Legislation.
We have delayed the printing of our annual report in order to include in the Journal the Report of the Commission to Investigate Prison Systems, of which the Secretary of the Society is a member. The Legislative Committee of the Society has endorsed the findings of the Commission and has urgently requested the General Assembly to take favorable action on the bills presented by the Commission. A synopsis of these bills presents the following desirable features.
1. The enlargement of the functions of the State Board of Public Charities so as to include the appointment from their number of a Committee on Delinquency with supervisory power over all prisons of the Commonwealth and with authority to condemn unsanitary conditions and provide for betterment, and also to have especial direction over the prison industries. Medical and psychiatric examination of convicts is provided with power to transfer defective criminals to the institution most suitable for their care and restoration.
2. The establishment of State Industrial Farms to which those sentenced to the county jails may be sent.
3. An Amendment to the law of 1911 which deals with the imposition of sentences by the Courts to the extent that convicted prisoners may be eligible for parole when one-third of the maximum sentence has expired.
4. Abolition of the fee system in county jails, a practice universally condemned by all who have studied the problem.
5. The removal of the Eastern Penitentiary to a farm in the eastern part of the State. This suggestion is in line with the recommendation of the Commission of 1915 of which the present Warden was a member. At that time the purchase of a farm for the use of the institution was proposed.
6. The provision that goods and articles made by the labor of prisoners shall be used whenever practicable by public institutions of the Commonwealth, thus insuring a market for such products.
The full report of the Commission is found in the present issue of the Journal, pages 19-46.