EVENTS IN BRIEF
[Under this heading will appear each month numerous paragraphs of general interest, relating to the prison field and the treatment of the delinquent.]
[Under this heading will appear each month numerous paragraphs of general interest, relating to the prison field and the treatment of the delinquent.]
The Ethics of Governor Blease.—The executive of South Carolina, who has pardoned 1200 convicts in three years, has written about it all. Here are some of the reasons he gives for pardons.
In telling why he paroled a negronamed Sam Gaskins, convicted of manslaughter, the Governor wrote:
“This negro, being engaged to a negro girl, called to see her and in fooling with a pistol it went off and killed her. It seems to have been a very sad accident. However, after a second thought, possibly it was for the good of humanity, for had they married no doubt they would have brought forth more negroes to the future detriment of the State.”
In explaining why he pardoned J. Allen Emerson, a white man, who was serving a life sentence for murder, he said that the imprisonment of Emerson had seriously impaired the health of the man’s sister. “Her life,” the Governor states, “is worth more to her and her children and is worth more to the citizenship and motherhood of this country than the incarceration of her brother is worth to the State.”
In pardoning Roland Parris, who was convicted of assault and battery on his brother-in-law, with intent to kill, the Governor explains that Parris was protecting his sister from abuse. “I congratulate him,” the Governor says, “for being man enough to protect his sister from a drunken husband; in fact, I think there should be an appropriation made by which the Governor could award him a gold medal of honor for his action.”
The Governor thinks that if any white man calls another a certain vile epithet and is killed the verdict should not be greater than manslaughter. If a negro applies the epithet to a white man he doesn’t care to say what he thinks the verdict ought to be, but “people may draw their own conclusions.”
Germans to See Prisons.—An unofficial tour of inspection of American prisons and reformatories by Prussian Government officers will be made during the month of August. The Prison Association of New York has been asked to arrange the details of the proposed tour. The chairman of the delegation will be Dr. Karl Finkelnburg, who for many years has been prominent as a German prison warden, and who has recentlybeen promoted to the position of director of Prussian prisons under the Ministry of the Interior, a position which had been occupied by the late Dr. Krohne.
Dr. Finkelnburg, who will arrive upon the Imperator about the end of the first week in August, will be accompanied by Professor Darmstaedter, of the University of Berlin, and also by a member of the Prussian Parliament. The tour of correctional institutions will cover a period of thirty-five days, during which time many of the most important prisons and reformatories of the Eastern and central positions of the country will be visited.
In recent years American correctional institutions have been frequently the object of careful study by foreign countries. In 1910, several hundred foreign delegates not only attended the International Prison Congress at Washington, but made a ten day’s tour, by invitation of the Federal Government, of many institutions. In 1913 a tour of inspection was arranged for four official representatives of the Prussian Government—Messrs. Plaschke, Schlosser, Hiekmann, and Remmpis. During a month and a half nearly fifty separate institutions were carefully inspected. The official report to the Prussian Government of these gentlemen has not yet been received from that Government by the United States.
The German Government is discussing the proposed revision of the penal law of Germany. Some of the most modern and successful features of American prison and reformatory management are being carefully considered in this connection.
A “Relic of the Dark Ages”—So the American newspaper correspondents called the Vera Cruz prison in Mexico.
Most famous of all Mexico’s prisons, noted for the untold thousands tortured within its walls, the castle prison of San Juan de Ulua, stands today on a little island overlooking Vera Cruz pretty much as it stood in the centuries of its existence. On April 28 the flagof Mexico fluttered down from its flagstaff. The stars and stripes rose in its place as Captain Paul Chamberlain and a company of marines from the North Dakota took possession.In his despatch to the navy department reporting the taking over of the fortress Rear Admiral Fletcher said:“The prison has been taken over under mutual agreement made between myself and Colonel Vigil, in charge, which agreement was signed and approved by Admiral Badger. There are in the prison 43 prisoners who have been sentenced for crime, 75 who have been accused of crime but have not been brought to trial and also 325 who have not been accused of any misdemeanor whatever. These 325 were arrested mostly within the last two months in order to be forced into the federal army and for no other reason. The above data were obtained from the officer in charge. The conditions in the prison under which the 325 men are living are described as frightful.”Secretary Daniels directed the release of these 325 men, ordering that the seventy-five awaiting trial should be held pending investigation by the American authorities into the charges against them.“No stage manager putting on ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ could imagine anything more creepy than the sight which met the eyes of the American officers when the keys were turned in the rusty locks and they entered the ancient vaults,” wrote an American newspaper man describing his visit to the prison.In the grim, forbidding, gloomy pile of San Juan de Ulua the Spanish inquisitors found a building suited to the purposes and one which appealed to their torture-loving tastes. Only a fifteenth century Spaniard could have designed such a castle.
Most famous of all Mexico’s prisons, noted for the untold thousands tortured within its walls, the castle prison of San Juan de Ulua, stands today on a little island overlooking Vera Cruz pretty much as it stood in the centuries of its existence. On April 28 the flagof Mexico fluttered down from its flagstaff. The stars and stripes rose in its place as Captain Paul Chamberlain and a company of marines from the North Dakota took possession.
In his despatch to the navy department reporting the taking over of the fortress Rear Admiral Fletcher said:
“The prison has been taken over under mutual agreement made between myself and Colonel Vigil, in charge, which agreement was signed and approved by Admiral Badger. There are in the prison 43 prisoners who have been sentenced for crime, 75 who have been accused of crime but have not been brought to trial and also 325 who have not been accused of any misdemeanor whatever. These 325 were arrested mostly within the last two months in order to be forced into the federal army and for no other reason. The above data were obtained from the officer in charge. The conditions in the prison under which the 325 men are living are described as frightful.”
Secretary Daniels directed the release of these 325 men, ordering that the seventy-five awaiting trial should be held pending investigation by the American authorities into the charges against them.
“No stage manager putting on ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ could imagine anything more creepy than the sight which met the eyes of the American officers when the keys were turned in the rusty locks and they entered the ancient vaults,” wrote an American newspaper man describing his visit to the prison.
In the grim, forbidding, gloomy pile of San Juan de Ulua the Spanish inquisitors found a building suited to the purposes and one which appealed to their torture-loving tastes. Only a fifteenth century Spaniard could have designed such a castle.
First Field Day at Auburn (N. Y.) Prison.—Despite several hundred light cases of Scarlet fever, at the century old prison at Auburn “on Memorial Day traditions were set aside when the 1,400 prisoners there were given three hours in which to loaf or play and enjoy themselves in the open air,” says the Poughkeepsie Press. “At two o’clock in the afternoon they were marched into the yard in their usual companies, and at a bugle signal they were disbanded. Then they played baseball, and participated in other outdoor sports. There were cheers for the winning contestants and a good time generally. At the end of the three hours the bugle sounded the recall, the companies were formed again, and when the men marched back into the prison there was not a prisoner missing, and there had not been a single infractionof discipline.
“In this instance the short outing was a complete success. It did not destroy discipline, nor will it tend to create the supposition that the men are pampered at Auburn.”
Road Making in New York.—In accordance with the policy of the State Prison Department and by means of an appropriation made at the last session of the legislature, the Department has placed groups of convicts from the various State prisons at work improving roads in different parts of the State. The plan will be extended as fast as possible with the available appropriation and it is hoped that some 500 miles of earth road will be improved during the summer.
At present there are five convict squads on the roads. Three squads have been sent out from Dannemora. They are all engaged in Clinton County one squad improving a bad stretch of the old military turnpike. Two more squads are out from Great Meadow, one working on the Comstock-Whitehall road and the other on the Ticonderoga-Schroon lake road in Warren county.
So far the plan has proved most successful. The convicts are keen for the chance of work in the open air and the result to the counties in which the work is being carried on is gratifying in improved traffic conditions.
Several squads have been made up to be sent out from Auburn prison, but an outbreak of scarlet fever in the institution has delayed the plan. As soon as the quarantine is lifted many prisoners will be put to work.
By the provisions of the new law the thirty-mile radius from the walls of prisons within which convicts could be engaged in road work has been removed, so that they may be employed in any part of the State. In addition to this, for the first time an appropriation has been made of $50,000 for carrying on the work of improving roads by convict labor. Boards of Supervisors of the various counties are applying to the Prison Department for convicts to improveroads in the counties which are not included in the State macadamized system.
Under the plan of Superintendent Riley the $50,000 will be spent in improving earth roads rather than trying to build roads of macadam because of the much greater use of the appropriation. Ten miles of good earth road may be built for the amount required to construct a single mile of macadam where gravel or other proper material for surfacing is obtainable. It also costs less to maintain ten miles of gravel road than one mile of macadam, declares Superintendent Riley.
“After the $100,000,000 to which the State is pledged is expended on the State highways there will be a very large percentage of the roads in the State which will not be touched by this expenditure,” said Superintendent Riley. It is for the good of these roads, many of them of the greatest importance, that he wishes to direct the convict road labor particularly.Hudson Republican, June 8.