“Generally speaking, the prisoners are not kept in as cleanly a condition as they should be. The bedding and cells more particularly should be especially cleansed whenever not occupied and ready for the next comer. The great difficulty is the fact that prisoners wear their own old clothing into the jail and thus introduce dirt and vermin which require a continual fight from those in charge. A limited number of suits could be provided by the county and the men required to bathe and put these on while their own are fumigated. There is no excuse for the filth in some of our jails.”
English Progress—In the Providence (R. I.) Sunday Journal, of April 9th, the London correspondent of that paper quotes Thomas Holmes, Secretary of the Howard Association of London, as follows:
“If some of the American methods were grafted on to the English prison administration, the effect would work remarkably for good. I found that their probation system was worked much more effectively and thoroughly than it is in England. Their probation officers are fitted absolutely for the work. On this side there are no paid probation officers as such; they are either voluntary workers or servants of some charitable society, not state officials. At present we are only playing with the probation idea in England. If we could get men of character and capability, occupying fairly well-paid posts, we should have better results than you have in America.”
Secretary Holmes went on to say that in his opinion the weakness in the position of the American probation officers resided in the fact that the judges made the appointments. If the probation officer was a strong man he influenced the judge too much, and if a weak man he was apt to become creature of the judge.
He feels strongly that England is following the lead of America, slowly but surely, in the development of the parole system, though no legislation has as yet been passed in this direction.
“We are getting tired of judges inflicting very long sentences—practically life sentences,” he says. “There is a constant agitation always going on behind the scenes to get sentence commuted. Again and again the Home Secretary—whom I know and respect—has to reconsider the sentences prisoners are serving. This puts him in a delicate position. He has to consult the judges who passed the sentences. If the Home Secretary commutes the sentence it is a snub to the judge.
“What we want in England at each prison is a board, consisting of the governor, chaplain, doctor, a representative of the Home Office and one or two visiting justices. They should have the power of releasing on parole any prisoner whose condition warranted that concession. But the American Board of Parole is not comprehensive enough; it is too much in the hands of one or two.”
The mercantile element in some of the American State prisons came in for some adverse criticism, but in the matters of greater space, better buildings, better equipped workshops, greater variety and volume of work and more recreation and education for the prisoners, the American State jails, said Secretary Holmes, are superior to the English. But in the construction and appointment of the local county jails he thinks the advantage lies with the English models.