THE PLEDGE AND OTHER WORK OF A CITY COURT
One of the features of the probation system, as practiced during the past year by Judge James A. Collins, of the City Court[2] of Indianapolis, Indiana, has been the required “taking of the pledge” in a number of cases of persons found guilty of drunkenness. In his annual report for 1910 Judge Collins says:
“In all cases of first offenders charged with being drunk and in those cases where the defendant had others dependent upon him for support, the court has made it a condition on withholding the judgment or suspending the sentence that the defendant take the pledge for a
period varying from six months to one year. At the close of the year one hundred and one persons had taken the pledge, and of this number all but ten had kept the same faithfully. Eighteen of these were women, of whom all but three are reported to have kept the pledge faithfully.”
Judge Collins has also set aside Wednesday afternoon exclusively for the hearing of the cases of women and girls. Since the law provided for no paid probation officers, and since it was desired that for the separate trials of women and girls there be an adequate system of investigation and supervision, the Local Council of Women guaranteed the expenses of a woman probation officer.
The court has instituted also a “missionary box,” into which is put all unclaimed money obtained in gambling raids. The funds so collected have been used to furnish transportation for runaway boys and girls, to provide necessaries for the destitute, and on several occasions to return veterans to the Soldiers’ Home at Marion or at Lafayette.
One operation of sterilization for degeneracy was performed during the year at the direction of the court.
Certain offenders have been allowed to pay their fines in installments.
“The old method of collecting money fines which compelled the defendant to pay or replevy the same the moment he was fined was always a source of great hardship on the poor. It was unreasonable to expect a common laborer arrested late at night and convicted in the morning to be prepared to settle with the state. If he was unable to pay or make arrangements to have his fine stayed for the statutory period, he was sent to prison, not because the judge had given him a term of imprisonment, but because he was poor, which is in effect imprisonment for debt.
“In those cases where a defendant had others dependent upon him for support he has been released on his own recognizance and the case held under advisement for thirty or sixty days, as the circumstances seemed to justify, at the expiration of which time he was required to report to the court that he had paid in the
amount designated as the fine and costs to be entered against him.
“At the close of the year eight hundred and thirty persons had been given an opportunity to pay their fines in this way. Of this number 64 were re-arrested and committed for their failure to pay their fine, and the affidavits in 32 other cases are held for re-arrest. The balance lived up to their obligation with the court, and paid in more than $7,100.
“This plan operates to the benefit of the defendant in several ways: It saves him his employment; it saves his family from humiliation and disgrace, as well as from the embarrassment incident to imprisonment; but more than all it saves him his self-respect. With but a single exception not one to whom this opportunity has been given and who has paid his fine in full has been in court a second time.”
Of the suspended sentence and the withheld judgment Judge Collins says:
“During the past year sentence has been suspended in two hundred and thirty-six cases and judgment withheld in thirty-four hundred and seventy-four. The majority of these were first offenders. In those cases where the judgment was suspended the court has had to set aside and commit the defendants in only two cases, and where the judgment has been withheld less than two per cent have been returned to court for a second or subsequent offense.”