During my thirteen months' term in the Maxwell Street Court, I tried upwards of eight thousand cases and placed upon probation 1,231 persons. The results were as gratifying as they were surprising, and won for the plan the sincere support and coöperation of the police department in the district, many of the officers assuring me that it had reduced crime one-half. Eleven hundred and thirty-four of the paroled offenders, or about ninety-two per cent., faithfully kept the terms of their parole, and became sober, industrious citizens. Substantially all of those who lapsed did so because they violated their pledge of total abstinence. None, with one or two trivial exceptions, afterward committed any offense against the law.
At one time a number of young men were brought in charged with burglary, but after the evidence was heard the complaints were amended to petit larceny, and the defendants were given their liberty upon promising to go to work and obey the law. When I left the Maxwell Street Court on January 11, 1908, to try civil cases, the suspended sentences in all cases were set aside and the defendants discharged, and I felt some apprehension lest these young men, as well as many others, should, after all restraint was removed, return to their former ways. This fear has proved groundless, the percentage of lapses since January 11 being little, if any, greater than before. A report from the Police Department, covering the young men above referred to, has just been received by me. It reads as follows:
"Driving team, O. K., habits good"; "driving team, sister says he is doing fine"; "driving express wagon for his father, doing fine"; "driving team, stays home nights and brings his money home"; "laboring for $2.00 per day. Mother says he is doing better"; "laboring for $2.00 per day, doing fairly well"; "drives buggy for —— Teaming Co., O. K."; "works for the —— R. R., steady ever since paroled."
Because of the absence of express statutory authority, no person charged with a misdemeanor was released on parole except with the approval of the police and the State's attorney; but there were many cases where a parole was not given, in which I felt satisfied that it would have yielded good results. There were, however, upon our special docket, persons charged with larceny, embezzlement, wife abandonment, selling liquor to minors, malicious mischief, assault and battery, and other similar offenses; and except in the one or two cases referred to, which were of a minor nature, the defendants have shown their sincerity by their actions, and their conduct has in every case been exemplary and satisfactory.
In one case, where the charge was larceny, the police assured me that the defendant had been arrested fifty times. It seemed such a desperate case that I gave him the longest term allowed by the law. After he had been in jail a few days, I discovered that his aged father and mother were sick and helpless, and needed his support. I set aside the judgment and allowed him his liberty upon the understanding that if he again violated the law he would be required to serve out the remainder of the term. He has since worked steadily and faithfully, although, when I went into his home one day upon learning that he had met with an accident, I found poverty and dirt enough to drive anybody to commit crime.
In addition to the support of the police officers, the plan of releasing offenders on parole has had the influential backing of the members of the bar, including the assistant State's attorney, and also of the citizens of the district, who were practically unanimous in its endorsement. The manager of a large department-store assured me that shoplifting had practically ceased since a number of petty thieves had been put on probation under maximum suspended sentences. It would be impossible for me adequately to describe the gratifying surprises that came almost daily in my experience with these supposedly irreclaimable men and women. I found that they invariably grasped with desperate eagerness at a chance to reform, and the joy which they exhibited at the night sessions was oftentimes very pathetic. "We are happier than for years," and "We're having our honeymoon over" were the reports made again and again.
Intense gratitude to the law for giving them "another chance" was the characteristic sentiment in nearly every case, and this feeling proved more powerful in bringing about their reformation than the fear of punishment.
The Story of Jim the Engineer
One day I was hearing a robbery case, when Jim —— entered and modestly seated himself at the rear of the court-room. Jim was running a locomotive on the Burlington Road, and although he had recently married, was voluntarily laying off two days in the week in order that a fellow-engineer, who had a family to support, might have a show during the hard times. I motioned to my bailiff, and a minute later Jim was seated beside me on the bench, listening to the evidence in the robbery case. I well knew what was passing through his mind, for it was only ten months before that he had stood before the same bar, charged with crime, and it was then that he had promised me, whom he had never seen before, that if I would give him "another chance" he would turn over a new leaf and eschew crime and the society of criminals forever.
This resolution followed a brief talk in my chambers after his trial. His record was not in his favor, and his picture hung in the rogues' gallery. His brother was then serving time, and he had two sisters dependent upon him for support. After I had briefly pointed out to him the folly of such a life as he was then leading, he quietly remarked: "No one ever talked to me that way before; my father is dead and my mother is dead, and I haven't a friend in this town." "Well," I replied, "you probably don't deserve one, the way you have lived, but if you will cut out liquor and go to work" (he had not worked for four months) "and take care of your sisters, you will have friends." He finally agreed that he would do this. "Now," I said, "if you don't keep your promise to me, you will get me into trouble with the officers." He said: "I will show you I can make good." He could not get a bondsman, and I let him go after he had signed his own bond.