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.”