FOOTNOTES:
[1] It is generally supposed that such a system cannot act as a deterrent to crime. The American delegates to the International Prison Congress (held in Paris in 1895) declared that the obligation imposed upon the prisoners, in such institutions, to raise themselves by mental as well as by industrial labour, into higher grades as a necessary condition for liberation, is felt by many of them, to involve so much exertion, that they would rather be consigned to some ordinary prison, where self-improvement is not specially enforced. This system, they declared, was more deterrent than was generally supposed.
[2] Of some 13,000 criminals who have passed through the Reformatory, the number known definitely to have returned to crime is a little less than 1 per cent. of the whole!
Chapter X.
CONCLUSION.
The reader will have formed his own conclusion. He may conclude that the author has a sentimental affection for the criminal and would have all disturbers of the public peace treated with more compassion than the hard-working and honest labourer. But that reader will have jumped to his conclusion from his preconceived prejudices. The reformation of the criminal is no chimera, it has been undertaken for thirty years and every year has seen better results. The results for 1903 (86 per cent. of reforms) ought to convince the most sceptic that the reformation of the criminal is the true aim for society to pursue.
Another reader may ask why, if all these results are so good, does not the Government adopt some such system as the Elmira one instead of continuing the present obsolete penal system. The New York State Government experiences a difficulty in finding, for their reformatory staff, men who will undertake their work with a real sense of mission.