WHAT KANSAS CITY IS DOING
E. K. BINGHAM
Superintendent Helping Hand Institute, Kansas City, Mo.
Kansas City made great strides toward a better handling of its misdemeanants when it created a new municipal department called the Board of Public Welfare, and placed its correctional institutions under its control. The board at first was appointed by the mayor, it is self-elective and some of its members were social workers, some broad-minded business men, and its first president was a most excellent organizer, a philanthropist and a man of great personal devotion to the cause of humanity.
The newspapers unanimously supported its policies and consequently it received the popular indorsement which freed it from political handicaps. These facts have been the combination which accomplished results which were unusual in its less than two years existence. Its pivotal activity has been a farm colony (which of course we all agree is the indispensable feature of effective correctional work). Of course, also, like other farms, it builds up the under-nourished, gives care to the physically unfit, and also, whether by farm work or in learning a trade, the work habit which is acquired helps largely in rekindling the spark of ambition in the man whom repeated failure has utterly robbed of the power of initiation and confidence in himself. Another help is that no man is ever released penniless, but is allowed to earn something during the last few days of his imprisonment. But the greatest factor which has contributed to a more successful handling of cases has been the emphasis placed upon the individual man. A careful personal record system with daily notations of a prisoner’s conduct and facts concerning his mental, moral and physical condition permits a scrutiny and a kind of helpfulness otherwise impossible.
The records also are examined by a parole committee of three members which meets weekly and recommends certain paroles to be acted upon by the Board of Welfare. A representative of the parole committee visits the “holdovers” at five o’clock each morning, talks with each prisoner, and makes out record cards which are taken into the municipal court by this same representative, who, sitting beside the judge, is frequently asked for information when prisoners are brought in, his record often deciding the sentence imposed.
Forty-six per cent. of the commitments for 1910 were paroled—or 1,660 persons—of whom 150 were returned to custody. Nine parole officers confirm the records by weekly visits to the homes or places of employment, and a woman friendly visitor looks after the needs of prisoners’ families during their imprisonment and also during the prisoner’s parole. From non-support paroled men $8,346.21 was collected and paid over to the dependent families.
During the past winter it occurred to me that the city needed an inspector of the unemployed, a policeman without a club, who should go every day among the homeless men in the lodging houses, saloons and on the street and talk with them, directing them to pay jobs if possible, or if not, directing them to the municipal quarries in the parks, which were operated to provide work to the unemployed, for 150 to 340 men a day earning meal and lodging tickets there at the usual rate paid for rock cracking. Or if the man was found to be making no effort to find work, after several days this officer, being familiar with the facts, could arrest for vagrancy. This idea was suggested to a police commissioner and an inspector of the unemployed was appointed. In addition to the above duties, he goes into municipal court each day, appearing as an advocate of many homeless men, a class so often unjustly accused and arrested on circumstantial evidence. His desk is in the employment office which is financed by the Board of Welfare, but is managed by and is in the Helping Hand Institute (a private charity which the Board of Welfare uses as a municipal lodging house for meals and lodging for all dependent cases.) The seven hundred men per day who lodge there are practically under the eye of this inspector of the unemployed, and the deterrent effect for the misdemeanant is evident.
Among other classes of misdemeanants that Kansas City is reaching is the lodging house keeper, his misdeeds being brought to light by the housing inspection now in progress.
The endorsement of the Charities Bureau, or rather the lack of its endorsement, is eliminating the unwise free soup charities and the soliciting frauds—these are of course among the very harmful offenders because of the shiftlessness which they promote. At the suggestion of this Bureau the police have stopped the practice of women soliciting money in saloons.
Another class is handled by the Recreation Department of the Board of Welfare, as evidenced by the dance hall inspection. For every public dance a license must be secured from this recreation department. This department then sends an inspector to each dance to learn if all its rules are being observed. These inspectors also keep a sharp lookout for young girls and learn their names and addresses. These names are turned over the next morning to the supervisor of police matrons who sends one of her assistants to call on the parents of the girl to inform them where their daughter was the evening previous. Many times the parents had not known of the facts, or had been deceived by the girls. Such supervision can but bring about good results.
The Free Legal Aid Bureau averages about 400 cases per month, prosecutes wife deserters and has brought them in many instances home from other states. The Welfare Loan Agency during its few months of existence has eliminated several of those detestable misdemeanants, loan sharks.
Perhaps I’ve spoken of many more varieties of law-breakers than Dr. Lewis had in mind when he asked me to speak a few moments on this subject, but it was hard not to go a little further and mention these different agencies which are making some degree of progress along this line in Kansas City.