“Under the same authority with the bureau of registration and identification, all the data possessed by that department would be accessible to the agent who was seeking to discover how far it might be practicable and useful to assist a prisoner at liberty. A central registration office would in the end yield a large return to the State by securing a comprehensive oversight of prisoners on parole. In the central office in Massachusetts we endeavor to keep a record of all prisoners at liberty from the prisons under our supervision. This, to be sure, is not always easy to do, because names are readily changed and it is not difficult to conceal identity. The only reliable method of following up the prisoners at liberty is to maintain a system of identification based upon the plan that does not rely on names, or upon any data that is subject to change.
“What the scheme of registration has done for this State and for other States cannot now be measured, but the interest that has been excited in this subject and the information that has been spread from the central office must prove invaluable to the police and prison officials of the entire country. When all the States adopt this plan it will not only be difficult for a paroled prisoner to evade his obligations to keep the terms of his release in his own State, but he will find if he returns to evil practices in another State that his record will be readily brought against him.
“All that I have said so far has seemed to apply mainly to persons convicted of felonies, but I intended that there also should be comprehended in the scheme a large number of misdemeanants, who need generally the same sort of correction and training as felons.
“There is one class of misdemeanants, however, which I would exclude as a rule from any elaborate prison system, although the place for their detention might be made one of the departments of the plan I have described, and that is the large number of persons committed for drunkenness. Most of these have passed beyond the age when they would be the best subjects for an industrial reformatory. They have no criminal instincts, are merely social disturbers, and what the State does in the way of their correction should be different from the means employed in the care of criminals. And the persons committed for drunkenness can be dealt with in a better way than now prevails if they are drawn into larger groups where fitting employment can be given; and this arrangement would need the intervention of a central board.
“Under a well-organized and thoroughly equipped system, with such a degree of centrality as I have indicated, all the beneficent methods of the prisons would be sustained and strengthened.”
The second address of the evening was by Dr. Frederick Howard Wines, on “The Prisons of Louisiana.” Residence in the South and an intimate acquaintance with Southern people and Southern prisons, gave the utterances of Dr. Wines authoritative value. The prison question in the South, he said, is almost exclusively a negro question. The greater proportion of crime in the South is committed by negroes. Hence most of the prisoners are negroes. The negro prisoner is a distinct problem. The methods we apply to white prisoners are not applicable to him. The religion of the negro, for example, is altogether emotional and has little connection with morality. As to education, the Southern people do not greatly favor the education of the negro. A partly educated negro thinks he belongs to a select class and must no longer work. As to the question of labor, he is not fitted for indoor work, nor wanted by the industrial classes.
As conditions are in Louisiana, I can think of nothing better than the large plantations on which the convicts are employed. The barracks are absolutely clean and sanitary. There are no chains. The guards are unarmed. After breakfast the prisoners go to the cotton and sugar fields, accompanied by armed guards and hounds. There are few escapes and very little punishment. Hospital and physician are provided. All the convicts are well fed, and at the close of the day’s work all must take a bath. As the labor is steady it is more profitable than that of the free man. All the earnings go to the support and improvement of the prisons and prisoners. The lease system is gone in all the counties but one. Baton Rouge has the only prison of the old style, with walls, etc. Camps are now the thing, on plantations. Since the abolition of the lease system, and the adoption of State control, the health of the prisoners is much better.
A third address by Mr. F. B. Sanborn, Concord, Mass., on “Prison Reform and Prison Science,” was largely a review of the results accomplished in the past forty years, and reminiscent of the many eminent men associated with the movement since its inception.