It is also recommended that the Committee on Delinquency be authorized and directed to choose a Secretary, not a member of the Board of Public Charities, at a salary of $7500 per annum, who shall be the executive officer of the Committee and an expert in the care and treatment of delinquents, and who shall be known as the “Commissioner of Delinquency.”

Second.—The Commission further recommends that the General Assembly provide by appropriate legislation for the employment of all the able-bodied convicts of the Commonwealth in useful and, so far as possible, in productive labor, and especially, that it vest in the Committee on Delinquency the powers of the Prison Labor Commission and the functions of the Business Agent of such Commission and enlarge such powers and functions as suggested on page 15 of this report.

Third.—The Commission further recommends the enactment of a law establishing four State Industrial Farms, to receive, care for and provide for the useful employment of the inmates of county prisons and jails and of persons hereafter convicted of any offense punishable by imprisonment in any county jail or prison who have been or shall hereafter be sentenced for a term of thirty days or more.

Fourth.—The Commission further recommends that the Act of Assembly approved July 17, 1917 (No. 337), providing for the employment, during the continuance of the war, of inmates of county jails at agricultural labor on any county or almshouse farm, be amended so as to continue its operation indefinitely after the conclusion of peace.

Fifth.—The Commission further recommends that the General Assembly provide for the purchase of a tract of land, of not less than 600 nor more than 1200 acres, to be used for the benefit of the Eastern Penitentiary as a prison farm.

Sixth.—The Commission further recommends that a law be enacted prohibiting fees or allowances and contracts for furnishing meals to the inmates of county jails or other penal institutions of the Commonwealth.

Seventh.—The Commission further recommends that the Act approved June 19, 1911, authorizing the courts in the case of a person sentenced to a penitentiary to fix as the minimum term of imprisonment any period less than the maximum prescribed by law for the offense of which such person was convicted, be amended by a provision that the minimum limit of the sentence imposed shall never exceed one-third of the maximum prescribed by the Court.

In the foregoing recommendations the Commission has confined itself to matters requiring legislative action and to such only as seem to it to be essential to a consistent, integrated policy of penal administration. All other matters with respect to which the Commission has given expression to its views are either subsidiary to those on which immediate legislative action is recommended or are such as may be properly referred to the wisdom of the proposed Committee on Delinquency for consideration and action. The greatest abuse of the prevailing prison system—the lack of imagination and of understanding which keeps alive in most of our penal establishments the methods of a severe and repressive discipline—cannot be abolished by legislative decree. The greatest reform of which the system is capable—the awakening in the inmates of the new life which comes from active, responsible participation in the life of the prison community—is equally beyond the reach of legislative action. These will be the fruits of a keener intelligence and of a deeper understanding than have yet, except in a few rare instances, been brought to bear on the problem. But your Commission believes that the plan of penal administration which it has recommended, and which provides for the most thorough-going study and the most intelligent treatment of the individual delinquent which has yet been attempted, will gradually prepare the way for these and other reforms in the penal system of the Commonwealth.

Respectfully submitted,
January 1, 1919.FLETCHER W. STITES, Chairman,
ALFRED E. JONES,
MARTHA P. FALCONER,
LOUIS N. ROBINSON,
ALBERT H. VOTAW,
Commissioners.
George W. Kirchwey,
Counsel to the Commission.