“Half the men who come here are men who never had a chance—unfortunates grown to manhood without impulse or direction. Out of their very helplessness they cheated and stole, robbed and killed. Most manifestly, mere weekly religious services will not free society from the menace of these men. They must be taught something to do. A State farm protects the present and guarantees the future.
“The interests of justice and of society would have been better served had many a convict never known imprisonment. If he were paroled immediately upon conviction his dependents would not suffer, nor the taxpayers be forced to bear the burden of greater depravity that always and inevitably attends penal servitude.”
Tramps and the Railroads.—Crimes committed against railroads are increasing, according to the annual report of the police department of the Baltimore and Ohio system, which shows that 13,129 arrests were made during 1913, as compared with 10,417 arrests during 1912. There were 8,449 convictions in 1913, while in 1912 the number of convictions was 6,515. This increase in crime added materially to the expense of the railroad for doing business during the year.
The report of G. A. Ogline, superintendent of police, covers all classes of criminal offenses, from petty larceny and disorderly conduct to train wrecking, highway robbery and murder. The most frequent offenders were those who “violated railroad laws,” for which 8,303 arrests of tramps and others unlawfully using the railroad property were made. Arrests for intoxication and disorder numbered 2,526, with 1,567 arrests for larceny, 176 for burglary and 3 for murder. For receiving goods stolen from the railroad there were 67 arrests.
Commenting upon the large number of arrests of trespassers—tramps and other vagrants and loiterers about the railroad—Superintendent Ogline says: “It is evident that the number of persons unlawfully riding over the railroads and trespassing upon the property in other ways is on the increase, but the officials have been badly handicapped in coping with this evil on account of the lack of co-operation on the part of authorities. The courts will handle a few offenders, but it is continually impressed upon the railroads’ police department that the arrests to trespassers must be held to the minimum because the cities, towns and counties are unwilling to bear the expense of harboring this class of offenders in jails and other institutions of detention.”
The head of the police department further states that in numerous instances where reports were made of obstructions having been placed on rails, missiles thrown at trains, etc., it was found that “very small children were often guilty of these offenses,” and the railroad officers frequently brought the cases to the attention of parents in an effort to correct the trouble.
Convictions were secured under the Carlin Act, a federal law, for the robbery of cars on the Baltimore and Ohio lines and heavy penalties were imposed for such crimes.
Changes in Military Prisons.—Revision of the articles of war—the military law of the United States that has stood unchanged since 1906—is proposed in a bill passed without a dissenting vote by the Senate, in February, designed to make the soldier guilty of purely military offenses an object of reformatory discipline instead of a penitentiary convict with the criminal stamp upon him.
Fort Leavenworth, Kas., would cease to be a federal penitentiary under the terms of the bill, and hereafter would be known as the United States Military Detention Barracks. The prison would be modeled after the English army disciplinary institution at Aldershot, and no soldier or civilian convicted of an offense punishable by penal servitude might hereafter be confined there.
Military prisoners under suspended sentence quartered in the detention barracks would be organized into military commands, and their training kept up where prison conduct warrants in the opinion of the Secretary of War. Honorable restoration to the army, or permission to re-enlist without prejudice if the enlistment had expired, would follow good behavior.