GEORGIA’S NEW SECRETARY
Robert B. McCord has been recently made secretary of the Prison Association of Georgia, with headquarters at 404 Gould building, Atlanta. Concerning the new incumbent, the Atlanta Georgian says:
“Mr. McCord is a native Georgian and has spent years in specializing on the character of work in which he will now be engaged. After a preliminary course at the University of Florida, he attended Yale university, from which he graduated in 1908. After his course at Yale he attended the University of Chicago. Mr. McCord was closely associated with Dr. C. R. Henderson for two years in research work.
“In outlining the work of which he will have charge, Mr. McCord said:
‘The prison associations of the several states are not organized on the same plan, or for doing the same phases of the work in every case. The Prison Association of Georgia is not modeled after any of them, yet in the work outlined it resembles more nearly the Prison Association of New York.
“‘The Prison Association will investigate and attempt to throw light upon the causes that underlie crime of the various kinds in this state. It will collect information from officials and suggestions from men of experience in Georgia, methods employed in other states and countries, and it will publish these in various ways to the people of the state. It will aid in introducing and extending methods of preventing crime and reforming offenders. It will endeavor to organize such influence as will secure the building and equipping of proper institutions for those offenders who can not be dealt with more profitably and wisely by methods of probation and parole. It will direct its efforts to securing the proper equipment and regular inspection of jails and prisons of all kinds. It will in time organize such aid as may enable the discharged prisoner to establish himself again in the confidence of the people instead his possessing that dangerous state of mind which characterizes one who feels himself an outcast of society’.”
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.]
What Can Be Done With the Drunkard?—In many states the approach of the legislative season has brought forth bills providing for a more rational treatment of the drunkard. A commission appointed by Governor Warner of Michigan to make a study of minor criminal offenses will recommend to the legislature at the 1911 session the establishment of an inebriates’ farm where the drunkard, habitual or occasional, may work off the habit under the influence of helpful and healthful surroundings. The commission, all of whose members are lawyers, have found that petty crime is increasing in Michigan at the rate of ten per cent a year, while the population is increasing at the rate of but four per cent. The report emphasizes that the present Michigan methods of dealing with petty offenders are not reformatory.