A STATE PRISONER ON PRISON REFORM
From a state convict at Montgomery, Alabama, comes a criticism of that state’s treatment of the criminal, and a series of recommendations for improving that treatment, which read like an extract from a report of a state board of charities. The author of the article is Albert Driscoll, who is serving a four years’
sentence for safe-blowing. The article was addressed to the members of the legislature and was printed in a Montgomery newspaper. Driscoll recommends the indeterminate sentence, a prisoners’ aid society, and suppression of the names of those placed on parole. Parts of his article follow:
“There have been several sporadic attempts to have an improved parole system inaugurated in this state, but somehow or other they have never materialized in any legislation. If there is an individual or an association in Alabama today who has the moral welfare of the two thousand odd convicts really at heart and wishes to benefit them, now is the time for them to get busy during the present session of the legislature.
“The crying need of some legislation on this subject is self-apparent. This State as represented by its prison system is not abreast of the spirit of the day. The old punitive method of dealing with crime as against the reformative system is still in operation. No attention is paid to the old axiom of an ounce of prevention being better than a pound of cure, as regards those unfortunates who by environment, hereditary tendencies or pure cussedness for the criminal class. It is a large and constantly growing class and from a moral as well as a economic viewpoint it demands attention.
“The old idea of the State revenging itself on the malefactor still obtains and beyond securing as much revenue as possible from the convict during his incarceration, no attention is paid to his moral betterment except for the weekly sermon conducted by the prison chaplains. The man in stripes is regarded as a commercial asset solely. Several commutations from the capital penalty to life imprisonment have been secured in years past by being based on the argument that a life convict would be worth so many more thousand dollars than a dead one. Ye shades of Shylock! Has this rich State no other source of revenue than its convicts?
“When the pound of flesh has been exacted, he is abruptly turned loose to his own devices without a cent nor any equipment to help him to earn an honest livelihood. In every casual glance he will
read suspicion and in his search for friends and sympathy he will be more than apt to search out other discharged convicts in former congenial haunts and from that it is but a short step to a life of habitual crime.
“Would it not be better to sentence every offender under an indeterminate sentence law, so that when the experts who have him in charge are convinced that he is thoroughly reformed, that on their recommendation and with the pardon board’s approval, he could be paroled and turned over to a prisoners’ aid society? This society should be a branch of the state convict department and it should retain control of paroled prisoners and sustain them until they could be placed at work. The great desideratum should be secrecy and the names of the paroled men should never be made public nor anyone made acquainted with their prison record except the direct head of any firm that might give them employment. Convicts are human and sensitive and they should be given a fair chance with a clean slate and not be handicapped at the start with a lot of notoriety. Give a man a bad name and he will very likely be forced to live up to it, except he has a strong character, and the class we are considering is not noted for strength of character, or they would be in other ranks of life. To the contrary, those who have slipped and fallen are entitled to special assistance and every manly man should feel in his heart a desire to help the under dog and to give him a chance to regain his manhood and self-respect.
“I do not ask you to receive a paroled convict as your personal friend, nor to put him up at your club, but I do ask you to aid the enactment of such legislation as will give him a fair chance in life. It will cost you nothing although the fees of the sheriffs and jailers may be reduced. We need an indeterminate sentence law, a parole system based on merit, a trade school for youthful offenders, and a state aid and employment bureau for paroled convicts. The whole convict department should be taken out of politics and higher salaries would attract a better class of men as officers.
“Corporal punishment is a relic of the
middle ages and in substituting a better and more humane system of maintaining discipline the morale of the wardens will be elevated. The writer, who has served seven years as a state convict, knows by personal experience and observation that this method of punishment is degratory to the administrator as well as to the recipient.
“My heartfelt desire and my object in writing this article is the hope that it may inspire somebody to befriend the prisoners. We can’t maintain a lobby at the capitol. The idea of a delegation in stripes soliciting votes is ludicrous. I do hope, however, that some broad-minded member of the legislature will advocate our cause.”