 00
“ Salaries, Secretaries and Prison Agents 1,550 00
“ Janitor’s Service and Office Expenses 39 00
“ Expense, Delegate National Prison Congress 25 64
“ Printing Journal 1906, Postage and other items 731 30
“ Prison Sunday Observance Committee 76 28
“ Sundry Printing, Franklin Printing Company 23 20
“ Safe Deposit Box Rent, Advertising, etc. 17 50
Balance of income account 626 57
---------
$6,689 49
SPECIAL FUND FOR DISCHARGED PRISONERS
Am’t collected by Gen’l Secretary during the fiscal year $4,585 50
Am’t disbursed 3,795 56
BARTON FUND
FOR TOOLS TO DISCHARGED PRISONERS
RECEIPTS
To Balance on hand January 25, 1906 $145 59
“ Income from Investments 63 00
-------
$208 59
PAYMENTS
For tools to discharged prisoners $69 16
Balance on hand January 24, 1907 139 43
-------
$208 59
C. S. WILLIAMS FUND
RECEIPTS
To Balance on hand January 25, 1906. Principal $484 25
Income 46 50 $530 75
“ Income from Investments 113 00
-------
$643 75
PAYMENTS
By $500 Electric and People’s 4% Stock Trust Certificates at 102 $510 00
“ Am’t paid Home of Industry 87 25
Balance Income Account, January 24, 1907 46 50
-------
$643 75
HARRIET S. BENSON FUND
RECEIPTS
To Balance on hand January 25, 1906. Principal $1,500 00
Income 35 93 $1,535 93
“ Proceeds of sale of $500 Electric and People’s 4% Stock
Trust Certificates at 102 510 00
“ Income from Investments 200 00
---------
$2,245 93
PAYMENTS
By $2,000 Lehigh Valley R. R. Co. Gen’l Consol, 4% at 101½ $2,010 00
“ Accrued Interest on above 20 00
“ Home of Industry 215 93
-------
$2,245 93
SUMMARY OF BALANCES
General Fund $626 57
Special Fund for Discharged Prisoners 789 94
Barton Fund 139 43
C. S. Williams Fund 46 50
---------
Cash on hand January 24, 1907 $1,602 44
We, the Committee appointed to audit the accounts of John Way,
Treasurer, have examined accounts, compared the payments with the
vouchers, checked the receipts of income from invested funds, compared
the securities themselves with the list thereof and find them all
correct.
JOHN W. DILLINGHAM,
GEORGE S. WETHERELL,
_Auditing Committee_.
PHILADELPHIA, February 20, 1907.
LIFE MEMBERS
Henry B. Ashmead,
[1]Francis M. Brooke,
C. H. Brush,
John E Carter,
[1]Alfred M. Collins,
Miss Mary Coles,
Henry S. Cattell,
B. L. Douredoure,
Rev. Herman L. Duhring, D. D.,
[1]Richard H. Downing,
Edward Grebel Dreer,
John A. Duncan,
Rev. Alfred Elwyn,
Helen M. Elwyn,
W. W. Frazier,
[1]George W. Hall,
Alfred C. Harrison,
Charles C. Harrison,
Emily J. Ingram, M. D.,
John P. Jenks,
W. W. Justice,
Alfred H. Love,
F. Mortimer Lewis,
[1]J. Fisher Learning,
Sarah A. Lewis,
M. Carey Lea,
William Longstreth,
Caleb J. Milne,
James W. McAllister,
Robert Patterson,
[1]Charles Santee,
David Sulzberger,
George C. Thomas,
Henry T. Townsend,
James W. Walk, M. D.,
E. B. Warren,
James V. Watson,
John Way,
Mary S. Whelen.
[1] Deceased.
ANNUAL MEMBERS
Hon. William N. Ashman,
Rev. Samuel E. Appleton,
H. St. Clair Ash, M. D.,
Joshua L. Baily,
T. Wistar Brown,
Samuel Biddle,
Rev. R. Heber Barnes,
William Burnham,
John E. Baird,
Rev. Lewis C. Baker,
Henry W. Boies,
Ethel M. Boies,
David Boies,
Helen M. Boies,
J. Henry Bartlett,
Henry D. Booth,
Catharine C. Biddle,
Hannah S. Biddle,
Elizabeth Bradford,
T. Broom Belfield,
Mrs. Robert S. Bright,
Robert P. P. Bradford,
Layyah Barakat,
Joseph K. Calley,
Ethel Conderman,
John H. Converse,
Mrs. E. W. Clark,
S. W. Colton, Jr.,
Mrs. S. W. Colton, Jr.,
Miss F. Clark,
Henry H. Collins,
E. W. Clark, Jr.,
John Callahan,
Agnes Camp, M. D.,
Jonas G. Clemmer,
Charles F. Cripps,
Henry C. Cassel,
John H. Dillingham,
Edward T. Davis,
Isaac L. Detweiler,
Walter L. Detwiler,
Rev. J. G. Dubbs,
Charles E. D’Invillier,
Albert M. Dallett,
Agnes Dean, M. D.,
Mrs. E. C. Denniston,
Samuel Emlen,
Joseph Elkinton,
Otto Eisenlohr,
Rev. Solomon G. Engle,
B. W. Fleisher,
Spencer Fullerton,
Esther Fricke,
Mrs. Horace Fassett,
Melvin M. Franklin, M. D.,
Susanna Gaskill,
Sylvester Garrett,
D. W. Grafley,
Elizabeth N. Garrett,
Mrs. W. S. Grant, Jr.,
W. H. Gilbert,
Mrs. C. L. Grubb,
Samuel B. Garrigues,
Mrs. Louis Gerstley,
Luther Gerhard,
Mrs. E. W. Gormley,
Sallie H. Green,
Mary S. Gregg,
Rev. J. Andrews Harris,
William H. Hart, Jr.,
Edwin Hagert,
William B. Hackenburg,
Mrs. W. W. Harding,
William S. Hallowell,
Clyde A. Heller,
Miss C. V. Hodges,
J. H. M. Hayes,
Rev. C. Rowland Hill,
Charles P. Hastings,
Jacob D. Hoffman,
D. John Hampton,
Mrs. George W. Hensell,
Edwin S. Johnston,
William T. W. Jester,
William Kennard,
William Koelle,
William Kennard, Jr.,
Harry Kennedy,
J. Albert Koons,
Louisa D. Lovett,
John J. Lytle,
Josiah W. Leeds,
Deborah C. Leeds,
Charles H. LeFevre,
Mrs. P. W. Lawrence,
Rebecca C. Latimer,
George A. Latimer, Jr.,
Theodore J. Lewis,
Mary Lewis,
Richard H. Lytle,
Rev. Philip Lamerdin,
Frank H. Longshore,
Susanna W. Lippincott,
Benjamin K. Liveright,
Charles B. Miller,
Mrs. M. A. Mason,
Isaac P. Miller,
Charles M. Morton,
Hon. J. Willis Martin,
John Marston,
Mrs. Henry C. Mayer,
George R. Meloney,
Thomas H. McCollin,
Rev. H. Cresson McHenry,
Charles McDole,
Mrs. L. M. Mewes,
Rev. H. E. Meyer,
Joseph C. Noblit,
William F. Overman,
Rev. J. F. Ohl,
Albert Oetinger,
Frederick J. Pooley,
Charles Platt,
Laura N. Platt,
Miss L. N. Platt,
George F. Parker,
Joseph G. Rosengarten,
George J. Reger,
Marie Rosenberg,
Anthony W. Robinson,
Francis B. Reeves,
Mrs. Evan Randolph,
Mary Randolph,
Mrs. M. B. Riehlé,
David Scull,
Rev. F. H. Senft,
P. H. Spellissy,
William Scattergood,
Isaac Slack,
Dr. William C. Stokes,
G. A. Schwarz,
Samuel Snellenburg,
Mrs. Samuel Snellenburg,
Frank H. Starr,
R. C. Shafges,
Esther Strawbridge,
Mrs. E. Stillwell,
John Smallzell,
Augustus Thomas,
Mrs. George C. Thomas,
Augusta Thomas,
Rev. Floyd W. Tomkins,
William E. Tatum,
Mrs. J. F. Unger,
G. H. S. Uhler,
George Vaux,
Elias H. White,
Catharine A. Wentz,
Emily Whelen,
Sarah S. White,
Mrs. Frances Howard Williams,
Thomas B. Watson,
Samuel L. Whitson,
William C. Warren,
Mary S. Wetherell,
George S. Wetherell,
A. J. Wright,
E. M. Zimmerman,
Mrs. E. M. Zimmerman.
FORM OF BEQUEST OF PERSONAL PROPERTY
I give and bequeath to “THE PENNSYLVANIA PRISON SOCIETY” the
sum of .... Dollars.
FORM OF DEVISE OF REAL ESTATE
I give and devise to “THE PENNSYLVANIA PRISON SOCIETY” all
that certain piece or parcel of land. (Here describe the property.)
ARTICLE V.
The Acting Committee shall consist of the officers of the Society,
_ex-officio_ and fifty other members. They shall visit the prison at
least twice a month, inquire into the circumstances of the prisoners,
and report such abuses as they shall discover to the proper officers
appointed to remedy them. They shall examine the influence of
confinement on the morals of the prisoners. They shall keep regular
minutes of their proceedings, which shall be submitted at every stated
meeting of the Society, and shall be authorized to fill vacancies
occurring in their own body, whether arising from death or removal
from the city, or from inability or neglect to visit the prisons in
accordance with their regulations. They shall also have the sole power
of electing new members.
ARTICLE VI.
Candidates for membership may be proposed at any meeting of the
Society or of the Acting Committee; but no election shall take place
within ten days after such nomination. Each member shall pay an annual
contribution of two dollars. If any member neglects or refuses to pay
such contribution within three months after due notice has been given
such person, the Acting Committee may, at its option, strike said name
from the list of members. The payment of twenty dollars at any one time
shall constitute a Life Membership. Any person paying not less than
five hundred dollars shall be called a Patron of the Society.
ARTICLE VII.
Honorary members may be elected at such times as the Society may deem
expedient.
ARTICLE VIII.
The Society shall hold an Annual Meeting on the fourth Fifth-day
(Thursday) in the First month (January) of each year, and Stated
Meetings on the fourth Fifth-day (Thursday) in the months of April,
July, and October, at which seven shall constitute a quorum.
ARTICLE IX.
No alteration in the Constitution shall be made unless the same shall
have been proposed in writing at a stated meeting of the Society, held
not less than three months previous to the adoption of such alteration;
and no such amendment shall be adopted unless approved by the votes of
three-fourths of the members present.
The Secretary shall state on the notices of that meeting that an
amendment or amendments will be acted upon. And not later than the
usual time of sending said notices, he shall furnish the members with
written copies of the word or words, and form of the proposed amendment
_displayed_, and so much of the original form of the article to be
amended as will show the relation of the proposed amendment to the
context, and of the article in its amended form with all the words of
the amendment displayed. All other questions shall be decided, when
there is a division, by a majority of votes; in those where the Society
is equally divided, the presiding officer shall have the casting vote.
OF VISITORS.
No person who is not an official visitor of the prison, or who has not
a written permission, according to such rules as the Inspectors may
adopt as aforesaid, shall be allowed to visit the same; the official
visitors are: the Governor, the Speaker and members of the Senate, the
Speaker and members of the House of Representatives; the Secretary of
the Commonwealth; the Judges of the Supreme Court; the Attorney-General
and his Deputies; the President and Associate Judges of all the courts
in the State; the Mayor and Recorders of the cities of Philadelphia,
Lancaster, and Pittsburg; Commissioners and Sheriffs of the several
Counties; and the “Acting Committee of the Philadelphia Society for
Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons.” Note: Now named “The
Pennsylvania Prison Society.”
AN ACT TO INCORPORATE THE
Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons.
SECTION I.--_Be it enacted by the Senate and House of
Representatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in General
Assembly met, and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same_,
That all and every the persons who shall at the time of the passing of
this Act be members of the Society called “The Philadelphia Society
for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons,” shall be and they are
hereby created and declared to be one body, politic and corporate, by
the name, style and title of “The Philadelphia Society for Alleviating
the Miseries of Public Prisons,” and by the same name shall have
perpetual succession, and shall be able to sue and be sued, implead
and be impleaded in all courts of record or elsewhere, and to take and
receive, hold and enjoy, by purchase, grant, devise, or bequest to them
and their successors, lands, tenements, rents, annuities, franchises,
hereditaments, goods and chattels of whatsoever nature, kind, or
quality soever, real, personal, or mixed, or choses in action, and
the same from time to time to sell, grant, devise, alien, or dispose
of; _provided_ That the clear yearly value or income of the necessary
houses, lands, tenements, rents, annuities, and other hereditaments,
and real estate of the said corporation, and the interest of money by
it lent, shall not exceed the sum of five thousand dollars; and also
to make and have a common seal, and the same to break, alter, and
renew at pleasure; and also to ordain, establish, and put in execution
such by-laws, ordinances, and regulations as shall appear necessary
and convenient for the government of the said corporation, not being
contrary to this Charter or the Constitution and laws of the United
States, or of this Commonwealth, and generally to do all and singular
the matters and things which to them it shall lawfully appertain to do
for the well-being of the said corporation, and the due management and
ordering of the affairs thereof; and provided further, that the objects
of the Society shall be confined to the alleviation of the miseries
of public prisons, the improvement of prison discipline and relief of
discharged prisoners.
SAM’L. ANDERSON, _Speaker of House_.
THOS. RINGLAND, _Speaker of Senate_.
Approved the 6th day of April, Anno Domini Eighteen Hundred and
Thirty-three.
GEORGE WOLF.
LEGAL CHANGE OF NAME.
The Following Confirms the Action Relative to the Change of the Name of
the Prison Society,
Decree:
And now, to wit, this 27th day of January, A. D. 1886, on motion
of A. Sidney Biddle, Esq., the Petition and Application for change
of name filed by “The Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the
Miseries of Public Prisons,” having been presented and considered,
and it appearing that the order of court heretofore made as to
advertisement has been duly complied with and due notice of said
application to the Auditor-General of the State of Pennsylvania
being shown, it is Ordered, Adjudged, and Decreed, that the name
of the said Society shall hereafter be “THE PENNSYLVANIA PRISON
SOCIETY,” to all intents and purposes as if the same had been the
original name of the said Society, and the same name shall be
deemed and taken to be a part of the Charter of the said society
upon the recording of the said Application with its indorsements
and this Decree in the Office of the Recorder of Deeds of this
County, and upon filing with the Auditor-General a Copy of this
Decree.
[Signed] JOSEPH ALLISON.
Record:
Recorded in the office for the Recording of Deeds in and for the
City and County of Philadelphia, on Charter Book No. 11, page 1064.
Witness my hand and seal of Office this 28th day of June, A. D.
1886.
GEO. G. PIRRIE, _Recorder of Deeds_.
[Transcriber’s Note:
Obvious printer errors corrected silently.
Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.]
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