In reviewing the 240 cases, which we appreciate represent the types which come to reformatories and are not necessarily characteristic of all types of prostitution in society, we find the following facts: 52 per cent. defective; 16 per cent. dull; 28 of the remaining 67 cases with normal mentality showed other mental and nervous defects. Only 15 per cent. of the whole number appeared to be normal mentally and physically. Probably 40 per cent. could be considered segregable types and should be placed permanently, or at least during the child-bearing age, in custodial institutions. If these cases who are apparently unable to care for themselves could be removed from the community, we believe the supply for prostitution would be materially lessened and that such a movement would be a help in attacking the problem.
As has already been said, practically 100 per cent. of the cases studied show the presence of at least one of the two venereal diseases, while over 55 show the presence of both.
Of the cases studied for evidence of syphilis, over 65 per cent. had had the disease; of those studied for gonorrhoea over 96 per cent. gave evidence of having had it. Should we not recognize the far-reaching results of such diseases in a community and use every means possible to help eliminate them?
No one disputes the fact that the problem of prostitution is largely a moral one, and must be solved through educational methods. However, while we believe that certain conditions can be much alleviated, we believe also that the problem will never be fully solved from the moral standpoint alone. The most crying need of the present time is in the mental and physical aspect of the situation, and we believe that the greatest possible emphasis at this time should be laid on these factors and their great menace to society.
[1] Read at the National Conference of Charities and Corrections, Memphis, May, 1914.
[2] Report of the Commission for the Investigation of the White Slave Traffic so called.
THE NEW HAMPTON FARMS
By Philip Klein
“There is plenty of room at the table, and we’ll have a bunk to spare too, I guess,” was the answer to my request to be taken care of at the New Hampton Farms that I was about to inspect. It would have sounded like a joke to me had I not been acquainted with the plans for the farm from the very beginning. The answer was to be taken literally. It is nothing new in this country to take prisoners outside the institution walls; to leave them unguarded at their work; for officers to talk with them as man to man; for them to live in temporary, frail quarters. But the New Hampton Farms goes beyond that. Its thirty-odd young inmates and four of the five ‘officers,’ including the superintendent, sleep in the same bunkhouse, and eat at the same tables. The bunkhouse is as rough as can be, the eating arrangements no less primitive. The whole physical outfit of the farm is a striking demonstration of how much practical genius and invincible enthusiasm can make of the most inadequate means, of the poorest equipment. Yet even this is not the striking feature of this institution.
The City Reformatory for Misdeamenants of the City of New York is situated on an island of about 100 acres, within the limits of the City of New York. Its buildings are inadequate and overcrowded, its officers insufficient, its methods largely repressive. It receives misdeamenants between the ages of 16 and 30. On the same island is situated a branch of the Workhouse of New York City, where the most useless of the city’s criminal population is confined. To prevent intercourse between the inmates of the two institutions is well nigh impossible. As a result of all this, the Reformatory has hardly deserved its name. After long and painful efforts, the purchase of a 600 acre farm in Orange County, 60 miles from New York, was effected, in order to remove the Reformatory to the country, and to make it worthy of its name. So there was the farm, but without appropriations for building the institution. And the overcrowding at the Reformatory was worse than ever.