Convicted Public Officials.
There were two former public officials who had betrayed their trusts and been punished among the applicants for parole at the April Sing Sing meeting, one having been a magistrate and the other an official of his home county. Each of these men had a home to go to and sufficient money to live on for a time at least, and each announced his intention upon his release to go into the real estate and insurance business. Both of these men were put through the same course of kindly but thorough questioning on the same points as the prisoners from humbler walks in life by Mr. Collins, and both are, of course, compelled to conform to the same rules of parole as the others.
One convict who had the sympathy of the Board was an exceptionally keen and alert former man o’ war’s man of the United States Navy, thirty years of age, who had learned the trade of structural iron worker after honorable discharge from the service. He had kept up his union dues while in prison and had a job at $6 a day waiting for him on his release. The former sailor had served two years of an indeterminate sentence on conviction for bigamy, of which crime he was legally guilty. He had first married an unworthy woman, who had left him and their child, and, having reason to believe that she would not cross his path again, had gone through the ceremony with another woman, whom he had informed of his previous martial experience. On the first woman’s discovery of his relations with the other, however, she had sworn out a warrant against him and he had been tried and sentenced accordingly.
Investigation showed that the prisoner’s child was being properly brought up by his mother, an eminently respectable woman, and that the conviction for bigamy was the only blot upon an otherwise honorable life. He had never used intoxicating liquors even in the navy, which is something of a test of character. There is little doubt that this man will “make good.”
An idea of the value of the scholastic instruction in our State prisons may be gathered from the fact that four convicts—three Italians, and one Russian—who came before the Board at the Sing Sing meeting in April had learned the English language and reading and writing during the periods of their incarceration. Three other Italian convicts, who had begun their sentences entirely ignorant of the language and had not progressed so far as to be able to answer the questions of the chairman of the Board without the aid of an interpreter, made not the slightest protest on being informed that they would be retained a little longer in prison until they should be somewhat improved in reading, writing and speaking English. Ten or twelve of the men paroled on this particular occasion had learned trades in Sing Sing. Entering the prison as unskilled common laborers, they left it fairly qualified in trades that pay good wages.
Provision for the indeterminate sentence in the State of New York was first inaugurated by a law enacted in 1889, which merely permitted such sentences in all cases and made no distinction between the first offenders and recidivists. The early hostility of the judiciary to the parole system is illustrated by the fact that during the twelve years’ life of this law, from 1889 to 1901, only 115 indeterminate sentences were imposed in all the criminal courts of the State, involving 13,000 convicts committed to its prisons, not one subject of an indeterminate sentence in all these years being sent to Sing Sing from New York city, which furnishes about 70 per cent of all commitments to the State prisons. In 1901 the indeterminate sentence was made mandatory for first offenders in all cases where the maximum penalty was five years or less, but it was not until 1907 that it became mandatory in all cases of first offenders, with the exception of those convicted of murder in the first degree. In 1909 a law was enacted applying the parole system to all first offenders then in prison under definite sentences.
The system that bears the name of “probation” is one which has grown to its present proportions and importance since 1901 through the enactment of no less than forty general and local statutes. First applied only to adults and in cities, its benefits have been wisely extended to children and to all the courts of the State. By legislation in 1909 a measure took effect which enables boards of supervisors to fix salaries for probation officers, and during last year fifteen counties availed themselves of this privilege, and others are following their example. The system does not exist and is not designed for habitual criminals and hardened recidivists, but only for first offenders; or, at least, for such whose personal characteristics and history give promise of good results from its restraining and guiding influence.
Reforms Inside Prisons.
Had it not been for reforms inside the prisons it would have been impossible to successfully apply the parole and probation systems in the State. A writer in the World’s Work says, “With the last ten years greater advances in the reform of prison administration have been made throughout civilization than during all the previous centuries that man has been forcibly sequestering his lawless brother from society,” and he declares that the United States has led the world in these reforms, and that New York has led the other forty-seven States. More than to any other one man the constructive legislation and the progressive reforms that have brought about this splendid advance in humanity and civilization is due to Cornelius V. Collins, who, as has been mentioned, recently resigned the position of State Superintendent of Prisons, which he had held for thirteen years. When Mr. Collins first took charge of the prisons of New York the essential principal of penology was retribution; in the words of Dr. Frederick H. Wines, “to measure guilt on the one hand and suffering on the other, and to strike an equitable balance between the two.” The effort seemed aimed at stamping out the convict’s self-respect. He was forced to move about outside of his cell in the degrading lockstep formation, his hand on another convict’s shoulder and his eyes on the ground; he wore a hideous black striped suit of ashen gray; his hair was cropped close to his head; he ate his meals from tin dishes. Although it was against the law, corporal punishment was quite generally administered to prisoners.
To-day, due to the efforts of Mr. Collins, a well fitting uniform of bright blue gray has been substituted for the convict’s striped suit, and the military squad formation has superseded the lockstep. His hair is trimmed with shears to suit his individual preference. Crockery has replaced the old tin cups and pans in the prisons of the State. An oculist and a dentist look after the eyes and teeth of the prisoners. An electric light in each cell has replaced the old tallow candles. Infraction of rules in the New York prisons to-day merely consigns the convict to solitary confinement until he reaches a normal condition of mind and signifies his willingness to conform to discipline. The paddle, the rack, the ducking stool and all other forms of corporal punishment have been abolished in New York’s penal institutions.