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.]
A Prison Philosopher.—Number 6203 in the Oregon state penitentiary sees things thus:
Men are like cigars. Often you cannot tell by the wrapper what the filler is. Sometimes a good old stogie is more popular than an imported celebrity. Some men are all right in the show-case on display, but are great disappointments when you get them home. No matter how fine a man is, eventually he meets his match. A “two-fer” often puts on as many airs as a fifty-center. Some men never get to the front at all except in campaigns. Some are very fancy outside and are selected for presents. Others have a rough exterior, but spread cheer and comfort all about them because of what is inside. But all men, as all cigars, good or bad, two-fers, stogies, rich or poor, come to ashes at last.
Sterilization in New Jersey.—Governor Wilson has announced the members of the commission provided for in the sterilization bill passed at the last session of the legislature. The bill stipulates that George O. Osborne, head keeper of the New Jersey state prison; Dr. Frank Moore, superintendent of the Rahway reformatory, and Dr. George B. Wight, commissioner of charities and corrections, shall be members of the commission ex-officio. The Governor has named Dr. Henry D. Costill, of Trenton, and Dr. Alexander Marcy, jr., of Burlington, as the two other members. Dr. Costill’s term is for three years and Dr. Marcy’s for five years.
The bill provides for the sterilization of such criminally insane persons and defectives as in the judgment of the commission it would be wise to treat thus.
Big Brothers Show Results.—The big brothers movement in New York has been given a 230-acre farm in the suburbs of Trenton, N. J., and $4,000 cash from two anonymous persons.
In the last year 2,195 boys, nearly all of whom had appeared in children’s court, came under the influence of the big brothers; of this number only ninety had to be brought a second time before the court. Of the total, 1,208 boys were cared for by the movement in 1910; 840 more were arraigned in children’s court this year on various charges; 117 came from institutions, and 1,202 applied at the office for advice or to seek employment.
All for whom places were obtained proved efficient. Permanent homes outside the city were obtained for thirty-seven, and but one could not withstand the lure of the city and moving picture shows, and returned.
Making Prisoners Useful.—At the federal aid good roads convention of the American automobile association in Washington on January 16 and 17, 1912, a session will be devoted to the question of the utilization of prisoners in road building; speakers will be heard from the national committee on prison labor and the American federation of labor.
To increase the output of the state nurseries of New York to 12,000,000 trees per year, the state conservation commission will establish a nursery at the Great Meadows prison at Comstock.
A class in road building, composed of more than 200 long term convicts, has been formed at the Kansas penitentiary at Lansing, and this fall and winter they will learn the fine points of highway construction and building boulevards around the prison. Next spring it is hoped to have a gang of at least 250 men, all experts, who will be put to work on the river boulevard which is to connect Leavenworth and Kansas City.
Warden John E. Hoyle, of the California state penitentiary, is planning to manufacture safes by skilled workmen serving sentences for bank robberies and safe blowing. In trying out the plan he has secured admirable results, as proof of which he displays a vault in his office which was reconstructed from worn out articles by prisoners under sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment for robbing a safe. A man who is a skilled mechanic will take charge of that division of the machine shop where the manufacture of safes will be carried on.
Trouble in Ireland.—A strange fault has been found with Irish jails. The general prisons board reports that the institutions have become so comfortable and attractive that short sentences, far from having a reformatory effect, seem to prompt the person once in prison to get back to the domicile as soon as he can. These short sentence prisoners are not in long enough to receive the value of any real reform and are out just long enough to keep themselves confirmed in their vicious habits. So it happens that the board has recommended longer sentences for two reasons, one that some real reform may be inculcated and the other that jail may be made so tedious that culprits will be less ready to seek the institution as a haven of snug refuge and ease for a time.
The board makes the recommendation that prisoners of education be given instruction and a chance to study and that others be taught such things as will tend to increase their usefulness and earning capacity in the world. A plan is also recommended whereby superintendents of prisons shall keep in communication with employers to the end that when prisoners are discharged they may be given work as soon as possible.
An Excellent Editorial.—Score one for the Boston (Mass.) Transcript, which says:
“There may have been valid reasons for pardoning a man who has served four years in our state prison for forging checks and since then has been in the Springfield jail for another offense, but it is hardly treating our neighbors well that one of the conditions of his pardon is that he shall leave the state. If he is entitled to pardon at all he is entitled to a chance to prove that he is worthy of it in the jurisdiction where his offenses were committed. It looks too much like passing our burdens on to others. We have criticised the Italian government on the alleged charge that, instead of being at the expense and trouble of punishing its own criminals it has frequently connived at their emigration to this country. There is ethically not much difference between that and our own practices. Every state should be responsible for its own offenders. We do not want the ‘undesirable citizens’ from other countries or commonwealths passed upon us and doubtless other states feel the same way about it.”
“Easy Money.”—Attention has been called by a Boston newspaper to the vitality which the so-called “Spanish prisoner” swindle exhibits, despite the repeated exposures to which the game has been subjected, by the press of the country. Communities in New England, equally with other sections of the country, continue to report the receipt of fake appeals, along with the extravagant promises of rewards if money is sent on, by which the languishing prisoner may be released from prison, and thus enabled to enter upon possession of his gigantic fortune. The appeals, it is easy to perceive, would not be sent to individuals where the swindle has been laid bare, time and again, if out of the batch of people thus addressed, gullibles were not found in number sufficient to render the game a profitable one to the swindlers.
How Many Prisoners Are Innocent?—In a report read at the Omaha annual meeting of the American prison association, Frank L. Randall, chairman of the committee on reformatory work and parole, reported that the committee devoted an entire year to its search for a case of capital punishment wherein there was a reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the victim, and so far has discovered not a single definite case of the kind. This search was carried on in every prison in the United States and in Canada, a personal letter having been written to the warden of every state prison in both countries, and each official was asked the following questions:
1. Have you personal knowledge of the execution of any person, on conviction of murder, whom you believe, from subsequent developments, to have been innocent?
2. Have you personal knowledge of the imprisonment, on conviction of heinous crime, of any person whom you believe, from subsequent developments, to have been innocent?
3. If either of the last two questions is answered in the affirmative, was the victim a worthy person?
To the first question every warden in the United States and Canada answered “No” unequivocally, with the exception of R. W. McClaughry, warden of the government prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Colonel McClaughry was not sure, but said: “I know of one or two who may, in my opinion, have been executed wrongly.”
Warden Fogarty, of the Indiana state prison, wrote: “I have no knowledge, personally, of the execution of an innocent person; however, I have no doubt whatever that some innocent men have been executed.”
To the second question, however, a number of prison officials answered “Yes,” qualifying their statements by answering question No. 3 with a negative answer. For instance, Warden McClaughry, of the government prison, answered, “Yes, a very few,” adding, “In no case could the party have been called worthy.”
Warden Alston, of Wyoming, says: “Yes. I am confident that I know of one man in our state who was convicted and sent here who was innocent. But,” adds the warden, in answering No. 3, “he was of a drunken disposition, and had he been a sober man would never even have been suspected or accused.”
Warden Russell, of Marquette, writes: “I don’t think from my experience as a warden of this prison that the courts make many mistakes.” However, Dr. Gilmour, of Toronto, answers question No. 2 “Yes,” and adds as an answer to No. 3: “Most worthy, and results sadder than sad.” Superintendent C. C. McClaughry, of Boonville, Mo., answers “Yes” to both No. 2 and No. 3.
Warden Fuller, of Ionia, Mich., writes: “During the seventeen years I have been warden I know of only one case of wrongful conviction for offences against property. One prisoner was sent here for stealing a cow, and another prisoner afterward confessed that he had committed the crime charged against the other man, in order to get rid of the man with whose wife he was infatuated.”
Warden Fogarty, of Indiana state prison, writes: “I have not been convinced by subsequent development that any man convicted and sentenced here for a heinous crime is innocent.”
The case from the western penitentiary, Pittsburgh, wherein a prisoner who served fifteen years was pardoned, was pensioned by Carnegie and heralded as innocent, is treated in the following report: “Your committee had previously taken pains to write to the warden of the prison mentioned, but the information elicited did not indicate that the prisoner had been declared innocent, but was to the effect that the man had been discharged in the usual way—on recommendation—some doubt having been raised.”
The writer of the report says: “The writer has for some years made it a practice to follow up the correspondence or otherwise the most widely published and sensational accounts of hardships experienced by innocent persons under judicial conviction, and has been surprised at the meagre ground upon which such reports rest, though he finds that they are quite generally credited by the reading public.
“Perhaps his (the secretary’s) report may tend to establish confidence in the courts on the part of those who are not informed and who have neither the means nor the time, even if they have the inclination, to inform themselves, and it might be a good beginning in the effort on the part of the institutions to be understood by the public.”
Annual Conference of New York Magistrates.—A number of important problems before the judges of police courts and children’s courts will be discussed and acted upon at the third annual state conference of magistrates, which will meet in Albany on December 8 and 9.
One of the principal subjects to be discussed relates to the need of a state reformatory for male misdemeanants between 16 and 21 years of age. Courts outside of New York city have no suitable institutions to which to commit offenders of this class. A special feature of the conference will be a stereopticon lecture on the detection and treatment of defendants who are mentally defective, by Dr. George M. Parker, psychiatric examiner for the New York prison association. Dr. Parker has lately examined large numbers of prisoners in the Tombs in New York city and has found that a large proportion are feeble minded or otherwise defective.
Other important subjects will refer to the necessity of public prosecutors in police courts, weaknesses in the present methods of securing and using court interpreters and the treatment of boys and youths convicted of illegal train riding, trespassing on railroad property and stealing from the railroads.