For the truly magnificent scale on which such reclaiming institutions are conducted in North and South America, both continents merit special mention.
The oldest and most celebrated of these reformatories, that founded at Elmira by Brockway, owed its inspiration to my father's book Criminal Man and is the first reformatory that has been instituted on similar principles.
The convicts admitted to Elmira are young men between the ages of sixteen and thirty, convicted for the first time of any offence, except those of the most serious kind. The Administrative Council is invested with unlimited powers for determining the period of detention and may release prisoners long before the expiration of their sentence.
Each newcomer has a bath, dons the uniform of the Institute, is photographed, registered, medically examined, and finally shut up in a cell to meditate upon his offence. During this time the superintendent obtains all the available information concerning his character, environment, and the probable causes that have led to his crime, and this information serves as a basis for the cure. According to the aptitude and culture of the prisoner, he is placed in a technical or industrial class, where he learns some trade which will enable him to become honestly self-supporting on his release. He is immediately acquainted with his duties and rights and the conditions under which he may regain his liberty.
Education in the Reformatory consists of instruction in general knowledge and special training in some trade. Moral and intellectual progress is stimulated by the publication of a weekly review, The Summary, which gives a report on political matters and the news of the Reformatory.
The convicts are divided into three categories: good, middling, and bad. The transference from the second to the first class entails certain privileges, especially those respecting communication with the outer world, the right to receive visitors, to have books, and to eat at a common table instead of partaking of a solitary meal in a cell. Those who obtain the highest marks for good conduct are at liberty to walk about the grounds and are entrusted with confidential missions, such as the supervision of the other convicts. Bad conduct marks cause prisoners to be transferred from a higher to the lowest division, where they are obliged to perform the rudest labour.
First-class convicts are purposely exposed to temptations of various kinds, and when they have passed through this ordeal triumphantly, they obtain a conditional release. This cannot take place, however, until the prisoner is provided with regular employment of some kind, procured by his own exertions, through friends, or by the director of the Reformatory.
For six months after his release he is obliged to give an account of himself regularly in the manner prescribed by the Director; after one year absolute liberty is regained.
In order to reduce the working expenses of the Reformatory as much as possible, all posts, even that of superintendent or teacher in the technical schools, are filled by the convicts.