I am satisfied that the reclamation of the criminal, and his restoration to society, a saved man, should be the first duty of every well organized prison.
It is to be regretted that the greatest barrier in the way of reforming and saving the prisoner is found in our antiquated methods of dealing with him. Whatever else imprisonment is to-day, it certainly does not reform the unfortunates who are sent there. Hundreds and thousands of lives have been blasted forever by prison life, that might have been saved if proper efforts had been made at the right time to place them on parole before being sent to prison. All first offenders should get a chance by being paroled.
CHAPTER XXX
STRONG DRINK AND CRIME
From actual observation as a Prison Chaplain, and a careful study of this subject extending over several years, together with repeated interrogations and conversations with thousands of prison inmates, committed thereto for every crime on the calendar; and, further, from personal inquiry among experienced prison officials in various parts of the country, I say frankly without any hesitation or equivocation that strong drink is the most prolific cause of crime in the United States. I further affirm that after thousands of personal conversations with men and women charged with murder, robbery, assault and every form of larceny, and from interviews with criminal judges and magistrates, I firmly believe that from seventy to eighty per cent. of all the crimes of the day can be traced directly or indirectly to strong drink. I have said more than once in public addresses, in the past twelve years, that if the saloons of this city were outlawed for two years, the prisons of Greater New York would be almost tenantless.
I believe the only way to reduce crime is to stop the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors, which in the end will close the gin-mills that swarm our cities and villages, and which are the real generators of crime.
We deeply regret that many of our well meaning people are poorly informed on this question. They look with longing eyes for help from our State and National political partisans for the overthrow of this traffic, but these fond idols of the people care nothing whatever for moral reforms. They are in politics only for what they can make out of it, and not for the reformation of the people, and are indulgent toward the saloon vote.
Some time ago, a New York paper gave a list of persons who were confined in the City Prison charged with the crime of homicide. In this list the names of thirty men, two women and a boy were given. They were then awaiting trial for murder. All of them have since been tried, with the result that several have been sent to the death house at Sing Sing, a large number to prison for long and short terms, and a few discharged for lack of evidence. In an analysis which we personally made at that time we counted twenty-five persons who admitted that they were under the influence of strong drink when they committed the crime of murder.
At that time, Dr. Robert S. Newton, a New York physician and specialist in mental disorders, presented a carefully prepared paper on the causes that led to murder in each case, but, strange to say, he does not mention strong drink, although that was the principal direct cause of twenty-five out of the thirty-three cases. Dr. Newton never met any of these persons mentioned in this article, charged with the crime of murder, nor had he any conversation with them before or after their imprisonment, but simply from the standpoint of an alienist, he presents a speculative analysis of what he considered the causes that led to their crimes.
I met all of these people face to face, conversed with them, and watched their trials in the Criminal Courts till finally disposed of. Most of them made voluntary statements in relation to their crime, and I was painfully struck with almost the identical words from the lips of each, and all of these men, who closed the narrative by saying: “I was drunk at the time, and did not know what I was doing.” They did not say this for the purpose of securing sympathy, or apologizing for their crime, but simply admitted that strong drink made them half-insane, and in that state they committed the crime of murder.