Offers of Employment.
In addition to these formal documents each prisoner’s dossier contained letters from persons whose names he had given as references, and offers of employment, written upon a blank form and signed by the proposed employer before a notary, giving his name, address and business, and stating the amount of wages he proposes to pay and whether the amount included board. These offers of employment had been investigated thoroughly by a parole officer or some one connected with the Board, and were indorsed as approved or otherwise. All of the documents had been prepared with care and deliberation within six weeks before the meeting of the Board.
Each applicant is brought separately before the Board of Parole, which consists of three members (the State Superintendent of Prisons, ex officio, and two others appointed by the Governor) of equal rank, the Superintendent generally presiding, though either of his colleagues is competent for the position and frequently relieves him. The Board having familiarized itself with the documents in each prisoner’s case, he is questioned as kindly and delicately as possible with regard to every detail essential to a knowledge of his past life and his future prospects and intentions. As a misstatement to the Board, if detected, has a most unfavorable effect upon the prisoner’s petition for parole, and as any statement he may make is subject to verification, he generally speaks the truth. No unnecessary inquisition is made, however. Indeed, at the meeting in April a prisoner who refused to answer certain question as to his parentage, because he had thus far succeeded in keeping information of his conviction for crime from his family, was nevertheless released on parole.
One of the interesting cases at a recent meeting at Sing Sing was that of an Irishman, forty-nine years of age, who had served twenty years of a life sentence for murder in the second degree, but had become eligible for parole under the law of 1907. Being asked the usual question:—“Do you think that you will be able to support yourself out of prison?” he replied confidently in the affirmative.
“Twenty-five years ago,” he said, “I got married and went into the trucking business in New York with one horse and wagon. When my trouble came I had twenty double teams at work. My wife has carried on the business all the time I have been in prison, but she had a hard pull to get over the panic four years ago, and now she’s only got four teams. Two years from now I’ll have the twenty teams at work again.”
Responding to another of the customary questions, “Are you and your wife on friendly terms?” the man’s eyes filled with tears.
“On friendly terms, is it?” he repeated, his voice trembling. “God bless her, she’s never missed a visit to me under the rules, winter or summer, snow or rain or sunshine, ill or well, in the twenty years I’m here, nor did I once fail to get a letter on letter day! Aye, we’re on friendly terms, or I’d stay right here in this prison rather than go out of it.”
It is reasonably certain that man will keep his parole.
Another case somewhat out of the ordinary was that of a man of thirty, who, in a confidential position, had embezzled several thousand dollars from his employer and spent it in riotous living. He had evidently been a wild young fellow, but he was possessed of superior intelligence and education and had undoubtedly come to realize that he had been making a fool of himself and that it was time for him to make amends. Indeed, the warden, the principal keeper and the chaplain, reporting separately, each expressed the opinion that the prisoner was sincere in his expressed determination to redeem his character on leaving prison. The meeting of the Board in April was the third occasion on which his application had been presented. The employer whom he had despoiled had objected to the man being admitted to parole on the two previous occasions, and while that might not have had undue weight with the Board, word had been received from the police of a city in the South that the prisoner was wanted there for murder. It turned out that he was the wrong man that time, but it put off his chance for parole.
On this last occasion the prisoner’s former employer had retracted his protests, against his being admitted to parole, and the man had the offer of a good position on his release. No prisoner is ever admitted to parole unless he can show that he will be self-supporting out of prison. Only a day or two before this meeting of the Board, however, a letter had been received by the warden of the prison from the New York Police Department to the effect that the police of a Western city had telegraphed that a warrant for the man’s arrest was on the way from that city, where he was wanted for grand larceny. Of course it was impossible to admit him on parole until this warrant had been disposed of. The prisoner was bitterly disappointed, for he had been anticipating immediate freedom after three years of incarceration.