Another needed reform, State control of county jails, is receiving some attention. J. S. Gibbons, Chairman of the Prison Board of Ireland, said: “I tell you what I think you lose sight of in this country: That all these splendid reformatories deal with merely a drop in the ocean compared with the county and city jails to which your thousands of prisoners go, and where many are manufactured. We were in exactly the same condition up to 1877 when we brought county and city jails out from under local authorities in the United Kingdom. We found the antecedent to all reform was State centralization. In 1877 every prison and jail was put under central administrative authority, and the expenses paid out of the imperial funds. Three acts were passed simultaneously for the three kingdoms. We then began at the bottom, closing all the superfluous ones, and in that way we were able to close about half.”
I have the following statement from Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise, of England: “The Prison Act, 1877, transferred the Local Prisons of this Country (i.e. prisons for the confinement of all classes of prisoners other than those sentenced to penal servitude) from the control of local ‘Visiting Magistrates’ to that of the State. The Act came into effect on the 1st of April, 1878, 113 Local Prisons being so transferred. Since that date, their number has been reduced to 56. At the time of their transfer, the Local Prison population stood at 21,030—the highest known. From that date a continuous fall was recorded until 1885, when the numbers reached slightly over 15,000. After a series of fluctuations below and above this number, the population stands at 15,000 at the present time. Relatively to the total population of the country, the figure for 1878 represented 686 committals per 100,000, while that for the year ended 31st March 1912 was the lowest on record, viz., 439 per 100,000.”
Massachusetts, perhaps, has led the agitation in this country for State control of county jails. In other States there has been some publicity in favor of such action. An offender against the federal law becomes a prisoner of the United States and is under the direction of the federal judge. Why should one who violates a State law not be a prisoner of the State? That is the theory that underlies the new law for jail supervision in Indiana. Offenders against the State law have been placed under the oversight and authority of the judge of the circuit or criminal court, who is a State official. This judge may say where and how the prisoner shall be detained, and if the jail is unsatisfactory he may condemn it. He is authorized to prescribe rules formulated by the Board of State Charities, which has supervision of all jails and other public charitable and correctional institutions. A violation of these rules, once entered in his order book, is in effect a contempt of court.
While these advance steps have been taken, the reform is by no means general. Most of the States continue to use, unchanged, the system long since discarded in Europe, whence it came. The results are not reformatory. On the contrary, they are destructive alike to the individual and those with whom he later comes in contact. Local jails are recruiting stations for our larger State correctional institutions. We should make greater progress in reformation if we did not first pollute the stream we are going to treat.
The outlook is not bright, but it is by no means hopeless. The evils which exist are the natural result of the system we adopted. Let us change the system. Let us begin at the bottom and study all the steps in the treatment of the offender—his apprehension, detention, trial, conviction, probation, confinement, treatment, employment, conditional release, final discharge. Let us set as our goal:
1. A system of police recognizing character, merit, and efficiency in the personnel and a proper social view for its operations.
2. A prompt hearing for every person arrested.
3. The establishment of juvenile courts for all children’s cases.
4. Provision for the care and detention of delinquent children outside the jail.
5. A probation system for adults similar to that of juvenile courts.