Chapter IX.
SOME AMERICAN EXPERIMENTS;—
THE PROBATION SYSTEM.
THE ELMIRA SYSTEM.
The Probation System.—In several of the States of America an attempt has been made to devise a substitute for imprisonment in the cases of persons convicted for minor offences.
The State of Massachusets was the first to take the lead by initiating a somewhat elaborate system of probation.
Briefly described, it is an attempt to reform a prisoner OUTSIDE.
Imprisonment for minor offences has had many bad features and should, where possible, be avoided. Firstly, there is the stigma that attaches to every man who has worn the broad-arrow. Secondly, there is the loss of self-respect which, together with the contaminating influences existing in a prison, often convert the minor offender into the hardened criminal. Thirdly, there are the hardships that the wife and family are called upon to endure while the bread-winner is in gaol and not earning wages.
The Probation System seeks to overcome all these difficulties. Instead of sentencing an offender to a period of imprisonment, the judge confides him to the care of the probation officer for a period co-terminous with that which he would otherwise have had to spend in prison. The minimum period of this sentence is six months, and the average about twelve months.