Community Civics and Rural Life

by Arthur William Dunn

CHAPTER XXII

DEPENDENT, DEFECTIVE, AND DELINQUENT MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITY

In every community there are some members who are not self- supporting and who do not contribute materially to the community's progress (see Chapter V and Chapter XI).

WHO CONSTITUTE DEPENDENTS, DEFECTIVES, AND DELINQUENTS

The very young and the very aged come within this group. Both are peculiarly dependent upon others, though the aged may, by thrift in earlier years, have acquired a competence with which to meet the needs of old age; and the young are expected, in later years, to compensate the community for the care they have received from others during childhood.

There are those, also, of all ages, who are incapacitated for self-support and for service by disease, or by physical or mental defects such as bodily deformities, blindness, or feeble- mindedness. In addition, there are some who, though physically able to perform service, deliberately prey upon the community in one manner or another without giving anything in return. The latter constitute the DELINQUENT class, and include criminals.

RELATION OF THE FAMILY TO THE PROBLEM

Normally, the needs of those who are unable to support themselves, whether because of extreme youth or old age or because of physical or mental defects, are provided for by the family. It frequently happens, however, that the family is unable to perform this service. It may be entirely broken up. Children may be left without parents, and the aged without children. The natural supporters of the family may be stricken by disease, or by accident, or by financial misfortune. Moreover, the proper care and treatment of many defectives require better facilities and greater skill than can be provided even by well-to-do families. Thus a class of DEPENDENTS is produced—dependents upon the community as a whole. They may or may not be DEFECTIVES, physical or mental. Dissipation and thriftlessness are two of the chief causes of dependency.

TREATMENT IN EARLY TIMES

In the lower stages of civilization it was not uncommon for the feeble and the helpless to be put to death, even sickly children and persons infirm from old age. This was done in the name of community interest. The struggle for existence was so severe that the presence of non-producing or non-fighting members endangered the entire group. Besides, it was the belief in most cases that the sacrifice of the helpless simply hastened their passage into a happier life.

REDUCING THE WASTAGE OF HUMAN LIFE

Humane considerations now prevent such treatment of the helpless. Moreover, with our increased skill in medicine and surgery and education, the diseased and defective may often be restored to health or fitted for some form of self-support that makes them happier and of use to the community. The wastage of human life has been greatly reduced in recent years. Many of the soldiers who returned from the war in Europe so broken in body or mind that in former times they would have dragged out the remainder of their lives a burden to themselves and to others have, by surgical skill and special forms of education, been restored wholly or partially to the ranks of the self-supporting and useful members of the community. This REHABILITATION of the dependent and defective members of the community, whether their misfortune is due to war or other causes, is the chief aim of the treatment given them by the community at the present time.

RESPONSIBILITY OF EACH COMMUNITY

It is an accepted principle that each community should, so far as possible, care for its own unfortunates, and the effectiveness with which it is done varies. But everywhere it has taken a long time to change from the old policy of mere RELIEF to the new policy of REHABILITATION (see above).

THE LOCAL ALMSHOUSE AND ITS DEFECTS

In New England and in a few other states the town, or township, is the unit for administering "poor relief," but elsewhere it is the county. The "almshouse," or "poor farm," or "county infirmary" is the usual local institution for this purpose. Unfortunately it has been, as a rule, badly managed. Men and women, old people and children, healthy and diseased, blind and crippled, moral and immoral, even the insane, have been housed together, often mingling with one another with little restriction. The evils of such a system are apparent.

SHORT-SIGHTED POLICY

Moreover, the policy of the typical almshouse has been merely to give shelter and food and clothing to those who appeal for it, rather than to remedy the causes of dependency or to restore the unfortunate to a basis of self-support and usefulness. Medical treatment is of course given, but the means do not exist to give special expert treatment to particular classes of defectives. Little educational opportunity worthy of the name is afforded. While able-bodied inmates usually have some work to do, it is seldom of a character to train for self-support or to create habits of industry.

REMEDIES PROPOSED

To provide this special treatment requires elaborate equipment and expert service, which cost a great deal of money, more than most counties or towns feel that they can afford. Communities must come to realize that they cannot afford to neglect their unfortunate members, no matter what it costs to care for them. But the cost need not be so great as it seems. A great deal of money is now WASTED on almshouses without adequate results. This can largely be remedied by insisting upon more expert supervision in such institutions, and by a system of regular inspection by expert state officers. Greater care should be exercised with respect to those who are admitted to the institutions. Only the deserving should be allowed to live on the public funds. It is not uncommon for some classes of shiftless people to make a practice of seeking shelter in the almshouse during the winter, where they live in comparative comfort and idleness at the public expense, only to leave in the spring for a life of aimless indolence, imposing as beggars upon kind-hearted people.

PURPOSE OF STATE INSTITUTIONS

Moreover, the county almshouse should be only a temporary place of detention for many of the people who now are kept there permanently. Those who need special treatment or training should be passed on as quickly as possible to special institutions that are equipped to care for them. Since most local communities could not well afford to maintain such special institutions for the comparatively few who would need them, the state should maintain enough of them at central points to provide for the needs of all local communities.

The states do maintain such institutions—hospitals and sanitariums for various types of mental disease, homes for orphans and for the aged, and for persons with incurable diseases, asylums and schools for the blind and the deaf-and-dumb, industrial schools for boys and girls. The problem of the state is, first, to develop such institutions to the highest possible degree of efficiency for the REHABILITATION of their patients or inmates, and, second, to secure effective cooperation on the part of local authorities and institutions in transferring those, and only those, who are entitled to state assistance.

COOPERATION FOR "OUTDOOR" RELIEF

When dependents are cared for in institutions, it is called INDOOR RELIEF; when they are cared for outside of institutions, in their homes, it is called OUTDOOR RELIEF. Outdoor relief requires community organization and cooperation and expert leadership quite as much as indoor relief. The lack of these has often resulted in great harm both to the community and to the needy person. Promiscuous giving of charity by well-intentioned persons often results in giving to the undeserving as well as to the deserving. There are lazy and shiftless individuals who find it easier to live on charity than by honest work, and whose lack of self- respect permits them to do so. Sometimes they do so by fraudulent methods. Giving to such persons encourages pauperism and fraud instead of curing it. Kind-hearted people often say that they would rather be cheated occasionally by dishonest applicants for charity than to fail to help the really needy by too great caution. The answer to this is that by proper community organization and cooperation the needy will be found with much greater certainty, the fraudulent will be detected, and the aid given to those who should have it will be much more effective. The citizen who turns an applicant for aid over to an effective organization in a great majority of cases performs a much greater service both to the applicant and to the community than by attempting to give aid directly. A few pennies or a few dollars given even to a worthy applicant may not reach the root of the trouble at all, and may be the innocent cause of perpetuating the trouble.

VOLUNTARY AGENCIES

Many voluntary organizations exist for charitable and philanthropic purposes. The church has always been one of the chief agencies to care for the poor and unfortunate; but there are many others, especially in our large cities. Sometimes they maintain hospitals and other institutions for the treatment of those who need indoor relief. They have done a great deal of good. But they are subject to the same difficulties that individuals encounter in dealing wisely with particular cases. They have often devoted themselves too exclusively to giving temporary relief instead of seeking to cure causes and to rehabilitate the unfortunate. They are frequently deceived by impostors. Seldom do they have expert investigators to follow up individual cases and to prescribe the most effective remedy. They frequently duplicate one another's work in a wasteful manner.

CHARITY ORGANIZATION

This lack of team work has been in large measure remedied, especially in city communities, by the establishment of CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETIES. Such societies do not as a rule give direct relief, but act as a "clearing house" for existing charitable agencies in the community. That is, they organize the effort of the various existing agencies. They have a corps of trained investigators who look into each case reported by any individual or charitable agency in the community, make a careful record of it, and prescribe the proper treatment. The case is usually turned over to one of the existing agencies that is properly equipped to handle it. Philanthropic persons may turn to the charity organization society for advice as to purposes for which money is most needed. The aim of charity organization is to remedy causes of dependency and to restore dependents to a self- sustaining basis so far as that is possible.

GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATION FOR POOR RELIEF

Charity organization societies are wholly voluntary organizations; and there is need for such voluntary cooperation to care for the community's unfortunate and to root out the causes of dependency. Such organizations should, however, work in cooperation with governmental agencies. There are state boards of charities which usually have supervision over the various state institutions for dependents and defectives. Every large city government has its department of charities, sometimes combined with the department of health. The "overseer of the poor" is one of the oldest of town officers. The care of dependents and defectives in small, or rural, communities has, however, been very poorly organized.

RELATION BETWEEN STATE AND LOCAL ORGANIZATION

An effective attack upon the public welfare problems of a state is twofold: (1) by a state welfare board and state welfare institutions, and (2) by town and county welfare boards and institutions… .

Public welfare work calls for a state board of public welfare, statewide in authority … and for state institutions that are large enough to care for the delinquents, the dependents, the defectives, and the neglected who cannot be better cared for by local authority and institutions. …

But, on the other hand, it calls for county boards of public welfare with county-wide authority and trained executive secretaries. … Many of our ills bulk up so big that they can be successfully attacked only in detail by local interest, local effort, and local institutions. Tuberculosis and poverty are capital instances of social problems that are beyond the possibilities of state institutions, and that necessarily wait upon organized county efforts of effective sort. … We do not know the deaf, the blind, the feeble-minded, the epileptic, the crippled, and the neglected or wayward boys and girls—their number, their names, and their residences in any county of the state … because there is at present no local organization charged with the responsibility of accounting for such unfortunates. …

[Footnote: E. C. Branson, "County responsibility for public welfare," in the North Carolina Club YEAR BOOK, 1917-1918, pp. 161, 162 (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, N. C.).]

CAUSES OF DEPENDENCY MUST BE REMOVED

There will doubtless always be some dependent and defective members of the community for whom the community must care. Their number, however, may be greatly reduced by creating conditions that will remove their causes. It has been reported from many localities, for example, that the prohibition of the sale of intoxicating liquors has resulted in the emptying of the "work houses" which communities have sustained for the confinement of vagrants and persons convicted of petty misdemeanors. Much dependency has resulted from the crippling of wage earners by industrial accidents and from "industrial diseases" arising from work in unwholesome conditions. These causes may be removed by the maintenance of wholesome working conditions, by the installation of safety devices, and by the exercise of greater care by workers and employers. The "safety first" movement strikes at the root of much dependency. Inability to read signs and to understand instructions on the part of illiterate and foreign workers is the cause of many accidents.

SOCIAL INSURANCE

Some states have passed "employers' liability laws," designed to hold employers responsible for accidents resulting from failure to provide safe working conditions. Others have "workmen's compensation laws" which provide that an injured workman shall receive a portion of his wages during incapacity from accident or illness. In some countries various forms of COMPULSORY STATE INSURANCE have been adopted. Germany, for example, has long had laws requiring employees to take out accident insurance and insurance against sickness, both employees and employers contributing to the insurance fund. Pensions for the aged and for widows are also provided for, the government itself contributing to the fund for this purpose. At the close of the year 1919, 39 of our 48 states had laws providing for aid by the state to mothers who were unable to provide properly for their children.

The aim in our community life should be as far as possible to PREVENT dependency and not merely to relieve suffering after it occurs. We shall find that the problem will tend to disappear in proportion as we develop in our communities adequate provision for health protection and physical development (Chapter XX), for vocational and general education (Chapter XIX), for wholesome recreation (Chapter XXI), for the cultivation of habits of thrift (Chapter XIII); and as we are successful in producing a right attitude toward the problem of earning a living and wholesome relations between employer and employee (Chapter XI).

Investigate and report on:

The rehabilitation of crippled soldiers after the war.

Your county or town almshouse or poor farm: The kinds of cases sheltered there; its cost to the community; the methods of treatment employed.

Other local institutions for indoor relief in your community.

State institutions for the care of dependents and defectives in your state. Their kinds and location.

The difference between "poverty" and "pauperism."

The extent and kind of "charity work" done by the church which you attend (get accurate information).

The voluntary organizations of your community that give "poor relief." The kind of charitable work done by each.

Charity organization in your community. Its results and the need for it.

The causes of dependence in your community.

The extent to which voluntary charitable work in your community is directed to removing the causes of dependency.

The organization of your county or town government for the care of dependents and defectives.

Employers' liability laws, workmen's compensation laws, mothers' pension laws, in your state.

THE CRIMINAL CLASS

It is said that there are at least 250,000 people in the United States who make their living by crime, and there are many more who commit crime on occasion. It is said, also, that to support and control this criminal class costs the people of the United States not less than $600,000,000 per annum, or as much as is expended for the entire educational system of the country.

WHAT CRIME IS

Crime is the violation of law. The criminal is a member of the community who refuses to cooperate with others in accordance with the law. The conduct of an individual may be wrong and harmful to the community without being criminal; it becomes criminal only when the law actually forbids it. A given act may be a crime in one state and not in another state, because the laws of the states differ in their definition of crimes. They also differ in the penalties imposed for the same crime.

EARLY METHODS OF TREATING CRIMINALS

The methods of dealing with criminals have changed greatly with the progress of civilization, and especially in recent years since the causes of crime have become better understood. In the earlier methods two ideas were prominent: the infliction of punishment, and the deterrence of others from committing the same offense. The penalties inflicted were therefore very severe. The death penalty was inflicted not only for taking human life but also for minor offenses, such as stealing. Even in our own country in colonial times bodily mutilation was not uncommon, such as branding with a hot iron, or cutting off the ears. Prisons were vile and loathsome places.

REHABILITATION OF CRIMINALS

Humane feelings have caused the abandonment of such treatment. The death penalty still remains for the worst of crimes; but even it has become more humane in its methods. Many believe that it should be entirely abandoned. The eighth amendment to the Constitution of the United States says that "excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." Moreover, a new idea has entered into the matter. It is the same idea that controls the modern treatment of dependents, namely, that of REHABILITATING the criminal. It is now recognized that crime results in most cases from diseased conditions either in the individual or in the community. Some individuals commit crime merely because it seems to them the easiest way to make a living or to gain some other end; but even such individuals are MORALLY diseased. Much crime is due to temporary mental disturbance, as from the use of intoxicants or other drugs. Sometimes it is the act of persons who are actually insane or feeble-minded. Very often it is committed under pressure of poverty.

In view of these facts, while the deliberate violator of law should doubtless be punished, it is even more important that the causes of crime should be removed, and that the criminal should, in as many cases as possible, be restored to a useful and an honest manner of life. The proper treatment of dependents and defectives, and the removal of causes of dependency and defectiveness, are essential steps toward the lessening of crime.

THE LOCAL JAIL

The county jail and the town "lock-up" are the usual local institutions where persons suspected of having violated the law are detained while awaiting trial in the courts, and also where those convicted of petty misdemeanors are imprisoned for punishment. The jail and the "lock-up" are as notorious as the almshouse for unwholesome conditions and mismanagement, though conditions have greatly improved under the influence of an awakened public opinion. They have often, been unsanitary in the extreme. Prisoners have often been treated more like cattle than like human beings. Young and old are thrown together, the hardened criminal with the youthful "first offender," and with those merely suspected of crime, many of whom will be proved to be innocent. The result is demoralizing. Our jails have sometimes been said to be "schools of vice and crime."

NEEDED REFORM OF THE JAIL

Two reforms, at least, are needed in local jails. First, they should be made as wholesome as possible, both physically and morally. They should be perfectly sanitary, and the food should at least be clean and nourishing. Arrangements should be made to keep the different classes of inmates separate, especially the hardened and vicious criminals from youthful transgressors and suspects. In the second place, the local jail should be merely a place of detention for those awaiting trial or, after trial, transfer to other institutions. Those found guilty by the courts should be transferred as quickly as possible to institutions where they may receive treatment fitted to their needs.

FITTING THE TREATMENT TO THE OFFENDER

Of three persons who steal ten dollars, one may be a deliberate thief who prefers to make his living this way; another may be driven by hunger; and the third may be mentally unbalanced. It is obvious that the treatment accorded to each should be determined by these facts rather than by the mere amount of the theft. The first doubtless needs punishment; but he should also have treatment designed to change his attitude toward the community and to fit him to make an honest living. The second needs to be relieved of his want and to be given an opportunity for self- support. The third needs hospital treatment. We are only beginning to see that punishment is only a part of the treatment necessary, and that the treatment should be made to fit the criminal fully as much as to fit the crime.

STATE INSTITUTIONS FOR DELINQUENTS

Proper treatment for all the various classes of cases cannot well be given in the county jail; nor can the local community as a rule afford to maintain separate institutions for them, as the number in each class is very small in a given community. Hence the necessity for state institutions to which those convicted in the local courts may be sent. Such institutions exist, although not always adequate to the needs of the state. They include state penitentiaries, reform and industrial schools, hospitals for the insane, special schools for the feeble-minded, and others. These institutions have been steadily improving in their efficiency. The greater difficulty seems to be in the local communities, in securing the assignment of offenders to the proper institutions.

ADMINISTRATION OF STATE PRISONS

Great changes have occurred in recent years in the methods of administering state penitentiaries, especially in some states. Under old conditions convicts were either confined in isolation and idleness or condemned to hard labor, punishment being the sole idea in both cases. The most rigid and arbitrary discipline was enforced. Modern penitentiaries keep prisoners employed in occupations that are of use to the state, that are designed to train the prisoner for useful service, and that yield him some compensation that will help to make him self-supporting when he leaves. They also maintain schools for the instruction of prisoners in at least the common branches of knowledge and in vocational subjects. Great care is taken of the health. In some cases the prisoners are graded according to their conduct and their ability to assume responsibility, certain privileges and freedom and participation in the administration of the prison being bestowed upon them so long as they show a sense of their responsibility. The period of imprisonment may be shortened as a reward for good conduct.

JUVENILE OFFENDERS

One of the most important reforms that have been made is that in the treatment of juvenile offenders. The main feature of this is the establishment of a JUVENILE COURT, where the usual procedure and publicity of a criminal court are avoided, and where the judge takes a fatherly attitude toward the accused. Each case is carefully investigated to discover the cause of trouble and to arrive at a wise conclusion as to the treatment to be given. In the case of first offenders, or where other conditions justify it, the prisoner is released ON PROBATION. That is, he is given his freedom on his honor, but under the supervision of a PROBATION OFFICER to whom he must report at regular intervals. In the case of more serious offenses, or of repeated wrong-doing, or of violation of parole, offenders are sent to reform schools or industrial schools. The entire effort is to set the young offender on the right road to honest self-support and good citizenship. Unfortunately, however, this machinery for the treatment of juvenile delinquency is so far found almost exclusively in cities. The problem of juvenile delinquency in rural communities is one that requires more attention than has been given to it. It is a problem that the young citizen himself can greatly help to solve by the cultivation, in himself and in his friends, of right conceptions of citizenship.

Investigate and report on the following:

The organization of your county and town governments to protect persons and property against criminals, to apprehend law violators, and to bring them to justice.

The cost to your county or town of this organization.

The desirability or undesirability of differing definitions of crime in different states, and of different punishments for the same crime.

The efficacy of severe punishments in preventing crime.

Should capital punishment be abolished?

The meaning of "bail," and why it is provided for.

The effect of prohibition upon the amount of crime in your community.

The number of prisoners confined in your county jail during the past year, why they were there, and what it cost to keep them.

The meaning of "fitting punishment to the criminal rather than to the crime."

The treatment of prisoners in your state penitentiary.

The method of dealing with juvenile offenders in your community.

The meaning of "probation"; of "parole"; of an "indeterminate sentence."

The extent of juvenile delinquency in your community; its causes.

The use of convict labor outside of prisons.

READINGS

Reports of county and town authorities.

Reports of state board of charities and of administrative boards of state institutions.

Publications of the Children's Bureau, U. S. Department of Labor. Send for list from which to select. Two valuable publications of this Bureau are:

Bureau Publication No. 32, "Juvenile Delinquency in Rural New
York."

Bureau Publication. No. 60, "Standards of Child Welfare." This contains among other valuable material, discussions of child labor and legislation relating to it, of the care of dependent and defective children, and of juvenile delinquency.

In Lessons in Community and National Life:

Series A: Lesson 5, The human resources of a community.
Lesson 28, The worker in our society.

Series C: Lesson 8, Preventing waste of human beings.
Lesson 20, The family and social control.
Lesson 30, Social insurance.

The following are a few good books relating to the topics of this chapter:

Burch, H. R, and Patterson, S. H., American Social Problems, chaps, xvi-xx (Macmillan).

Henderson, C. R., Dependents, Defectives, and Delinquents.

Warner, A. G., American Charities.

Devine, E. T., Principles of Relief.

Addams, Jane, Twenty Years at Hull House, and The House on Henry
Street.

Ellwood, C. A., Sociology and Modern Social Problems.