It was decided last fall, at a special meeting of the Women’s Prison Association, to try to get five bills through the Legislature. They failed in toto, but one clause which was incorporated in the Goldberg Bill abolishing fines for women misdemeanants was a suggestion made by this Association.
The bills were:
An Act to provide for the appointment of police matrons for duty in places of amusement.
An Act to change the present method of temporary care of prisoners, insane, injured, or dangerously ill.
An Act to provide a Board of Managers and a Woman Superintendent for the State Farm for Women.
An Act to provide a separate Court for women.
An Act to provide a resident physician for Blackwell’s Island.
The Women’s Prison Association, the Salvation Army, and charity societies often coöperate, and are discussing at present a national association for the promotion of prisoners’ aid.
Such associations are always deeply interested in the advanced experimental methods aimed to improve, through scientific study and observation, the systems of dealing with delinquents in private and public institutions. They are equally interested in extending present facilities for the care of these wards of the state.
For example, boys’ home and training schools have been inaugurated in many places by women. The Women’s Municipal League of New York, in connection with the Cornell Medical College, established a research and experimental station to develop the best methods of reaching and helping deficient and delinquent boys—Hillside Farm School. The technique of a hospital including clinical study has been introduced into penal institutions, notably women’s, in the last few years. At the Massachusetts Reformatory for Women at South Framingham this work is being well developed under the superintendency of Mrs. Hodder. Dr. Katharine Davis established a laboratory at Bedford Reformatory, when she was head of it, for the social and psychological study of the inmates.