This being the case, nothing but high grade, intelligent, educated men, should be permitted to have charge of this soul life. It is absurd to hope that any other can administer the discipline necessary to build up men whom society has failed or neglected to cultivate.
Every employé of a prison should be a man of good appearance, no physical blemishes, a man of high character, and should possess at least a good English education and be a student.
In many States, only those who have certain views upon the tariff and finance, or who are supposed to have, are permitted to have positions as officers in the prisons. But even there, a schedule of requirements within that limit may be arranged for, and rigidly adhered to. There ought to be an age limit, height, and other physical requirements, and an educational test. A mere recommendation from a politician, however high, is usually not worth the paper upon which it is written, chiefly because the aforesaid politician has only the most vague idea of the actual requirements of the prison official, and is under the impression that anybody who can occupy space will do.
There ought to be a school for the preparation of persons for institutional work. Such a school should be a national one and would be immensely profitable in the increased reformatory results in prisons, the saving of many insane from helpless insanity, and the reclaiming of many dependents.
With crime costing $300,000,000 a year, and every criminal saved worth a least $1,600 a year to the nation, the necessity for such a school for training specialists is very great.
DRILLING OF NEW OFFICERS
The evolution of a new guard is one of the interesting, but soul-trying experiences of every prison warden. Perhaps the warden, before assigning the new man to duty, talks to him, admonishing him as to his procedure, and aiming to tell him of the pitfalls that experience has pointed out. But he talks “to ears that hear not.” He closes his first interview by handing the new man a book of rules for his perusal. But they are given “to eyes that see not.” That book of rules is the result of the experience, the mistakes, the observations, the failures and the successes of generations of prison officials, and can no more be fathomed by a new guard at once, than can the Constitution of the United States, upon first reading, be comprehended by one of Upton Sinclair’s Lithuanians on his journey to the Chicago stockyards.
Under the present system, that guard must learn largely by mortifying experiences, the commission of serious mistakes, alike costly to the institution and its wards.
While there are no general schools for the preparation of officers for institutional work (the School of Philanthropy of New York possibly excepted), yet there may be organized in every prison a school for the education and development of officers, and this should be done. Let there be a definite course of reading and study arranged for officers by the superintendent, and have frequent examinations and discussions bearing on prison problems.
Fortunately our literature is rich in books worthy the most careful study and research. There is Prof. Henderson’s admirable text book on “Dependents, Defectives and Delinquents;” Dr. E. C. Wines on “The State of Prisons and Child Saving Institutions,” the many valuable contributions of Rev. S. J. Barrows, Superintendent Brockway, Joseph F. Scott, Frank L. Randall, Revs. August Drahms, F. H. Wines, A. McDonald, Beccaria and Howard, Lombroso and Dugdale, Eugene Smith and Charlton T. Lewis and scores of others.