GATHERED FROM REPORTS AND OTHER SOURCES.
CHANGE OF TREATMENT URGED.
At the discussion on criminals, before the State Board of Charities and Correction, Albany, N. Y., last December, a change of treatment was urged, that “Reformation and not punishment should be the end sought.” Dr. Wm. P. Spratling, Medical Superintendent of Craig Colony for Epileptics, said in part: “I would recommend the following: First—Prevent insanity, epilepsy, imbecility, idiocy, and feeble-mindedness as far as possible by making it impossible for them to marry. Second—By building less expensive structures in which defective and dependent State charges shall live. Third—Maintain at less cost the cases that are chronic and incurable, and maintaining at even greater cost those that probably can be cured. Fourth—By giving those that ought to have it an education that they can use in the institution that cares for them, or that they may use in the outer world when they leave the institution.”
Thomas Sturgiss, of New York City, chairman of the Board of Managers of the Elmira Reformatory, read a paper on “The Treatment of the Criminal.” The object of the discussion was to devise some plan for the adoption of a true system of treatment in any and all penal institutions, and the plan determined was
“First—Centralization of prisons of every kind other than those of temporary detention only, under State control.
“Second—That all prisons shall be taken out of politics, and that they shall be administered by men who are making this profession a scientific study and a life work.
“Third—A classification of all criminals, and a division of them among institutions according to such analysis.
“Fourth—The specializing of such institutions to the end that each may receive only that class or classes to the treatment of which its situation, its staff, and its system are deliberately adapted.
“Fifth—Experience shows that such classification cannot be made by the courts, for lack of time and absence of expert testimony. Provision should be made for such analysis by the head of the institution to which the prisoner is first sent, and that subsequent transfer in accordance with such analysis should be legalized both as to the power of the transferring officer and of the prison to which the transfer is made.
“Sixth—The adoption of the principle that reformation (reformation of character) and not punishment is the end sought by imprisonment, with such application of the indeterminate sentence and the parole system as the class and condition of the prisoner and the character of the management may justify.
“The time has gone by when we seek to punish the criminal simply. Punishment as a deterrent has failed. We now seek to reform, if we can, and to seclude for the protection of society if we cannot. Education and training in self-control and in the ability to do useful wage-earning work, are the basis of reform.
“Whatever the system in any prison, it should contain, high above everything else, the element of hope. This should never be abandoned while life lasts, if the mental powers are normal. Omit this and you take away the strongest inspiration to reform and substitute despair. Include it and you give the guardian of the prisoner his strongest weapon; and to the prisoner himself, a gleam of light in the surrounding darkness, shining from the open door through which, if he wills it, he may once again pass to finish his life experience under the conditions of freedom.”
“Every prison from a jail up should be in some measure a reformatory, an institution where the inmates received instruction in industrial pursuits, in wage-earning labor, in letters, and moral precepts.”
Secretary McLaughlin of the N. Y. State Prison Commission, stated that the present prison population of the State in custody was 10,350 (being a decrease in five years of 2,311) of these 1,197 were women of which 342 were in the workhouse, Blackwell’s Island.
Among the State improvements suggested were:
1. In order to furnish the convicts with employment under the present Constitution, further legislative restriction should cease and officers and institutions should comply with the law in good faith.
2. The state should furnish the prisons with new and modern buildings, especially at Sing Sing and Auburn.
3. The hope to see the lock-step and the prison stripes suppressed among the prisoners of the higher grades in every prison.
4. When prisoners, whose education has been utterly neglected are received, there should be compulsory education in the common English branches.
5. An efficient parole law should be adopted applicable to the State’s prisons. Such a law is recommended by the Commission and by the Superintendent and wardens of prisons.
6. The State should watch over a man after his discharge from prison, aid him in finding employment, and in the meantime, render him assistance if necessary.
7. It has been wisely suggested that even life prisoners should be under some system of parole. Probably by special enactment. There are 177 life convicts, many are not habitual criminals, but convicted of murder in the second degree, while in heat of passion or under the influence of liquor. Some have already served 20 to 40 years.