The Indeterminate Sentence and “Good Time.”—According to the Louisville (Ky.) Courier Journal, “some of the prisoners in the Frankfort Reformatory are said to be preparing to file a suit to compel the Prison Commission to carry out the law which gives eighty-four days’ good time to every convict.
“There is no question as to the existence of such a law, but the Prison Commission has not seen proper to apply it to those prisoners who were convicted under the indeterminate sentence law. This seems to have been in accordance with common sense. A prisoner sent up under the indeterminate sentence law for a term of, say, one to five years is eligible to parole after he has served his minimum term of one year. If the good time allowance also is applied such a prisoner, one of the commissioners has pointed out, would have to serve only about nine months to be eligible for parole.
“The absurdity of making a good time allowance to those who are serving the so-called indeterminate sentence is more apparent when the case of a prisoner convicted of manslaughter is considered. This prisoner was sentenced to serve from two to twenty-five years. In the natural course of events he would be eligible to parole after two years. Given the benefit of the annual good time allowance he would have to serve only about eighteen months before being eligible for parole.
“The Attorney General has given an opinion to the effect that the prisoners convicted under the indeterminate sentence law are entitled to the good time allowance. Evidently there has been a good deal of legislative bungling in connection with these prison laws. With a few more amendments it is much to be feared the State will be unable to keep anybody at all in the penitentiary longer than the time required for hearing a mandamus suit.”
How Newspapers Err.—The Providence (R.I.) News says that:
“There was a queer mix-up over a sentence passed by the district court of Minnesota on a youth of twenty years. Two New York state papers had the story that the youth was sentenced to forty years in prison for robbing a man of $1.85. One paper used the sentence as a text for a general cry down of Wisconsin’s very progressive, although what a sentence passed in St. Paul had to do with the laws of Wisconsin, progressive or otherwise, was not clear. The other paper commented on the affair under the caption: ‘The Crime of a Court.’
“It appears by a letter from Judge Orr, who sentenced the youth, that he was not sentenced to forty years in prison, but was sentenced under the indeterminate law, and can, after two years, apply for a parole. It is true that in robbery cases the maximum sentence is forty years, but it is up to the board of parole and to the youth himself, very largely to the youth, as to how long he will stay in prison. As the young man had been a waif and pleaded guilty, the story, if true, was one that could not fail to cause indignation. There was very little truth about it, fortunately, and Judge Orr, speaking for his state says:
‘Minnesota is in the front rank in the matter of legislation recognizing the principles of modern penology and criminology, including the indeterminate sentence all cases, limited suspension of sentence, etc., and the administration of justice in the courts of this state is in full sympathy and accord with the statutes. Such blunders as these are apt to do courts everywhere an injury, so the truth should be known.’”