The Man Behind the Bars

by Winifred Louise Taylor

I have not hesitated to brand my own State with this third-degree evil, but I understand it is practised also in other States on the pretext that the end justifies the means—but what if the end is the life imprisonment of an innocent man? I have in mind a young man who was subjected to four days of sweat-box torture. At the end of that time, when even death by hanging offered at least a respite from his tormentors, he signed a statement, drawn up by those tormentors, to the effect that he was guilty of murder. The boy was only eighteen, but was sent to prison for life, though it now seems likely that he had nothing to do with the crime. However, it is difficult to secure pardon for a man sent to prison on his own confession; and there is just where the injustice is blackest: it cuts from under a man's feet all substance in a subsequent declaration of innocence, for it stands on the records of the case that he confessed his guilt.

There are of course many cases where the third degree is not resorted to; indeed, its use seems to be mainly confined to the cities where police stations are a ring within a ring. In smaller towns after the arrest is made the case usually comes to trial with no previous unauthorized attempt to induce the prisoner to convict himself, and, if the accused is a man of means who can employ an able lawyer, the trial becomes a game between the opposing lawyers, and both sides have at least a fair chance. Not so when the court appoints a lawyer for the poor man. The prosecution then plays the game with loaded dice; for it is the custom for the court to appoint the least experienced fledgling in the profession. Los Angeles, Cal., has recently introduced an admirable measure to secure a nearer approach to justice in the courts for the poor man, by the appointment of a regular district attorney for the defence of accused persons who are unable to pay for a competent lawyer. This appointment of a public defender has been made solely with the aim of securing justice for the poor and for the ignorant foreigner; it is a most encouraging step in the right direction, and seems a hopeful means of exterminating the sweat-box system.

We cannot hope to accomplish much with preventive measures until we frankly face the causes of the evils we would reduce. That the saloon is a prolific source of crime the records of all the courts unquestionably prove; it is also one of the causes of the poverty which in its turn becomes a cause of crime. The saloon is wholly in the hands of the public, to be modified, controlled, or abolished according to the dictates of the majority. This is not so easy as it sounds, but when we realize that while the saloon-keeper reaps all the profits of his business it is the taxpayer who is obliged to pay the expense of the crimes resulting from that business, the question becomes one of public economy as well as of public morals. The force which makes for social evolution is bound to win in the long run, and the gradual elimination of the saloon as it stands to-day is inevitable; and certain it is that with the control of the saloon evil there will be a marked reduction in the number of crimes committed.

The criminal ranks receive annual reinforcement from a number of sources now tolerated by a long-suffering public. We still have our army of tramps, caused in part by defective management of county jails where men are supported in enforced idleness at the expense of the working community; the result also of unstable industrial conditions and far greater competition, since women, by cutting wages, have so largely taken possession of industrial fields. Constitutional restlessness and aversion to steady work also cause men and boys to try the easy if precarious tramp life; and in hard-luck times the slip into crime comes almost as a matter of course.

The trail of the banishment of the tramp evil has already been blazed through Belgium, Holland, and Switzerland by the development of the farm colony to which every tramp is rigidly sent. There he is subjected to an industrial training involving recognition of individual ability, and development along the lines to which he is best adapted. These farm colonies are schools of industry where every man is obliged to work for his living while there, and is fitted to earn a living when he leaves. The results of these measures have been altogether satisfactory, and we have but to adapt their methods to conditions in this country to accomplish similar results. The elimination of the tramp is a necessary safeguard to the community; and to the tramp himself it is rescue from cumulative degradation.

Mr. Fielding-Hall, an Englishman, at one time magistrate, later warden of the largest prison in the world, and the most radical of humanitarians, after years of exhaustive study of the causes of crime, declares that society alone is responsible. He adds: "It is no use saying that criminals are born, not made; they are made and they are made by society." And it is true that in every community where human beings are herded in foul tenements, herded in crowded, unsanitary factories, or live their days underground in mines, we shall continue to breed a class mentally, morally, and physically defective, some of whom will inevitably be subject to criminal outbreaks. Poverty causes ill health, and malnutrition saps the power of self-control.

Medical science is even now telling us that there is probably no form of criminal tendency unrelated to physiological defects: brain-cells poisoned by disease; brain-cells defective either through heredity—as in the offspring of the feeble-minded—or enfeebled through malnutrition in childhood, the offspring of want; brains slightly out of balance; and, more rarely, the criminal impulse developed as the result of direct injury to the brain caused by a blow. Crimes are also committed under temporary abnormal conditions such as "dual personality" or double consciousness. In this diagnosis of crime we find ourselves next door to a hospital; and this class of criminals does closely parallel what alienists call "borderland cases," while the unscientific penologist has carelessly classified them as "degenerates." Physicians tell us that when Lombroso was studying "types," if he had invaded the charity hospitals of large cities he would have found the same stunted, undernourished, physically defective specimens of humanity that he stigmatized as the "criminal type."

Of two prisoners whom I knew well one was subject to slight attacks of catalepsy, the other to epilepsy; each of these men had committed a murder, and each said to me the same thing: "I had no reason to kill that person and I don't know why I did it." Both these men were religious and extremely conscientious; but when the "spells" came on them they were irresponsible as a leaf blown by the wind; and while passionately regretting their deeds of horror they seemed always to regard the act as something outside themselves.

None of us yet understand the interaction between the mental and physical in the nature of man, but the fact of this interdependence is clear; and while progressive prison wardens are sifting the human material thrown into their hands, giving comparative freedom to "honor men," and industrial training and elementary education to those within the walls, they do not ignore the fact that there is a residue—they are in all our prisons—a residue of men who cannot stand alone morally; handicapped by causes for which they may not be responsible they cannot hope to be "honor men" for they are moral invalids—often mental invalids as well. That they should be kept under restraint goes without saying. They need the control of a firm yet flexible hand, and they should be under direct medical supervision; for back of their crimes may be causes other than bad blood.[16]

Improved factory laws, better housing of the poor, the enforcement of regulations for public hygiene, the application of some of the saner theories of eugenics, the work of district nurses, all these are on the way to reduce the number of diseased or abnormal individuals who fall so readily into crime. Already we have several recorded instances when a blow on the head had caused uncontrollable criminal impulses, where skilful brain surgery removed the pressure, and with the restoration of the normal brain the nature of the individual recovered its moral balance. Every large city should have its psychopathic detention hospital in connection with its courts, to be resorted to in all cases where there is doubt of the responsibility of any person accused of crime, and every large penitentiary should have its psychopathic department for men sent to prison from smaller towns.