Brash statement either way, relative to the reclamation of the average felon, should be withheld; yet close to a life study of, and research pertaining to, imprisoned felons, while brushing elbows with them as a State agent in the most intimate way, emboldens the writer unequivocally to assert: aside from the natural effect upon him of cumulative impositions, all of them pronouncedly unfortuitous, and not one of them ameliorated by so much as a semblance of virile countervailing influence, the average nearly-normal felon issues just as millions more of his mind and matter would have issued, had they, like the offender, been practically dispossessed of good suggestion, good example, and good training and teaching.
As to a lad’s basic ability, even as to his intrinsic worth, what he had done and left undone, what he wants to do and leave undone, commonly relates at base to that which he had had not a ghost of a chance to do or leave undone. He can’t have grasped mentally that which had been kept foreign to his mind; he can’t have taken on even a thin veneer of morality while he was being “used” in the vilest of sexual dens; he can’t have absorbed meekness and mercy out of having been elbowed into the company of self-determining social pariahs; fresh from the cruelly gross gruelling to which he has been subjected, he can’t be expected to bank on the helping hand of Almighty God, say naught of the offices of mercenary man, whom he has come to envisage as a common despoiler; he won’t sprout and grow to manly stature under corrective schooling, other than that which sharply reverses his every conception of individual duty registered on his brain; and he won’t blow at all to the light of living except by gradual and well-marked stages, much, in the matter of time, as he was dwarfed in black holes by the powers of darkness. Still, he is of the stuff of which the Almighty made Adam. Moreover, the Eternal Father won’t shrive of blame the man who dons the esoteric mantle, takes a casual peek at him, smugly pronounce him an “incorrigible moron,” and passes him up to perdition.
Going over the days of his youth and young manhood, recalling the grave, sometime gross lapses chargeable to him, spite of his best of environment and bringing-up, what call has anyone lightly to damn a lad, either mentally or morally, whose lot it had been to be deprived of direction, while he was being shouldered into moral gutters? Why insist with so much of balderdash about the predestined criminal, and at the same time order social usages and the execution of penal law to his hand; then, when he falls plumb backward, so order prison régimes that they do with and for him just those things they ought not do, and leave either undone or half-baked, just those things they ought to do?
Why, for example, in response to the criminal’s oblique instincts and intentions, feature such as bestial pugilism, and flatten out such as trades teaching until it stands but a loose-jointed skeleton of what it must be to be effective? Why place embargo on preparedness to earn an honest living, and at the same time make unblushing bid for the murderous parasite? Why put a premium on activities, pursuing which in free life first made a brutal drone-sport of a lad, then headed him for bolts and bars?
All-sufficient of wholesome play and amusement the imprisoned should have; but the moment either engages prisoners to the extent of crowding out of their minds the essential exaction upon them to concentrate for correction of that responsible for their plight as prisoners, that moment it becomes perniciously non-reformative. Furthermore, prison play should be confined to the periods set aside for play for all. Nothing of the kind could be more subversive of reformation, than by-play by groups, the howling by members of which is plainly heard by the general population, supposed to be fully engaged at work in the shops and departments of the place. Aside from bad feeling engendered through playing favorites at play, the inevitable effect of the by-play is to kill concentration through switching the minds to play of those who are at work.
At gymnastic exercise for special groups, noise should be held within bounds, exercises prescribed for the purpose in hand rather than to amuse, and the minds of the lads fashioned for their all-around improvement, instead of to the idea that the exercises are planned from no higher purpose than pleasurable relaxation.
There will be isolated instances whereof just pure play for a time will be best; but such cases can and should be handled judiciously during the periods set aside for play.
Essentially and without reserve, manifestations at play that make for the brute should be sharply checked. They are of the devil’s own, imposed upon up-coming lads through the medium of sporting mongers.
Even in the Army and Navy of the United States, where lads must be trained to take care of themselves with the last device of individual power, justification rests with the military authorities for brutality inseparable with fistic encounters and wrestling matches. There are better ways by which to coördinate eye, brain and brawn for offense and defense, either in peace or for war; ways that fit the individual weapon; ways that confine the thoughts of the unit to use of that weapon for war; and ways that do not inoculate with the itch to knock someone’s “block” off.
Such as fisticuffs has been employed by Uncle Sam to aid in recruiting, then purely for the amusement of the onlookers. No normal man does or could claim to be edified by seeing human blood spilled, or by agonizing with the lad rolling in agony. Again, Uncle Sam’s soldiers and sailors are the pick of the nation. In bulk they can be trusted to avoid the deadline of intrinsically brutal manifestations.