The city of New York has taken initial steps to make more adequate provision for dealing with inebriates and persons arrested for public intoxication. Following the enactment of a law authorizing the city to establish such a board, the board of estimate and apportionment of the city appointed a special committee to inquire into the feasibility and advisability of undertaking such a work. As a result of the report of the committee the board of estimate and apportionment decided to initiate the work. In accordance with provisions of the law, the mayor appointed a board of five members. The commissioner of public charities and the commissioner of correction are ex-officio members of the board.
This board has started its preliminary work. Possible sites for institutions have been studied and a request for funds for carrying on the work of the board has been made to the city authorities. In the budget for the coming year, provision is made for a sufficient amount of money for the board to secure a secretary and necessary office assistance. The appointment of a secretary, who can give his whole time to the work, will enable the board to study the problem further and formulate more in detail their plans and present them to the city for its ratification by providing the necessary funds for carrying them out.
This board has been established to do a most important piece of work. It will provide not only a hospital and industrial colony for the care of inebriates, but will establish under its jurisdiction a system of special probation work for cases of intoxication. The work of the board will doubtless be watched by persons interested in this work all over the country. A measure similar to the New York city law, giving authority to any city of the first or second class in the state of New York to make provision for the care and treatment of inebriates, was enacted at the last session of the legislature, and a committee has been formed in the city of Buffalo to secure the adoption of the plan in that city.
EVENTS IN BRIEF
[Under this heading will appear each month numerous paragraphs of general interest, relating to the prison field and the treatment of the delinquent.]
The American Prison Association.—Under the title, “The Problem of Prisons.” the Outlook describes thus the recent annual meeting:
“A noteworthy interest in the proper employment of the prisoners in American prisons, reformatories, and jails was the keynote of the annual congress of the American prison association held recently at Omaha. This interest resulted in the appointment of a special committee, in which the name of the president of the American federation of labor is found among others, to investigate thoroughly prison labor conditions in this country and to report recommendations at the next year’s congress in Baltimore as to the best labor methods to be pursued in the correctional institutions of the various states. No more far-reaching action has been taken by the American prison association in the last decade. The sessions of the Omaha congress teemed with aspects of the labor problem. From New Zealand the success of reforestation by prisoners was reported: from Toronto, the remarkable working of convicts on a wide prison farm without armed guards. From the District of Columbia came reports of several successful years of collection of important sums from convicted offenders on probation, for the benefit and support of their families. Colorado has built almost half a hundred miles of state road by prisoners in the open, and other states have emulated the record. The congress was permeated with the feeling that prisoners should be steadily and profitably employed, not exploited by state or corporation or individual, and that so far as possible the families of prisoners should receive some portion of their earnings. Two other currents were strongly felt: one for the rational development of recreation in correctional institutions, the other for the more careful study of the mental and physical condition of each inmate. Baseball, lectures, concerts, prison schools, and other educational features were warmly advocated. Outdoor sports on a week-end half-day were held to be not only a valuable ‘exhaust pipe’ for pent-up spirits and emotions developed in a necessarily abnormal condition of living, but also a distinct part of the plan of re-creation that is a prominent purpose of imprisonment. As to mental and physical defectives, the testimony of specialists was strong, not only that a considerable percentage of prison inmates are mentally backward and deficient, thus requiring special treatment rather than ordinary prison discipline, but that many industrial and living conditions, in which offenders, young and old, have found themselves, tend predominantly to crime. In several sessions emphasis was laid also on the deplorable absence of statistics regarding crime in the United States, it being shown to be impossible to-day to tell whether crime is increasing or decreasing or what the general results of imprisonment in prisons or reformatories are. Encouraging indeed was the frank introspection that the prison wardens and boards of managers gave to this and their own work. Of special interest was the report of Attorney-General Wickersham on the success up to the present time of the parole system for United States prisoners, who now may be paroled, if first offenders, at the end of a third of the maximum term of their imprisonment, by the action of a board of parole consisting of the warden of the penitentiary in which the prisoner is confined and representatives of the Federal department of justice. The Attorney-General advocated the extension of the parole system to cover the cases of life prisoners, details of administration of which would naturally be worked out in legislation.”
The following officers were chosen:
President—Frederick G. Pettigrove, Boston.
General Secretary—Joseph P. Byers, Newark, N. J.