THE DEMANDS OF THE AGE.
As this age demands a high order of talent and effort in the industrial, so it should demand and require great ability and power in the penal world.
The third of a century of the life of the National Prison Congress has witnessed great progress in the domain over which it has advisory power. Many problems pressing for solution demand the highest functions of those in control.
Do punishments deter men from crime?
Do the universal customs of the times foster and beget much of the crime committed?
Does war beget murder elsewhere?
Is social vengeance a failure, and are other means necessary to prevent crime?
Should not executives now clothed with power to terminate or shorten sentences of imprisonment also have power to lengthen terms of imprisonment or to change from a definite to an indefinite term whenever they become in possession of facts regarding the convict's previous life or present character, which were unknown to the sentencing judge?
Should not United States prisoners incarcerated in the various state prisons have the restrictions of the indeterminate sentence and the parole, thus securing a uniform system of treatment for all prisoners and greatly promoting the discipline?
Should we go back of the commission of crimes and ascertain if the State itself is not committing a crime in imposing and permitting conditions that beget crime?
Should not the pardoning power be exercised frequently before the convicted man ever reaches the prison at all? Could not many a man be saved by being put on probation from the start, who otherwise would be in great danger of being lost?
Does the discipline of prisons have anything to do with the commission of offenses by convicts when released? Does the enforced restraint exerted to the very last moment of his release and then wholly relaxed, cause the released convict to swing to the other extreme like Jean Valjean, who after nineteen years of imprisonment for stealing a loaf of bread and an attempt to escape, robbed his benefactor, the Bishop, of his plate, and upon being forgiven robbed little Gervais of his forty sou piece, but afterward got his bearings, attained his balance and lived an honorable life?
Should any prisoner ever be released at the prison door, or should he not for his own sake as well as society's be required to live a period on probation and under oversight, subject to return for violations; in other words, should not paroles be, under proper restrictions, the universal and only rule?
To the solution of these and countless other problems let the highest order of talent, the best combination of head, heart and brain be summoned: let every prison be a school for study and investigation, and be engineered and controlled by men of skill, drilled and educated along these lines, and who are animated by a desire to contribute their full share towards the upbuilding and uplifting of the race and the amelioration of the woes that beset mankind.