The Review, Vol. 1, No. 8, August 1911

A MONTHLY PERIODICAL, PUBLISHED BY THE NATIONAL PRISONERS’ AID ASSOCIATION
AT 135 EAST 15th STREET, NEW YORK CITY.
George A. Lewis
Member of the State Board of Parole, President of the Eleventh State Conference of Charities and Correction
Reprinted from the New York Herald
Of the value of the parole in the State of New York there need only be said that, so far as the parole authorities have been able to learn, out of every one hundred men paroled from Sing Sing, Auburn and Clinton prisons since the system went into practical effect, in October, 1901, eighty-three have “made good.” During these ten years approximately two thousand men on parole have complied with all conditions required of them and been discharged. Assuming what was pretty nearly the fact, that a former convict after serving a prison term under the old system was a morally broken man, even though he might not pursue an active criminal career, this means that there have been two thousand more useful members of the community returned to it, and that there are two thousand less actual and potential criminals in existence than if there had been no parole work in the State—this number, moreover, being exclusive of men under the restricted liberty of parole “now at large and in good standing,” who may be said to swell the satisfactory total to 2,600.
Aside from the moral advantage derived from the parole, it may be mentioned that the State has made a material gain to the extent of some hundreds of thousands of dollars that would otherwise have been expended for the maintenance in prison of men who have been at large and are self-supporting.
A large and increasing number of our prison population come sooner or later before the Board of Parole for its consideration and judgment, the number of applicants eligible for parole having grown more than four hundred per cent since September, 1907. The hope of early and favorable action furnishes the strongest incentive for the prisoner to conduct himself without fault in his cell, in the workshop and in the school. The family and friends on the outside bestir themselves with equal zeal to obtain suitable offers of employment (which are always investigated by the Board), a proper place of abode, and to enlist the interest of good people generally to lend a helping hand to the released prisoner.