A problem in administrative efficiency that must be worked out is the co-ordination of probation and parole systems. There seem no valid reasons why in general the same persons cannot do both probation and parole work in the same localities. At present parole supervision is usually exercised by persons who are not probation officers and often the parole officers are itinerant officers obliged to travel over wide areas. The effective supervision and aid of those on parole requires that those exercising the parole oversight shall confine their efforts to a comparatively limited area. The efficiency of parole service would undoubtedly be greatly strengthened in communities where it is not practicable to have special parole officers, if the parole work were entrusted to the local probation officers. This combination of work, if properly carried on, can be carried on with mutual advantage to both systems and without any detriment to either of them.
The Wives and Children of Prisoners. The dependency of these often innocent victims of the delinquency of the breadwinner is closely allied to the problem of prison labor. Any plan is paradoxical that removes a breadwinner to prison idleness and leaves a despairing family to exist by charitable help or by the bounty of impoverished neighbors. The state having the right to protect itself from crime by imprisoning the offender, has also the duty to make work for him, first to pay for his own maintenance, and secondly, to contribute, so far as possible, to the maintenance of his family. No explanations of alleged necessary idleness, of lack of orders for prison goods, of political interference with extension of prison labor systems, or of the need of the payment of prisoners’ earnings to a tax-ridden state should prevail against the fact that the state or the political subdivision of a state owes to the stricken family the partial fruits of the toil of the prisoner and must develop such a system of industry as will both make the prisoner self supporting and bring to his family some return for his labor. Inability to accomplish less than this is a confession of state-inefficiency that should not be tolerated and that invites the fullest scrutiny.
Farm Colonies. The campaign for compulsory farm colonies for habitual tramps and vagrants has gained much impetus since 1907, when the problems of vagrancy were discussed in detail, at the Minneapolis national conference of charities and correction. In a half dozen states farm colony bills were introduced last winter, but none were passed. The press seems almost unanimous in favor of such colonies; public opinion is expressing even greater annoyance at the so-called “tramp-army.” Typical of the dissatisfaction with the present expensive and palliative treatment of vagrancy is the reiterated statement of the New York State Board of Charities that vagrancy costs the state of New York about two million dollars a year from public and private charitable funds.
The time certainty seems at hand for a systematic campaign against the vagrancy evil. Drifting methods of alleviation and of passing-on constitute only an aggravation of the situation. Vagrancy and crime are closely akin. The Committee on Lawbreakers raises the question whether the movement partially organized several years ago for a national vagrancy committee should not at this session of the national conference be organized with the aim of furthering systematic methods for the reduction of vagrancy. A problem in European countries sufficiently serious to be called one of the most fundamental social problems deserves systematic and adequate attention in the United States where the problem is still in its earlier stages.
Closely allied is the great problem of inebriety and its treatment. The special United States census of 1904 showed that 54% of all commitments to correctional institutions were due to intoxication, vagrancy and disorderly conduct. A special committee of this national conference of 1911 treats of this national question in a general session and in section meetings. The committee on lawbreakers emphasizes the pressing immediate need of state and national campaigns for the reduction of drunkenness and the rational treatment of the drunkard.
Prisoners’ Aid Societies. Organized charitable work of private societies in the correctional field is woefully slight in comparison with the charity organization movement for the spread of the gospel of social service. There are hardly a score of active prisoners’ aid societies of fairly wide range in the United States. Yet the great movement for probation and parole, for better prisons and for better prisoners, for the help of released prisoners and for dependent families of prisoners, for the reduction of vagrancy and inebriety, for the better care of the mentally or physically defective delinquents, for better laws and greater public information—these great movements need the directing power of strong charitable organizations of the prisoners’ aid kind. The field of delinquency needs the same thorough development that in the last generation has been accorded to the field of charity. A national prisoners’ aid society was organized at the last meeting of the American Prison Association, to develop greater co-operation between the now existing prisoners’ aid societies and to extend the prisoners’ aid work. The national association publishes a monthly journal of sixteen pages called the Review.
American Criminology. Tendencies in this country in the problems of the treatment of the criminal have been overwhelmingly administrative rather than analytical and academic. Our foreign guests in 1910 often remarked that we characteristically experimented and did things rather than debated and philosophized on the theories of criminology. The extravagance of sole adhesion to the former method is increasingly obvious, however, and has led, among other things, to the organization of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, a central body for the inculcation of more scientific methods for the treatment of the delinquent as well as for the extension of our knowledge of the criminal. A recent conference in New York City on the reform of the criminal law and procedure indicated the wide-spread belief of the ablest members of the bench and bar that our criminal law and its administration need radical reforms. In the fields of criminal statistics, also, we need far more light even if such light shall only indicate clearly that comprehensive and accurate criminal statistics are practically impossible to collate. To the efforts of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology to advance in accuracy, in dignity, and in usefulness our store of information as to crime and its treatment, the national conference should give full credit and strong encouragement.
THE SUPPRESSION OF MORAL DEFECTIVES
Abstract of Address of Charles W. Eliot, President Emeritus of Harvard University
The prevention of crime through the isolation or extirpation of criminals offers many analogies to the prevention of disease by the isolation or death of diseased persons. These analogies are obvious, and are based on observed facts and not on any theory that all moral defects originate in, or are caused by physical defects. Opinions might differ widely concerning the bodily origin of drunkenness, inordinate sexual passion, or kleptomania; and yet persons holding different views on this point might agree as to the wisest treatment in practice of such moral delinquents. Let us compare society’s treatment of moral defectives with its best treatment of physical defectives. In the first place, a large proportion of the crimes committed in our country are not treated socially at all, the criminals escaping detection and arrest, or being acquitted when brought to trial through the ingenious use of legal technicalities and delays. This is as if victims of scarlet fever or smallpox should be left quite free to move about in the community so far as their condition permitted, society manifesting no active interest in their welfare and taking no precautions whatever against the spread of their disease.