To the General Assembly:
Your Commission duly appointed pursuant to Act of the Legislature,
No. 409, 1917, “to investigate the prison systems and the
organization and management of correctional institutions within
this Commonwealth and elsewhere; to recommend such revision
of the existing prison system within this Commonwealth, and the
laws pertaining to the establishment, maintenance and regulation
of State and County correctional institutions within this Commonwealth
as it shall deem wise, and to report the same to the General
Assembly at the session of 1919,” respectfully submits the following
report of its proceedings, together with its conclusions and recommendations
and proposed bills for carrying the same into effect.
The Commission was constituted as follows:
Fletcher W. Stites, Narberth, Chairman,
Alfred E. Jones, Uniontown,
Mrs. Martha P. Falconer, Darling P. O.,
Louis N. Robinson, Swarthmore,
Albert H. Votaw, Philadelphia.
On November 1, 1917, the members of the Commission met in
the City of Philadelphia, for the purpose of organization and assigned
the work of investigation which had been committed to it to the
several members thereof. On July 1, 1918, the Commission retained
Dr. George W. Kirchwey, of New York City, as its counsel to direct
the subsequent course of the investigation and to aid the Commission
with his counsel and advice.
The Commission was fortunate in having in its personnel as
thus constituted four members, including its counsel, who had
through long experience and previous investigations acquired considerable
information as to penal institutions and their management
in this and other States. The investigation covered:—
(1) A careful study and analysis of the laws governing penal
conditions and institutions in this Commonwealth;
(2) An examination of the six correctional institutions directly
controlled by the State, namely:
The Eastern Penitentiary, at Philadelphia;
The Western Penitentiary, at Pittsburgh;
The New Central Penitentiary, at Bellefonte;
The State Industrial Reformatory, at Huntingdon;
The Pennsylvania Training School, at Morganza;
The State Industrial Home for Women, at Muncy;
(3) A similar examination of the Glen Mills Schools—the Girls’
Department, Sleighton Farms, at Darlington, and the Boys’ Department
at Glen Mills;
(4) A similar examination of the Philadelphia House of Correction
and of the County Convict Prison at Holmesburg, Moyamensing
Prison in Philadelphia, the Allegheny County Workhouse at Hoboken
and many other county institutions;
(5) A study of the constitution, organization and functions of
the State Board of Public Charities, and specifically of those of its
Committee on Lunacy;
(6) A study of the powers and activities of the Prison Labor
Commission instituted under the Act of June 1, 1918;
(7) A careful survey of the entire history of the penal system
of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania from the colonial period
down to the present time, based on the historical research of Professor
Harry E. Barnes of Clark University, Massachusetts;
(8) An investigation of significant correctional institutions in
several other States, notably in New York, New Jersey and Ohio.
To supplement and enlarge the range of these inquiries and
studies, the Commission was permitted to avail itself of the results
of previous investigations conducted by two of its members; on the
Employment and Compensation of Prisoners in Pennsylvania,
by Professor Louis N. Robinson, as Secretary of the Penal Commission
of 1913-1915, and on the county jails and workhouses,
made periodically from 1914 to 1918 by Albert H. Votaw, as Secretary
of the Pennsylvania Prison Society.
The Commission desires to express its sense of deep obligation
to the officials and inspectors of prisons in this Commonwealth for
the courtesy and hospitality extended to its members in the course
of their investigations. It also acknowledges its indebtedness to the
Secretary and members of the Board of Public Charities and to the
Secretary of the Public Charities Association for their helpful co-operation.
The Commission has heretofore submitted to the Governor two
preliminary reports, one a Special Emergency Report on Prison
Labor, bearing date September 1, 1918, and a special report on the
State Industrial Home for Women, under date of September 15,
1918, both of which are hereto appended.
While both these reports were called out by war emergencies,
the former by the dearth of labor power to man the war industries
of the Commonwealth, the latter by the need of providing a place
for the detention and treatment of the large number of dissolute
women convicted of offenses against Federal and State laws enacted
for the protection of the soldiers in the training camps—the Commission
believes that they are still pertinent and that the recommendations
which they contain should form a part of any constructive
scheme for the improvement of the penal system of the Commonwealth.
The most inspiring and significant chapter in the history of
penology is not the achievement of John Howard in redeeming the
common gaols of England from the degradation into which they had
fallen, nor of Lord Romilly in his lifelong struggle against the barbarities
of the English penal laws, but the leadership which for more
than a century the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania gave to the
world both in prison reform and in the amelioration of the penal code.
The two former were the revolt of sensitive and humane natures
against hoary abuses; but the latter was all this and something
more. It was a bold and imaginative reconstruction of the whole
basis of penal discipline. As far back as the last quarter of the
seventeenth century the Quaker colonists of Pennsylvania introduced
for the first time the practice of employing imprisonment at hard
labor as the ordinary method of punishing anti-social action. After
the reversion of the American colonies for fifty years to the barbarous
criminal jurisprudence of the mother country, Pennsylvania was the
first State, the first community in the world, to break with this
system and to substitute imprisonment for the various brutal and
degrading types of corporal punishment. The Walnut Street Jail
in Philadelphia, in 1790, was the earliest institution in America in
which these more enlightened principles were put into practice.
From this second beginning, for a period of forty years, Pennsylvania
was elaborating and perfecting the first of the two great systems of
penal administration which were destined to dominate the penology
of the civilized world during the nineteenth century—the separate
confinement of malefactors. Visited, admired and imitated by large
numbers of eminent and enthusiastic European penologists, the Eastern
Penitentiary at Cherry Hill was the pivotal point linking American
and European penology for more than a generation after
1830.
Then followed that long period of inertia, of lassitude, of marking
time, which is so apt to succeed to a period of ardent reforming
energy and which to this very day has maintained its spell over
the State and the Nation.
Not that there have not in the last half century been notable
improvements in the theory and practice of penal administration,
some of them bold enough to bring America from time to time into
the forefront of interest and example to the penologists of the Old
World, but in most of these the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
has been content to play a secondary role. Throughout this era of
slackened energy she has not cared or dared to initiate, to lead, to
“carry on,” but has followed belatedly and afar off the progress of
other States. Examples of this are the Auburn congregate system,
which divided with the Pennsylvania system of solitary confinement
the interest of European as well as of American penologists,
and which was adopted in the Western Penitentiary in 1869, a full
generation after its establishment in New York State, and which
has only recently conquered the parent institution on Cherry Hill;
the justly famous Elmira experiment of progressive classification
and industrial training of inmates embodied in the Huntingdon
Reformatory in 1889, and the long-promised reformatory for women
at Muncy, which, six years after its creation by legislative action,
has not yet been rendered available for the purpose for which it was
designed.
The first step in the development of an intelligent conception
of delinquency and its treatment came not in an accurate conception
of the nature of crime and its causes, but in a clearer and more
correct notion of the function of punishment. By 1790 the element
of deterrence in punishment was recognized and emphasized. The
element of reformation was a cardinal point in the theory and
practice of the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of
Public Prisons, and this Society did its best to infuse this doctrine
into the Pennsylvania system of prison administration. Before
1830 it was very generally asserted that reformation, as well as
deterrence and social revenge, was to be regarded as a chief aim of
punishment, though the offender was still regarded as an unregenerate
free moral agent.
This theory of crime received a severe shock in the “forties”
from the investigations of Dorothea L. Dix and others, who showed
the great prevalence of insanity and idiocy among the delinquent
classes. It could scarcely be denied even by the traditional jurists
that the exercise of free will was likely to be seriously impeded by
insanity or feeble-mindedness. From 1850 to the beginning of the
present century the most notable advances toward a more intelligent
conception of crime and its treatment consisted in the gradual but
definite triumph of the notion of detention and punishment as
agencies for reformation rather than as instruments of social
revenge.
For more than a century of its history the penal, reformatory
and correctional institutions of Pennsylvania were limited to the
county jails and the few and scattered workhouses, which were
erected mainly in conjunction with the almshouses. In the jails
there could be no approach to anything like a differentiated treatment
of delinquents. In them were herded promiscuously those
imprisoned for debt, those convicted of crime and those accused or
held as witnesses; those of all ages and both sexes; those convicted
of all categories and grades of crime punishable by imprisonment;
those of all mental states—normal, feeble-minded, neurotic, psychotic,
epileptic. The few colonial workhouses were employed as
little more than an agency for suppressing vagrancy.
The first step in a differentiated treatment of crime and criminals
came with the erection of a semi-state prison in the Walnut Street
Jail in 1789-90. This provided for a partial differentiation between
those convicted of the more serious crimes and those convicted of
petty offenses or awaiting trial. It did not however, attempt any
scientific differentiation on the basis of age, sex or mental state.
Children and adults, male and female, sane and insane, were confined
in contiguity. The opening of the State penitentiaries at Allegheny
and Philadelphia in 1826 and 1829, with their fundamental principle
of solitary confinement, carried further the process of differentiation,
but still continued to apply the same general type of treatment
to all incarcerated inmates. It was a system of separation rather
than of a differentiated treatment of special types of prisoners.
The second important development in the direction of specialization
in the provision of institutional treatment of delinquents
appeared in the establishment of a House of Refuge for juvenile
delinquents in Philadelphia in 1828. Though this was at first a
private rather than a State institution and was of very limited
capacity, it marked an epoch in the progress of Pennsylvania penology
by making possible some elementary differentiation on the basis
of age, degree of criminality and relative susceptibility to reformation.
The next attempt at further differentiation came with the erection
of the State Hospital for the Insane at Harrisburg between 1841 and
1851, chiefly as a result of the agitation initiated by Dorothea L. Dix.
This and the other State hospitals for the insane, subsequently
erected, provided for a treatment of the more important types of
mental disorder, though no adequate provision was made for removing
the insane from the prison. Not until 1905 was an act passed
providing for the erection of a State hospital for the criminal insane
at Fairview which was opened in 1912.
During the quarter of a century following 1850 there was an
active agitation to provide a means of differentiating the treatment
of criminals on the basis of age, sex and degree of criminality. The
first important achievement in this direction was the further development
of reform schools for juvenile delinquents through the removal
and enlargement of the Philadelphia House of Refuge in 1850-54
and the erection of the Western House of Refuge at Allegheny during
the same period. Juvenile delinquents, if petty offenders, could
thereafter be removed from their degrading confinement in the
state prison or worse county jails and receive the properly specialized
treatment which their circumstances demanded. No provision for
the differentiated treatment of the less definite and confirmed types
of adult delinquents was made until the opening of the reformatory
for men at Huntingdon in 1889 and the authorization of the State
Industrial Home for Women at Muncy in 1913. The provision of
reformatories and juvenile correctional institutions marked a double
process of differentiation, in that these institutions not only called
for a diversity of treatment according to age, sex and degree of
criminality, but also from the fact that they were clearly differentiated
from the State prisons and the county jails in making reformation
rather than punishment or detention their chief aims.
Along with this development of a properly differentiated system
of treating the delinquent population, has gone the growth of specialized
institutions for dealing with the closely related class of defectives,
which was once treated indiscriminately along with the delinquent
classes when its members were guilty of criminal action.
The State institution for feeble-minded at Polk, opened in 1893, and
at Spring City, provided by an act of 1903, and the State Village for
Feeble-minded Women at Laurelton, not yet available for use, are
designed to furnish scientific treatment for large numbers of those
who would today be confined in the state prisons or county jails, if
the ideas and institutions of 1840 prevailed. Even an institution for
inebriates was contemplated in an act of 1913.
But this vital and all important process of the differentiation,
classification and specialized treatment of the delinquent and
defective classes has now proceeded far beyond that most elementary
stage of furnishing separate institutions for dealing with the most
general classes of delinquents and defectives. It has been found
that the terms defective, insane and criminal have only a legal
significance and are practically useless when involving the problem
of exact scientific analysis and treatment. Each general class of
delinquent boys, of defective girls or of criminal adults, for instance,
is made up of distinguishable and distinct types which demand
specialized treatment in the same way that it is required for one
general class as distinguished from another. Though it is as yet very
imperfectly developed, the present tendency is for each institution
to differentiate into a number of specialized departments, each
designed to provide the proper treatment for one of these types.
Finally, within the last decade beginnings have been made in
what is likely to be an important future development, namely the
non-institutional care of the less pronounced and confirmed types of
delinquents, particularly of delinquent minors. The developments
along this line have, up to the present, consisted chiefly in the
adoption of parole systems in all the State penal, reformatory and
correctional institutions and in a more liberal use of the suspended
sentence and probation. The recently established Municipal Probation
Court of Philadelphia is a pioneer in Pennsylvania in this
promising new development in the preventive treatment of the less
confirmed type of delinquents.
Looking at the whole matter as it stands today, it cannot be
said that conditions in Pennsylvania are in any material respect
either better or worse than in other progressive States, except in
the one matter of the useful employment of the convict population.
Here, as elsewhere, some lucky chance has placed a man or a woman
of exceptional qualifications at the head of an institution, one who
has by his strong personal initiative made the best of a bad situation,
as in the case of the Eastern Penitentiary, or who has, with
something akin to genius, seized upon a new opportunity, as in the
case of the Girls’ School at Darlington and the new Penitentiary
foundation at Bellefonte. But these are sporadic and exceptional
developments and have furnished no new principle of a revolutionary
character to mark the dawn of a new era in penal administration.
Meanwhile the hopeless and demoralizing idleness to which most
of the inmates of the Eastern Penitentiary and of most of the county
institutions of the Commonwealth are doomed, is a spectacle in
which the people of Pennsylvania can take nothing but shame.
But even if this is remedied, as it should be at once by drastic
legislative action, Pennsylvania will have done no more than reach
the level of penological theory of the Quaker innovators of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The step is an imperative
one, but it will not restore to the Commonwealth the proud position
of leadership which once was hers, which is still, by virtue of past
achievements and by common fame, attributed to her.
While we have thus been dreaming, tardily and ineffectually
putting into effect the aspirations of a long-distant past, a new
penology has come into being, based not on humanitarian sentiment
or on “the common sense of most,” but on the scientific study
of the delinquent and his environment. New sciences of psychology,
psychiatry and sociology have been forged to meet the
conditions of the new day and these have furnished us with a new
basis for penological experimentation. We have learned that the
criminal is not merely a person who has in the exercise of an unfettered
will chosen the evil rather than the good, but a person of
complex personality shaped by heredity and environment to what
he is, none the less a menace to society than the older conception
made him, not the less requiring restraint and correction, but
demanding and deserving individual treatment according to the
nature which has been developed in him. We have learned from
recent scientific study of the most rigorous and trustworthy sort
that from 50 to 60 per cent. of the inmates of our correctional institutions
are abnormal—feeble-minded, insane, psychopathic—to
the point of irresponsibility, to all intents and purposes the same
kind of people that fill our hospitals for the insane and institutions
for the feeble-minded. We have also learned, from sociological
case studies, that a very large proportion of those that the psychiatrist
would class as normal are the victims of neglected childhood
and of the depraving influences of the institutions in which
they have spent a great part of their young lives.
It seems clear that this new knowledge makes for a new classification,
based not, like that of the Elmira system, on behavior in
confinement, nor, like that of the current penology, on the character
of the crime committed, but on the exact study of the individual
and that the treatment accorded him must be adapted to the results
of such study.
Here, then, is the new opportunity for a further advance out of
this slough of despond—an opportunity not inferior to that which
this Commonwealth so superbly grasped in its heroic youth—to
bring its penal administration into conformity with the newer
conceptions of delinquency. Tinkering the old machine is not
enough. It must be remodeled altogether. Adding to the powers
of a board of inspectors here, curbing them there, setting up new
boards and commissions to direct the doing of this, to restrain the
doing of that—all these are but a part of the old game, which will
after all continue to be played in very much the old perfunctory
way. What is demanded is a genuine reconstruction of the penal
system of the Commonwealth, one which shall, with as little disturbance
to the existing management of the several institutions as
possible, put at their service all the resources of the new knowledge
of crime and its treatment. It is the purpose of this report
to suggest the lines of this future development of our penal
system.
As the foregoing outline indicates, the several State institutions
of a penal, correctional and reformatory character, with the two
Glen Mills Schools (which, though largely under private management,
are essentially public institutions) have been developed at
different times, under the influence of changing conceptions of social
responsibility for different types of offenders. As a result of this
circumstance each is separately managed by a board of inspectors or
managers, which exercises complete control over the policy of the institution
to which its authority extends. This Board appoints the
Warden or Superintendent, fixes his or her compensation, determines
the industrial and educational policy of the institution and, under
the authority of the Legislature, disburses the funds appropriated
for its maintenance. The disciplinary policy of the institution is
almost invariably entrusted to the Warden or Superintendent and,
as is natural, if that official happens to be a person of strong individuality
and initiative, his policy in practice, if not in theory, governs
the entire administration. Nowhere is there a centralized authority
exercising a general control or an effective influence. The only
approach to such a general agency is the State Board of Public Charities,
which may investigate and require the submission of an annual
report, and the Prison Labor Commission, which exercises a general
supervision over the industries of the two penitentiaries and the
Huntingdon Reformatory, but which has no effective power to carry
its plans into execution. There is, accordingly, no uniform policy,
even in the case of institutions like the two Glen Mills schools, which
have a similar type of inmates and an identical aim, nor in the case
of all the institutions under consideration in matters where their
problems and needs are the same. That there are advantages in
this policy of separate control cannot be denied. It gives to an energetic
and progressive superintendent or board of managers a degree
of initiative in reform and experimentation which, under a highly
centralized control of all the institutions, it would be difficult to
secure. On the other hand it may have the effect of depriving the
individual institution, because of its poverty or because of the
reactionary character of its administration, of the benefits of an
advance which may have been made elsewhere. There could not
be a better illustration of the unevenness of development resulting
from this lack of co-ordination in the Pennsylvania prison system
than the fact that the Eastern Penitentiary was compelled to wait
for the initiative of its present Warden for the partial adoption
of the congregate system, which had for forty years existed in
the Western Penitentiary, and which had everywhere demonstrated
its superiority over the system of solitary confinement.
Upon the whole, however, what strikes the thoughtful observer
is not the diversity of policy and management among these institutions,
even where they have avowedly different aims, but their
conformity to a common type, and that the prison type. With only
two exceptions—Sleighton Farms and the Training School at Morganza—the
persistent shadow of the Penitentiary rests upon them all.
It is true that in the new Central Penitentiary on its broad acreage
at Bellefonte and in the Eastern Penitentiary, so far as the physical
and industrial conditions render possible, the shadow has been
lifted, but it is safe to say of the penal system of the State as a whole,
that it is still too much dominated by the ancient ideal of demonstrating
to the inmates that “the way of the transgressor is hard.”
Even in institutions of a purely reformatory character, while they
leave little to be desired in the way of healthful conditions of living,
orderly administration and educational opportunities, the reformation
of the wrong-doer is still too much sought through a system of
stern repression, of “iron discipline”—a system which, as all experience
shows, defeats its end by crushing out the finer elements of
character on which the redemption of the individual must depend.
An almost invariable incident of this type of disciplinary control
is the persistence of the policy of securing good conduct through
punishment—often severe punishment for trivial offenses—rather
than by the more enlightened and humane method of holding out
incentives to good behavior, either by the grant of special privileges
or by putting on the inmates themselves the responsibility for the
good behavior of all.
Other instances of the persistence of the traditional attitude
toward the offender are the almost complete lack throughout our
penal system of a scientific, balanced ration, such as has in the
experience of prison administrators in other States, as notably at
Sing Sing Prison in 1916, and more recently in our army camps,
demonstrated the value both for health and efficiency and from the
point of view of economy of a scientific management of the problem
of food supply for large masses of men; the general indifference to
outdoor recreation and exercise, so essential to the health and morale
of the inmate body; the meagre provision for any education worthy of
the name; the all but complete lack of comprehensive and well
rounded systems of vocational or industrial training, on which the
efficiency of prison labor and the ability of the inmates to “make
good” in the world of industry after their release so largely depends;
the demoralizing idleness which is still after three decades of effort
the most marked characteristic of our prison system; and, finally,
the insufficient care for the physical and mental health of the inmates
of our correctional institutions, which still for the most part mingle
indiscriminately together the tuberculous and syphilitic with those
who are sound in body and the insane, psychopathic and defective
with those who are sound in mind.
Many of these conditions which continue to put the brand of the
prison on the inmates of our correctional institutions are doubtless
due to the survival of the Bastille type of prison architecture, which
is exemplified in the Eastern and Western Penitentiaries and in
such structures as Moyamensing Prison in Philadelphia, the Convict
Prison at Holmesburg, the Philadelphia House of Correction and
many others. It is scarcely too much to say that no human being
is vile enough to deserve confinement in such a place or dangerous
enough to need it. Even the most unbending of the old type of
prison official will concede that 80 per cent. of the inmates neither
need nor deserve to be confined behind triple bars of steel or in cells
like catacombs or within walls like those of Egyptian tombs. Keepers
and inmates alike lose half their humanity by confinement in these
grim and forbidding structures. No reforming influence however
humane and generous, can long survive in their atmosphere.
Public opinion is at last moving away from this antiquated type
of prison architecture to the newer type represented in the honor
prison at New Hampton Farms in New York and in our Commonwealth
in the cottage colonies at Sleighton Farms, Glen Mills, Morganza,
and Muncy. The change which comes over the men who are
transferred from the Western Penitentiary to the new prison site in
Centre County is a sufficient commentary on the older type of prison,
and demonstrates beyond peradventure the duty of affording to all
of our convict population a similar life of freedom and opportunity.
This result, so desirable from every point of view, could in large
measure be attained in a short time by equipping the Eastern Penitentiary
with a suitable area of farm land in the Eastern Section of
the State and by making immediate provision for the institution of
State industrial farms for the convicts confined in the county prisons,
as is recommended elsewhere in this report.
The conditions existing in the penal institutions of the Commonwealth
with respect to the employment of the inmates in useful
industry have been so fully set forth in the Emergency Report
submitted by the Commission to the Governor in September last
(a copy of which is annexed to this report) and in the comprehensive
study of the problem by the Penal Commission of 1913-1915 (submitted
to the General Assembly under date of February 15, 1915)
that it is not deemed necessary to go into the matter at length in
this place. It suffices to call attention to the fact that the conditions
described in those reports have not in any material respect
been improved. Of approximately 10,000 inmates in the penal
and correctional institutions of the State, less than one-half are
usefully employed, not more than one-fourth in productive labor.
The economic waste of such a system extended over a century is
scarcely less appalling than its inhumanity. By the law a large
part of this interminable procession of offending and suffering
humanity has been condemned to hard labor. In actual practice
nearly all of it has been doomed to wasteful and demoralizing
idleness.
The law of June 1, 1915, “providing a system of employment
and compensation for the inmates of the Eastern Penitentiary,
Western Penitentiary and the Pennsylvania Industrial Reformatory
at Huntingdon” and creating a Prison Labor Commission to carry
its provisions into effect, has proved almost wholly inoperative,
owing primarily to the failure of the Legislature to provide for the
compulsory purchase of prison-made goods by the Commonwealth
or the political divisions thereof or by public institutions. As
a consequence, out of a total population of 3200 in the three institutions
to which the authority of the Commission extends, at the
close of the year 1918 only 169 were employed under the direction
of the Commission. These were distributed as follows:—
| Eastern Penitentiary, population |
|
1,371 |
| Caning chairs |
16 |
|
| Cigarmaking |
11 |
|
| Shoemaking |
42 |
|
| Knitting hosiery |
38 |
|
|
—— |
107 |
| Absolutely idle |
|
839 |
| |
|
|
| Western Penitentiary, population |
|
720 |
| Broommaking |
10 |
|
| Brushmaking |
2 |
|
| Weaving |
18 |
|
|
—— |
30 |
| Absolutely idle |
|
393 |
| |
|
|
| Huntingdon Reformatory, population |
|
579 |
| Auto-tagmaking |
|
32 |
Whether considered as a relief from the crushing burden of
expense that our penal establishments entail, or as a remedy for the
physical and moral degeneration resulting from enforced idleness,
or as a means to equip the inmates for lives of industry and usefulness
after their release, a system of prison labor which produces
the results set forth in these figures stands self condemned.
To make the plan embodied in the law of 1915 effective, it should
further provide:
(1) That municipalities as well as the Commonwealth and the
political divisions thereof and all public institutions shall be required,
as far as may be practicable, to supply their needs from the
labor of the penal and correctional institutions;
(2) That the authority of the Commission or of any body in
which its powers may be vested shall extend to the reformatory
institutions at Darlington, Glen Mills, Morganza and Muncy and
to all State, county and municipal institutions of a penal or correctional
character;
(3) That the power of such Commission or body to regulate
prison industry be extended to all forms of labor activity of the
inmates of such institutions, including farming, roadmaking, land
reclamation, forestry, etc.;
(4) That such Commission or body be empowered to determine
the compensation of prisoners for industrial and other work performed
by them and the method of applying such compensation to
the use of such prisoners or their dependents;
(5) That the strict “State use” plan be modified by permitting
the sale in the open market, at not less than the market price, of any
surplus product resulting from the labor of the inmates over and
above the product disposed of as provided in the act.
In Pennsylvania, as in most, if not all, of the other States of
the Union, the county jail is the despair of those who look for a
better day in the treatment of the wrong-doer. The admiration
which our experiments in the reformatory treatment of the young
have excited in eminent foreign penologists has turned to loathing
when their attention was directed to the county jails. Sir Evelyn
Ruggles-Brise, the distinguished head of the English prison system,
in an article published a few months after his visit to this country
in 1910, described them in the following terms:
“In these gaols it is hardly too much to say that many
of the features linger which called forth the wrath and indignation
of the great Howard at the end of the eighteenth
century. Promiscuity, unsanitary conditions, absence of
supervision, idleness and corruption—these remain the features
in many places. Even the ‘fee’ system is still in vogue.
The gaolers are still paid by fees for the support of prisoners,
and commitments to gaol are common when some other
disposition of the case would have been imposed had not
the commitment yielded a fee to the sheriff, who is usually
in charge of the gaol. In many gaols there are not facilities
for medical examination on reception, for ventilation, for
exercise, or for bathing.... The foreign delegates
were amazed at this startling inconsistency between the
management of the common gaols and that of the State
prisons and State reformatories. The evils to which I refer
are well known and deplored by that body of earnest and
devoted men and women in all sections of American society
with whose lofty ideals on the subject of prison reform and
generous aspirations for the humane treatment of the prisoner,
the Washington Congress made us every day familiar, but
they seem helpless and almost hopeless.... I was
appealed to by leading men in more than one State, as British
representative, to publicly condemn the system, and this I
did, at a risk of giving considerable offense. Until the
abuses of the gaol system are removed, it is impossible for
America to have assigned to her by general consent a place
in the vanguard of progress in the domain of ‘la science
penitentiaire.’”
Your Commission desires to submit as its considered judgment
that the foregoing statement does no injustice to many of the county
prisons of this Commonwealth, and that the Legislature can do no
greater service, nor one that will reflect more credit on the Commonwealth,
than to sweep away the entire county jail system without
delay.
Attention has been called elsewhere in this report to the deplorable
conditions of idleness which prevail in the prisons of our
Commonwealth. These conditions are at their worst in the county
institutions. In the last six years the average daily number of
prisoners in the county jails of the Commonwealth has been about
6500. Only about one-fourth of these have some form of employment
other than domestic service. But when all of the returns
are in with regard to the work accomplished, the number of days
spent in complete idleness in the course of a year will average more
than one million. If we regard the labor of the prisoners as worth
fifty cents a day, the amount of waste thus exceeds $500,000 annually.
In order to obviate this condition of affairs, the General Assembly
in 1917 passed an Act (No. 337, P. L. 1917), vesting in the officers
in charge of county prisons the privilege of allowing the prisoners
to work on county and poorhouse farms. Although only twenty-seven
counties have taken advantage of this Act, its results have
been very beneficial. The workers have improved in health,
strength and morale, and the produce of their labor has been of
material help in the up-keep of the institutions. Unfortunately,
the operation of this Act terminates with the close of the war.
A more comprehensive Act was proposed by the Penal Commission
of 1913-1915, which recommended the establishment of six
industrial farms to be controlled by the State, to which all persons
convicted of crime or misdemeanor, and now committed to county
institutions, should hereafter be sent. This admirable measure
was, however, amended in such a way as to leave the initiative in
the creation of such farms and the control thereof to the County
Commissioners of the nine groups of counties into which the State
was divided for the purpose (No. 399, P. L. 1917). This legislation
has fallen flat, not one of the industrial districts having carried
the scheme into effect.
Your Commission submits that there is no remedy for the condition
of affairs above described other than the complete assumption
by the State of the custody and care of the offenders, whether felons
or misdemeanants, who are now committed to the county institutions.
Farming for prisoners, as our investigations in other States
have clearly shown, has passed beyond the experimental stage.
The State of Massachusetts, some years ago, established a penal
farm for misdemeanants at Bridgewater. A large tract of ground
was purchased, consisting largely of swamp and abandoned land,
which, by the use of fertilizers and by drainage, has been brought
to a high degree of cultivation. This enterprise has been so signally
successful that it is now proposed to move the State Prison at
Charlestown to this same farm at Bridgewater.
Perhaps the most successful experiment of the kind has been
made in Indiana, where the State has taken over the custody of
misdemeanants on the plan which was recommended by the Pennsylvania
Penal Commission of 1913-1915, a recommendation which
is renewed in this report. The Superintendent of the Indiana State
Farm makes the following report:—
“The farm had an average daily population, in 1918, of
four hundred and sixty-two prisoners. All institution buildings
and outbuildings, the sewer system, power plant, heating
and water systems, land reclaiming, farming and gardening,
has been done with the labor of misdemeanants at a surprisingly
low cost for guards. The Indiana State Farm is
allowed fifty-five cents per man per day for its entire maintenance,
while the same man in jail, at the present time, will
cost more than one dollar per day for the gross maintenance.
The fifty-five cents per man per day pays the entire pay roll,
subsistence, fuel, light, heat, medical services, clothing, transportation,
field and garden seeds, fertilizers, common labor,
tools and all other items of maintenance....
“The effect that the Indiana State Farm has had on the
jail system of the State is indicated by the following figures:
In the year 1914 there were 18,130 commitments to county
jails, in 1915, 14,644, and in 1916, 9,896. The doors of the
State Farm were opened April 12, 1915, and the full effect
of the State Farm was not noticeable until the close of the
year 1916. The moral effect of the institution on the misdemeanant
class was one very important factor in reducing
the jail commitments.”
During the year ending September 30, 1918, this penal farm
was two-thirds self-supporting, and it is confidently expected that
the institution will soon be entirely self-supporting.
New York City has established a reformatory farm of 630 acres
at New Hampton, N. Y., to which boys and men from sixteen to
thirty years of age are committed. They have no bars, no wall, no
restraining thing, except supervision. They have no cell for punishment.
From the farm they secure most of their provisions. In
handling 2000 prisoners, they have lost only five. The
health of the inmates is greatly improved. It is estimated that
45 per cent. of the prisoners there were addicted to the drug
habit. Most of them were sent away restored. What they needed
was to be built up by fresh air, good food and exercise, and to be
employed in wholesome work. In fact, they have been taught the
dignity of labor—a thing to which most of them had hitherto been
strangers.
But we need not go beyond the limits of our own State to prove
the benefit and success of farming for misdemeanants. The administration
of the Allegheny County Workhouse illustrates the economy
of providing employment for prisoners on an industrial farm. Here
the average daily number of inmates in 1918 was 722. The daily
average cost of each inmate was 81 cents, but after deducting the
earnings of the inmates, the net cost was only 32 cents. This means
that the inmates earned 49 cents a day toward their own maintenance.
Their bookkeeping indicates merely the cost of raising the
crops. If the institution had charged itself with the produce used
by it at the prevailing market price, the net cost would have been
much less. The farm has 670 acres, of which 560 acres are farmed
and used as pasture. The inmates are continually coming and going.
Many of them are committed for ten days or less, and a large part
are sentenced for 30 days, while comparatively few of them remain
longer than one year. This shows that a great deal of efficient work
can be secured, even from those who serve for short terms.
A similarly striking result has been attained in Delaware County
under the law of 1911, empowering the judges of the Courts of
Common Pleas to release on parole convicts confined in county jails
or workhouses under the supervision of designated probation officers.
Acting under this law, the President Judge of that county has during
the year 1918 paroled a number of inmates of the county jail to work
on farm lands rented for the purpose with the remarkable result that
only two of the men so paroled made their escape (both being afterwards
retaken) and that nearly $14,000 worth of crops were sold
for cash in addition to the vegetables used and stored in the prison.
The net profit is estimated at $7,000.
Logically, we cannot avoid the conclusion that the State ought
to assume the care of all offenders. The laws are made by the State,
and the indictments charge the accused with offences against the
“peace and dignity of the Commonwealth,” not against the peace
and dignity of the county, municipality or borough. The conclusion
is inevitable that the Commonwealth should assume the
responsibility for the protection of the community from both felons
and misdemeanants. And since such an arrangement as has been
proposed will result in reduced taxation, uniformity of management
and in greater facilities for the education and reformation
of the delinquent, we feel that the establishment of State industrial
farms to receive the delinquents now committed to the county prisons
should receive your favorable consideration.
The bill submitted to carry this recommendation into effect omits
the counties of Philadelphia and Allegheny from its operation.
Allegheny County already has a prison farm which in many ways
may be considered a model of its kind. Philadelphia has a farm in
connection with the House of Correction which furnishes employment
to many prisoners and supplies much produce for the institution.
We recommend that at some early date the City of Philadelphia
may, by the purchase of more land, extend the advantages of
a penal farm to its convict prison and in some way combine under
one management the entire penal system of the municipality.
The fee system, whereby the sheriff or warden receives a stipulated
sum each day for the board of prisoners, is so liable to abuse
that we submit a proposition to abolish the practice in all our prisons.
Whenever the profits from boarding the prisoners is a part of the
remuneration of the officer in charge, the tendency is doubtless to
exploit the prisoners, or to reduce to a minimum the supply of food,
in order to derive the greater profit.
In 1915 a comprehensive study of the cost of boarding the
prisoners in the largest 25 counties of the Commonwealth indicated
that the average daily cost of food per prisoner in the 15 prisons
where the food was purchased on the contract system was 12 cents,
and in the 10 counties where the fee system was in vogue 33.7 cents,
the difference in favor of the contract system being 21.7 cents per
day for each prisoner.
We estimate that in these 10 counties alone the saving to the
taxpayers by the adoption of the contract system will be at least
$50,000 annually. The economy of the proposition is evident,
making due allowance for providing in some counties additional
compensation for the official in charge of the prison. In all cases
where a change has been made from the fee system to the contract
system, the food has improved in character, thus tending to the
betterment of the health and morale of the inmates.
Moved by these considerations, the General Assembly in 1909
provided that in all counties having a population of 150,000 or more,
the food for the prisoners must be purchased by contract. We are
now proposing to extend this principle to all the counties of the
Commonwealth, with the understanding that no such change is to
take place during the incumbency of the officials who are at the
present time in charge of the prisons.
(a) Under the law of May 10, 1909, the several courts of
criminal jurisdiction are invested with the power of suspending
sentence on certain classes of convicted offenders and of placing
such offenders on probation instead of committing them for definite
or indeterminate periods of imprisonment. Probation officers,
charged with the duty of supervising the behavior of such probationers,
are appointed by the judges to serve in their respective
counties. In this Commonwealth, as in many others, experience has
demonstrated that there is little uniformity in the practice of the
courts in suspending sentence or of the probation officers in exercising
their powers.
Conceived as a mere incident of the sentencing power, to be
exercised only in exceptional cases, the suspended sentence and
probation are beginning to disclose themselves as a momentous,
not to say revolutionary step in the progress of penology, not less
important in its ultimate consequences than the substitution a
century ago of imprisonment for the death penalty and other forms
of physical punishment. Like the older forms of punishment which
it superseded, imprisonment too has proved a failure, so far at least,
as the newer aim of punishment, the reformation of the wrong-doer
is concerned. And we are coming to see that the protection which
society enjoys through the imprisonment for a few months or years of
a small proportion of the criminal class is dearly purchased by a
system which returns the offender to society less fitted than before
to cope with the conditions of a life of freedom. More and more,
as we develop a probation service worthy of the name, will the courts
be reluctant to commit men, women and children to the demoralizing
associations and discipline of institutional life and will give them
their chance to redeem themselves under competent guidance and
supervision among the associations and activities of everyday life.
Even under existing conditions it is safe to say that far too many
adult and youthful offenders convicted of criminal offences are
committed to prison and far too many delinquent children to reformatories
and other correctional institutions. Your Commission believes
that the suspended sentence should be more liberally employed by
the courts of the Commonwealth under strict conditions requiring
a life of useful industry under careful supervision; that children
under 12 years of age should never be committed to penal or
correctional institutions but rather, where institutional care is
deemed necessary, to parental schools such as have been established
in other States as a part of the regular educational system; and that
children of larger growth, say from 12 to 16, should, wherever
possible, be placed on probation or put under private guardianship.
Those considerations have led the Commission to the conclusion
that the whole subject of the suspended sentence and probation in
this Commonwealth should be thoroughly studied in order that the
principles that should govern it may be carefully defined and its
procedure worked out, supervised and put on a uniform basis. New
York and other States have for this purpose created a permanent
probation board or commission and the success which has attended
their labors suggests the institution of a similar body in this Commonwealth.
(b) The indeterminate sentence, which made its appearance in
this Commonwealth in the law of May 10, 1909, has passed through
several phases to a state in which its purpose is almost completely
defeated. In its original form it provided that the maximum term
to be imposed upon a convict who should be sentenced to imprisonment
in either the Eastern or the Western Penitentiaries should not
exceed the maximum time prescribed by law and that the minimum
term when not fixed by law, should not exceed one-fourth of the
maximum time. This law was amended by an Act approved June 19,
1911, striking out the restriction as to the minimum sentence, thus
leaving to the courts complete discretion to fix the minimum to be
served at any period short of the maximum. Many of the courts
have in frequent instances virtually nullified the indeterminate
sentence principle by imposing minimum sentences so excessive as
to bring the judicial office into disrepute. Sentences of from 18 years
to 20 and from 19 years to 20 have been common, and there have
been cases so grotesque as sentences of 19 years 11 months, or of
19 years, 11 months and 29 days to 20 years, of 23 years and 3 months
to 25 years and of 27 to 28 years. These are only the more extreme
illustrations of a practice which has been common enough to justify
a demand for a law which will result in greater uniformity in the
matter of imposing sentences for crime.
At its best the maximum-minimum form of the indeterminate
sentence is an unsatisfactory compromise between the ideal aim of
penologists and the traditional attitude of the courts, which cling
tenaciously to their ancient prerogative of “making the punishment
fit the crime.” That the power of determining the period of imprisonment
requisite to meet the demands of justice and the interests of
society may safely be confided to other than judicial hands has been
conceded in the case of all offenders entitled to commitment to
reformatories, who are sentenced to an indeterminate term limited
only by the maximum fixed by law, or, in the case of minors, to the
attainment of their majority, and who may be released on parole in
the discretion of the boards of managers of the institutions to which
they are committed. It is only in the case of hardened offenders or
of those guilty of certain major offenses that a minimum sentence is
imposed.
For more than a generation prison reformers have urged the
extension of the pure indeterminate sentence to this class of offenders
also. Their logic is sound; it is the facts that are against them. The
argument runs like this: The offender should be kept in confinement
only until he is fitted by his prison experience to lead an honest
and useful life; when this end is attained he should be released. The
answer is that the prison doesn’t in fact reform the wrong-doer;
that good behavior under the conditions of prison life is no assurance
of the intention or capacity of the prisoner to lead an honest and
useful life after his release, and that the inspectors or other paroling
authority have no other guide to go by in determining the inmates’
fitness for a life of freedom than his prison record. If the reformer
makes the obvious retort—“then reform your prison so that it shall
reform its inmates, and reform your paroling authority so that it
shall make its determination on all the facts of the inmate’s personal
history including a study of his mental conditions, his heredity and
the social influences that have shaped his character,” he is admitting
that we are not yet ready for the complete acceptance of the indeterminate
sentence in all classes of cases.
But there is a middle ground between the position of the extreme
reformer and that which has been assumed by the courts of this
Commonwealth. If there is to be anything short of a fixed sentence,
declared by law, it should be a reasonable minimum which should
also be declared by law. The policy of the indeterminate sentence is
that the delinquent shall be supervised and guided and his capacity
to lead an honest and useful life tested by actual experience under
normal conditions of living for a period of years long enough to try
out his capacity to readjust himself to a life of freedom in society.
For this reason an adequate interval between the expiration of his
minimum sentence, when he becomes eligible to parole, and the
expiration of his maximum sentence, when he becomes free from
judicial control, should be guaranteed by law.
There is great diversity of opinion as to the best form of paroling
authority. Generally, as in this Commonwealth, this power is lodged
in the inspectors or managers of the several institutions or, in the
case of commitments to county prisons, in the courts of criminal
jurisdiction. In some States, as in New York, a distinct Board of
Parole is constituted which visits the convict prisons at intervals and
hears and determines all applications for parole that may be awaiting
determination. Neither system has worked with complete satisfaction.
Under both the grant of parole is largely a perfunctory matter,
the inmates who have served their minimum sentences being generally
admitted to parole at once, except in those cases, comparatively rare
in number, where the applicant has been penalized for misconduct
while in confinement. It would seem, therefore, that the first step
toward a reform of the paroling system is not to set up a new paroling
authority but to devise some more effective machinery to put before
the existing authorities all the essential facts as to the applicant’s
mental, moral and physical capacity to conduct himself as a self-respecting,
useful member of the community. A second, but not less
necessary step, is such a change in the spirit and method of prison
discipline as will develop in the inmates by actual practice the
qualities of self-respect and self-reliance, the sense of honor and of
responsibility and the habit of co-operative action so essential to fit
them for a life of freedom and responsibility, and at the same time
to equip them with the habits of industry and the vocational skill
which will enable them to make good in the life that awaits them
beyond the prison-wall.
In the foregoing analysis of the penal system of this Commonwealth,
the Commission has endeavored not only to present a picture
of the existing conditions in the light of modern conceptions of
penology but to point out, also, the lines of a sound and progressive
development of the system. Most of the suggestions
thus made have already been embodied in the penal systems of other
states and of enlightened communities beyond the seas. Especially
is this the case in such matters as the general employment of the
prison population in useful and productive labor and in the substitution
of farm and cottage colonies for the old type of prison. In a few
of the larger cities and in some institutions promising beginnings have
been made in the mental examination of delinquents with a view to
the provision of specialized treatment for those found to be mentally
afflicted or seriously defective. But in no State or country, as yet,
have all these improvements been welded into a comprehensive
system which makes them available for the entire delinquent population.
The inertia or indifference which leaves the extension of
these benefits to chance or to the slow contagion of example is
unworthy of a great and progressive Commonwealth which has in
the past more than once demonstrated its capacity for leadership
in penal reform.
It is evident that the general adoption in this State of these
modern improvements in the treatment of the criminal problem can
be effected only through the institution of a central agency adapted
to secure a co-ordination of effort and a uniformity of development
which under the present system of separate control has been demonstrated
to be impossible. It seems equally evident, however, that the
system of separate management of the several institutions with their
diverse aims and problems possesses advantages which we would
not willingly sacrifice to an ideal unity. For this reason the Commission
has not deemed it wise to recommend the example of other
States which have committed the management of all their correctional
establishments to a central board of control. Moreover, with
such a body as the Board of Public Charities already vested with
a certain authority over the penal institutions of the State, it has not
been deemed desirable to recommend the creation of a new and
independent body to exercise a new jurisdiction over such institutions.
It seems better to utilize the authority which already exists,
to enlarge its range of functions to meet the needs of the proposed
development and to commit the exercise of these functions to a
standing committee analogous to the existing Committee on Lunacy.
Through such a committee of the Board of Public Charities your
Commission believes that the desired co-ordination and future development
of the penal system of the Commonwealth can best be
secured.
Upon the foregoing facts and conclusions the Commission submits
the following recommendations, which are herewith submitted for
such action as the General Assembly may deem proper:—
First.—The Commission recommends that the General Assembly
provide for the enlargement of the Board of Public Charities by the
addition of two members thereto, at least one of whom shall be a
woman, and by the institution of a standing committee of five
members of such Board, at least one of whom shall be a woman,
such committee, which shall be chosen annually by a majority vote
of the Board, to be known as the “Committee on Delinquency” and
to be vested with the following powers:—
(a) To inspect and investigate the condition and management of
all penal, correctional and reformatory institutions within the
Commonwealth and inquire into all complaints against the same and
report thereon, with recommendations of appropriate action, to the
Board of Public Charities, the Governor, the General Assembly, or
the Courts, as the circumstances may require;
(b) To institute, maintain and supervise a medical service adapted
to the examination of the inmates of such institutions and the proper
professional treatment of all such as are mentally or physically
afflicted or deficient;
(c) To make recommendations to the governing authorities of all
such institutions for the improvement of the sanitary and hygienic
conditions, the medical and hospital equipment, and the medical
service thereof;
(d) To transfer inmates of institutions within its jurisdiction to
other institutions owned, managed or controlled by the Commonwealth
or any political subdivision thereof, or, if suitable arrangements
can be made, to other institutions, where such inmates may
receive treatment more suitable to their mental and physical condition;
(e) To institute, maintain and supervise in institutions within
its jurisdiction a system of correctional and reformatory education;
(f) To institute, maintain and supervise a system for the employment
of the inmates of institutions within its jurisdiction;
(g) To prepare and submit to the Board of Public Charities not
later than the first day of December of each even-numbered year,
a biennial budget for the Committee and such of the institutions
within its jurisdiction as are wholly or partly supported by the
Commonwealth, and for that purpose to require of such institutions
such reports from time to time as the Committee shall deem necessary;
and
(h) To make rules and regulations establishing a uniform system of
accounting and bookkeeping in all institutions within its jurisdiction.
It is also recommended that the Committee on Delinquency be
authorized and directed to choose a Secretary, not a member of the
Board of Public Charities, at a salary of $7500 per annum, who shall
be the executive officer of the Committee and an expert in the care
and treatment of delinquents, and who shall be known as the “Commissioner
of Delinquency.”
Second.—The Commission further recommends that the General
Assembly provide by appropriate legislation for the employment of
all the able-bodied convicts of the Commonwealth in useful and, so
far as possible, in productive labor, and especially, that it vest in the
Committee on Delinquency the powers of the Prison Labor Commission
and the functions of the Business Agent of such Commission
and enlarge such powers and functions as suggested on page 15
of this report.
Third.—The Commission further recommends the enactment of a
law establishing four State Industrial Farms, to receive, care for and
provide for the useful employment of the inmates of county prisons
and jails and of persons hereafter convicted of any offense punishable
by imprisonment in any county jail or prison who have been or
shall hereafter be sentenced for a term of thirty days or more.
Fourth.—The Commission further recommends that the Act of
Assembly approved July 17, 1917 (No. 337), providing for the employment,
during the continuance of the war, of inmates of county jails
at agricultural labor on any county or almshouse farm, be amended so
as to continue its operation indefinitely after the conclusion of peace.
Fifth.—The Commission further recommends that the General
Assembly provide for the purchase of a tract of land, of not less than
600 nor more than 1200 acres, to be used for the benefit of the Eastern
Penitentiary as a prison farm.
Sixth.—The Commission further recommends that a law be
enacted prohibiting fees or allowances and contracts for furnishing
meals to the inmates of county jails or other penal institutions of
the Commonwealth.
Seventh.—The Commission further recommends that the Act
approved June 19, 1911, authorizing the courts in the case of a person
sentenced to a penitentiary to fix as the minimum term of imprisonment
any period less than the maximum prescribed by law for the
offense of which such person was convicted, be amended by a provision
that the minimum limit of the sentence imposed shall never
exceed one-third of the maximum prescribed by the Court.
In the foregoing recommendations the Commission has confined
itself to matters requiring legislative action and to such only as seem
to it to be essential to a consistent, integrated policy of penal administration.
All other matters with respect to which the Commission has
given expression to its views are either subsidiary to those on which
immediate legislative action is recommended or are such as may be
properly referred to the wisdom of the proposed Committee on
Delinquency for consideration and action. The greatest abuse of the
prevailing prison system—the lack of imagination and of understanding
which keeps alive in most of our penal establishments the
methods of a severe and repressive discipline—cannot be abolished
by legislative decree. The greatest reform of which the system is
capable—the awakening in the inmates of the new life which comes
from active, responsible participation in the life of the prison community—is
equally beyond the reach of legislative action. These
will be the fruits of a keener intelligence and of a deeper understanding
than have yet, except in a few rare instances, been brought to
bear on the problem. But your Commission believes that the plan
of penal administration which it has recommended, and which provides
for the most thorough-going study and the most intelligent
treatment of the individual delinquent which has yet been attempted,
will gradually prepare the way for these and other reforms in the
penal system of the Commonwealth.
| Respectfully submitted, |
| January 1, 1919. |
FLETCHER W. STITES, Chairman, |
|
ALFRED E. JONES, |
|
MARTHA P. FALCONER, |
|
LOUIS N. ROBINSON, |
|
ALBERT H. VOTAW, |
|
|
Commissioners. |
| George W. Kirchwey, |
|
| Counsel to the Commission.
|
|
Section 1. Be it enacted, etc., That the Board of Public Charities
shall appoint a standing committee of five of its members to be
known as the Committee on Delinquency. Such Committee shall
be chosen within thirty days after the approval of this Act, and
annually thereafter, by a majority vote of all of the members of the
Board, and at least one member of such Committee shall be a woman.
Vacancies in the membership of the Committee shall be filled in
like manner. Within thirty days after their selection, the Committee
shall each year elect one of its members as chairman.
The members of the Committee shall serve without compensation
but shall receive all of their travelling and other necessary expenses
incurred in the performance of their official duties.
Section 2. The Committee selected under the provisions of this
Act shall appoint a secretary, who shall not be a member of the
Committee or of the Board of Public Charities. The secretary
shall be the executive officer of the Committee and shall be known
as the Commissioner of Delinquency. He shall be a person having
expert knowledge respecting delinquency, and the care and treatment
of delinquents and shall devote his entire time to the duties of his
office. He shall be appointed for a term of five years and shall
receive a salary of seven thousand, five hundred dollars per annum.
The Committee shall have the power to remove the Commissioner
at any time for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or misconduct in office,
and shall, whenever a vacancy occurs either by death, resignation,
or removal from office, appoint a Commissioner to fill the unexpired
term.
Section 3. Subject to the approval of the Committee on Delinquency,
the Commissioner of Delinquency shall appoint a medical
director, an educational director, a director of industries, and such
other directors, experts, agents, and employees for such terms and
at such compensation as shall be fixed by the Committee on Delinquency.
The Commissioner with the approval of the Committee
shall have the power at any time to remove any director, or any
expert, agent, or employee, so appointed.
Section 4. The Board of Commissioners of Public Grounds and
Buildings shall provide the Committee on Delinquency with suitable
rooms in the State Capitol, and elsewhere if necessary, ....
Section 5. The Committee on Delinquency shall have jurisdiction
for the purposes of this act over all institutions within
this Commonwealth of a penal, correctional, or reformatory character
now existing, or which may hereafter be established including
industrial farms, workhouses, and reformatories, and reformatory
institutions for minors or women, whether managed by the Commonwealth,
or any political sub-division thereof or otherwise; Provided,
That this act shall not be interpreted to deprive any warden, superintendent,
or other officer, or board of inspectors, managers, or
trustees, of any such institution of the right to manage its affairs,
but every such institution shall make such reports to the Committee
on Delinquency as the Committee shall be authorized by this Act
to require and shall obey the rules and regulations established, and
follow the recommendations made, by the Committee as authorized
by this Act.
Section 6. The Committee on Delinquency shall have the
power and its duty shall be:—
(a) To inspect and investigate the condition and management
of all institutions within its jurisdiction, and inquire into all complaints
against the same, and report thereon with recommendations
of appropriate action to the Board of Public Charities, the Governor,
the General Assembly, or the courts, as the circumstances may
require;
(b) To institute, maintain, and supervise a medical service
to accomplish the purposes enumerated in this Act;
(c) To make recommendations to institutions within its jurisdiction
for the improvement of the sanitary and hygienic conditions,
the medical and hospital equipment, and the medical service thereof;
(d) To transfer inmates of institutions within its jurisdiction
to other institutions owned, managed, or controlled by the Commonwealth
or any political sub-division thereof, or if suitable arrangements
can be made, to other institutions, where such inmates may
receive treatment more suitable to their mental and physical condition:....
(e) To institute, maintain, and supervise in institutions within
its jurisdiction a system of correctional and reformatory education
to accomplish the purposes enumerated in this Act;
(f) To institute, maintain, and supervise a system for the employment
of the inmates of institutions within its jurisdiction as provided
in this Act;
(g) To prepare and submit to the Board of Public Charities,
not later than the first day of December of each even-numbered
year, a biennial budget for the committee and such of the institutions
within its jurisdiction as are wholly or partly supported by the
Commonwealth. Such budget shall set forth the expenditures of
the Committee and such institutions during the preceding two years,
their estimated financial needs for the succeeding two years, and such
other information as the Committee shall deem appropriate.
To enable it to prepare such budget, the Committee shall have
the power to require of institutions within its jurisdiction, and
such institutions shall prepare and submit, such reports from time
to time as the Committee shall deem necessary, but to the extent
that reports shall be required by the Committee for the purpose
of preparing such budget; institutions within the jurisdiction of
the Committee shall not be required to report to the Board of Public
Charities; and,
(h) To make rules and regulations establishing a uniform
system of accounting and bookkeeping in all institutions within
its jurisdiction.
Section 7. The medical service which the Committee on Delinquency
is by this Act required to institute, maintain, and supervise
shall include:—
(a) The prompt and thorough examination of all the inmates
of institutions within its jurisdiction with a view to the proper
diagnosis, classification, and treatment of all such persons;
(b) The prescription and maintenance of standards in diagnosis
and treatment in all institutions within its jurisdiction and
the determination of the qualifications of those selected as physicians,
psychiatrists, stewards, or nurses, in such institutions;
(c) The furnishing of instructions in personal and social hygiene
to the inmates of all institutions within its jurisdiction, and of
instruction in professional training to such officials, employees, or
inmates of such institutions as may be called upon to serve as
assistants, nurses, or otherwise, in the medical or hospital departments
thereof;
(d) The frequent inspection of the institutions within its jurisdiction
with respect to their sanitary and hygienic condition, the
adequacy of their medical and hospital equipment, and the competency
and efficiency of their medical service; and,
(e) The installation and supervision of a proper dietary adequate
to the maintenance of the health, efficiency, and morale, of
the inmates in all institutions within its jurisdiction.
Section 8. The system of correctional and reformatory education
which the Committee on Delinquency is by this Act required
to institute, maintain, and supervise shall include:—
(a) The prescription and maintenance of standards of correctional
and reformatory education in all institutions within its
jurisdiction and the determination of the qualifications of those
selected as teachers; and,
(b) The education in elementary branches of illiterate and undeveloped
inmates of such institutions; the instruction of all
inmates of such institutions in the principles, organization, and
practice of American government; and the furnishing of a thorough
industrial training to any of the inmates of such institutions for
whom such training shall be deemed useful and desirable.
Section 9. With respect to the labor of the inmates of any
institutions within its jurisdiction to which persons are committed
for crime or delinquency, the Committee on Delinquency shall
have the power and its duty shall be:—
(a) To require every such institution to afford to the inmates
thereof, who are physically capable, an opportunity to perform
useful labor in such institutions;
(b) To determine what industries shall be established in such
institutions and to regulate and supervise the installation of
machinery and equipment therein;
(c) To establish rules and regulations for the employment of
inmates of such institutions at road-building, quarrying, or crushing
stone, agricultural work, land reclamation, or forestry, or other
suitable work outside of such institution; and,
(d) To establish rules with regard to the number of hours per
day during which such inmates shall be employed; Provided, That
except in agricultural work such inmates shall not be employed for
more than eight hours in any one day.
Section 10. With respect to the labor of inmates of such of
the institutions within its jurisdiction as are owned or managed
and controlled by the Commonwealth or any political sub-division
thereof, the committee shall, in addition to the powers and duties
enumerated in the preceding section of this act, have the power
and its duty shall be:—
(a) To maintain a manufacturing fund for the purposes specified
in this section. The original manufacturing fund of the committee
shall be the manufacturing fund paid to the committee by the
Prison Board Commission, as provided in this act, together with
any and all sums due and owing to such Commission, and the unexpended
balance of any appropriation made for the use of such
commission. To such fund there shall be added from time to time
such amount or amounts as shall be appropriated by the General
Assembly;
All receipts from the sale of the products, manufactured or produced
by the labor of the inmates of any such institution, shall be
credited to the manufacturing fund and used for the purchase of
machinery, equipment, raw materials, and supplies, and for the
payment of wages to such inmates;
(b) To sell to the Commonwealth or to any political sub-division
thereof, or any institution, owned, managed, or controlled by the
Commonwealth, or any political subdivision thereof, at not more
than the prevailing market price the products of the labor of such
inmates; Provided, That institutions within the jurisdiction of the
Committee owned, or managed and controlled by the Commonwealth,
or any political subdivision thereof, shall have the privilege
of selling directly such of their agricultural products as they do not
consume, but every such institution selling agricultural products
shall account for and pay to such committee the proceeds of the
sale of such products.
Any surplus of the products of the labor of such inmates which
cannot be sold to the Commonwealth, etc., shall be sold in the open
market, but any such product sold in the open market shall not be
sold for less than the prevailing market price.
Should any institution desire to use the products of the labor
of its inmates, other than agricultural products, it shall purchase
the same from the Committee on Delinquency;
(c) From time to time to fix the compensation of such inmates
for labor performed by them; Provided, That the rate of compensation
to such inmates shall be based both upon the pecuniary value
of the work performed and on the willingness, industry, and good
conduct of the inmate performing the same;
(d) To make rules and regulations governing the payment of
compensation earned by such inmates. Such rules and regulations
may provide for the payment of a part of their compensation to
inmates during their term of confinement to be used for such purchases
as such rules and regulations shall permit. They shall also
provide for the bi-monthly payment of such part of the compensation
of such inmates as the committee shall determine to the dependents
of such inmates, and for the payment of the unpaid balance
of such compensation to such inmates at the time of their discharge,
or at periodic intervals on and after their discharge; and,
(e) To establish rules and regulations for the keeping of records
and accounts by all such institutions, showing the labor performed
by the inmates thereof, the value of the products thereof, and the
wages paid to inmates, or their dependents, or both.
Section 11. All wages paid to the inmates of institutions within
the jurisdiction of the Committee on Delinquency owned, or managed
and controlled by the Commonwealth, etc., shall be paid out
of the committee’s manufacturing fund upon the order of the warden,
superintendent, or other proper officer of the institution in, or in
connection with, which the labor shall have been performed.
Section 12. The Prison Labor Commission created by the act
approved the first day of June one thousand nine hundred and
fifteen, ... is hereby abolished, and shall cease to exist,
thirty days after the chairman of the committee on delinquency
shall have notified the Prison Labor Commission in writing that the
Committee on Delinquency has been duly organized as provided in
this act. Within such period of thirty days the Prison Labor Commission
shall transfer and set over to the Committee on Delinquency
all books, papers, and records, and all moneys and evidence of
debt, in its possession, and the Auditor General is hereby authorized
and directed to draw a warrant on the State Treasurer for the
payment to the Committee on Delinquency of the unexpended
balance of any appropriation made for the use of the Prison
Labor Commission.
Section 13. For the purpose of inspecting any institution within
the jurisdiction of the Committee on Delinquency, such committee,
the Commissioner of Delinquency, and any director, expert, agent,
or employee, deputized by the Commissioner of Delinquency for
the purpose, shall have free access to the grounds, buildings, and
all books, papers, and records of such institution, and all persons,
connected with any such institution, are hereby directed and required
to give such information and to afford such facilities for inspection
as the person making such inspection may require....
Section 14. ...
Should any institution within the jurisdiction of the Committee
on Delinquency which is not owned, or managed and controlled
by the Commonwealth, etc., fail to obey such rules and regulations,
or make such report, such institution shall not be entitled to receive
any financial assistance from the Commonwealth, and it shall be
unlawful for the Auditor General, after having received notice in
writing from the Committee on Delinquency that any such institution
has failed to obey such rules or regulations, or to make such report,
to issue a warrant for the payment of any money appropriated to
such institution so long as such institution shall continue to refuse
to obey such rules and regulations, or to make such report.
Section 15. All salaries, compensation, and expenses, payable
under this act, except wages for labor performed by inmates shall
be paid by the State Treasurer on the warrant of the Auditor General.
Section 16. To carry out the purposes of this act the sum of
two hundred thousand dollars, ($200,000), or such part thereof
as shall be necessary is hereby appropriated to the Committee on
Delinquency.
Section 17. All acts and parts of acts inconsistent herewith are
hereby repealed.
Section 1. Be it enacted, etc., That this act shall be known and
may be cited as “The State Industrial Farms Act of one thousand
nine hundred and nineteen.”
Section 2. There are hereby established four state industrial
farms for the first, second, third, and fourth districts respectively.
Section 3. The first district shall comprise the counties of
Berks, Bucks, Chester, Dauphin, Delaware, Lancaster, Lebanon,
Lehigh, Montgomery, Northampton, and York; and the state
industrial farm therein located shall be known as the “Southeastern
Industrial Farm.”
The second district shall comprise the counties of Bradford,
Carbon, Columbia, Lackawanna, Luzerne, Lycoming, Monroe,
Montour, Northumberland, Pike, Schuylkill, Snyder, Sullivan,
Susquehanna, Tioga, Union, Wayne, and Wyoming; and the state
industrial farm therein located shall be known as the “Northeastern
Industrial Farm.”
The third district shall comprise the counties of Armstrong,
Butler, Cameron, Centre, Clarion, Clearfield, Clinton, Crawford,
Elk, Erie, Forest, Jefferson, Lawrence, McKean, Mercer, Potter,
Venango, and Warren; and the state industrial farm therein located
shall be known as the “Northwestern Industrial Farm.”
The fourth district shall comprise the counties of Adams, Beaver,
Bedford, Blair, Cambria, Cumberland, Fayette, Franklin, Fulton,
Greene, Huntingdon, Indiana, Juniata, Mifflin, Perry, Somerset,
Washington, and Westmoreland; and the state industrial farm
therein located shall be known as the “Southwestern Industrial
Farm.”
Section 4. Upon the approval of this act a board of managers
for each district shall be appointed by the Governor. Each board
shall consist of either five or seven reputable citizens, one or two of
whom shall be women. The members of such boards shall serve
without compensation, but all of their expenses actually and necessarily
incurred shall be paid by the State Treasurer on the warrant
of the Auditor General, which shall be issued upon the order of the
board, countersigned by the secretary of the Committee of Delinquency
of this Commonwealth. The members of the various boards
shall serve for a term of five years and their successors for the same
period. The Governor may remove any of the managers for misconduct,
incompetency, or neglect of duty, and in case of a vacancy
for any cause shall fill such vacancy by appointment for the unexpired
term.
Section 5. The board of managers of each district is hereby
authorized by a majority vote to select a suitable site for the state
industrial farm of the district. Such site shall be within the district,
and shall either be chosen from lands donated to the Commonwealth
for the purpose or purchased by the board with moneys
appropriated or donated for the purpose; Provided, That any such
site shall not contain more than two thousand (2,000) acres. The
title to land donated or purchased as herein provided shall be taken
and held in the name of “The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,”
and shall be examined and approved by the Attorney General prior
to the acceptance or purchase of the land. In the selection of a site
the board of managers shall take into consideration the objects and
purposes of the institution, the accessibility of any proposed site to
the counties included in the district, and all or as many as practicable
of the following enumerated advantages and resources. The land
selected and purchased shall be of varied topography with natural
resources and advantages for many forms of husbandry, fruit growing,
and stockraising; for brick-making, and for the preparation of
all other road and paving material; and shall have good railroad
drainage, sewage, and water facilities. Waste land or land requiring
drainage may be selected if deemed susceptible of profitable cultivation
after its improvement.
Section 6. All buildings constructed in pursuance of this act
shall be plain and inexpensive in character and the labor in constructing
such buildings, improvements and facilities shall be supplied by
persons committed to the state industrial farm or confined in State
or county penal, reformatory, or correctional institutions so far as
found practicable.
The board of managers shall procure all necessary materials;
erect and equip such buildings; employ such skilled labor as cannot
be furnished by the persons committed to their respective industrial
farms or by persons confined in State, or county penal, reformatory
or correctional institutions and provide all proper facilities for their
use and for the practical use of the institution.
When the board of managers of any State industrial farm shall
have made all preliminary arrangements for the construction of the
buildings and equipment therein, they shall notify the Governor
who shall issue a proclamation announcing such fact, and thereafter
prisoners having more than thirty days to serve shall be transferred
to such State industrial farm from any jail or workhouse in that
district on the order of the Governor.
Section 7. The boards of inspectors of the State penitentiaries,
and of the Pennsylvania Industrial Reformatory at Huntingdon,
upon the request of a board of managers of a State industrial farm,
are hereby authorized to transfer to such State industrial farm from
their respective institutions any prisoners of special or mechanical
ability therein who may be found in the judgment of such board and
the board of managers of such State industrial farm suitable for the
purpose, and provide transportation and proper guards for such
prisoners and while such prisoners remain at such State industrial
farm they shall be subject to the orders of the inspectors of the institution
from which they were transferred as to their return, and in all
other respect, except as to discipline and government. While at
such State industrial farm they shall be under the control, discipline,
and government, and subject to the orders, of the board of managers
of such State industrial farm and its executive officers.
The expense of transporting and transferring prisoners used in
the construction of buildings and equipment to and from any State
industrial farm shall be paid by the State Treasurer upon the warrant
of the Auditor General out of any moneys appropriated for the
establishment of such State industrial farm. The Auditor General
shall issue warrants for such purpose upon the order of the executive
officers of the board of managers of such State industrial farm.
The maintenance of such prisoners as are transferred from a
State penitentiary or reformatory shall be paid by the institution
from which they are transferred, but the cost of such maintenance
in excess of the average per capita cost of maintaining prisoners at
the institution from which such prisoners shall have been transferred
shall be refunded to any such institution out of any moneys appropriated
for the establishment of the State industrial farm.
Section 8. When any State industrial farm shall have been
established and ready for operation, a superintendent and matron
and such other officers as may be deemed necessary shall be appointed
by the proper board of managers. Any persons so appointed
shall hold their offices respectively during the pleasure of
the board of managers. The compensation of all such persons shall
be fixed by the board of managers.
Section 9. When in any district the arrangements for the
reception of inmates shall have been completed, the Court of quarter
sessions of every county embraced in such district shall transfer
from the county prisons and jails respectively to the State industrial
farm of the district all persons who shall have been sentenced to
any of said county prisons and jails for any crime, misdemeanor or
felony, murder and voluntary manslaughter excepted, or who shall
have been committed to any of such county prisons and jails for
non-payment of any fine or penalty, or for non-payment of costs,
or for default in complying with any order of court entered in any
prosecution for desertion or non-support, and any other persons
legally confined in any of said county jails or prisons except
persons confined awaiting trial or detained as witnesses; Provided,
That any person whose term will expire within thirty days shall not
be transferred.
Thereafter, when any person is convicted in any of the said
courts of any offense, crime, misdemeanor, or felony, murder and
voluntary manslaughter excepted, the punishment of which is or
may hereafter be imprisonment in any county jail or prison, the
said court shall, if sentence of imprisonment for thirty days or
more be imposed upon such person, commit such person to the
State industrial farm of the district in which said court may have
jurisdiction. If sentence of imprisonment for more than ten but
less than thirty days be imposed, the court may in its discretion
commit such person to the State industrial farm for the district.
Courts of record and courts not of record of the counties included
in any such district shall hereafter commit to the State industrial
farm of the district all persons who might be lawfully committed
to the county jail or prison on charges of vagrancy, drunkenness,
or disorderly conduct, or for default or non-payment of any
costs, fine, or penalty, or for default in complying with any order
of court entered in any prosecution for desertion or non-support,
where in any such case the commitment will be for a period of
thirty days or more. If the commitment be from ten to thirty
days the committing authority may in its discretion commit any
such person to the State industrial farm.
The superintendent may under the direction of the court of
quarter sessions remove any inmate to the county jail for the unexpired
term of his or her term of commitment, or to the poorhouse
of the proper city or county, or to any hospital or lunatic
asylum in such county as circumstances may require.
Section 10. The cost of transporting any persons committed
to a State industrial farm shall be paid by the county from which
the prisoner is committed, and the sheriff of the county shall receive
the same mileage, and fees for prisoners committed to a State
industrial farm as are now allowed by law for transporting prisoners
committed to the State penitentiaries. When any prisoner is
discharged from a State industrial farm the superintendent thereof
shall procure for him a railroad ticket to any point to which said
prisoner may desire to go not farther from such State industrial
farm than the point from which he was sentenced, and it shall be
the duty of the superintendent, or his duly authorized agent, to
accompany the prisoner to the railroad station, deliver the ticket
to the proper railroad conductor, and formally release the prisoner
on the train which he takes for his destination.
Section 11. It shall be the purpose of every State industrial
farm to employ the prisoners committed, or transferred thereto,
in work on or about the buildings and farm, and in growing produce
and supplies for its own use, and for the other institutions of the
Commonwealth, in the preparation of road materials and in making
brick, tile, paving material, and such other products or materials
as may be found practicable for the use of the Commonwealth, or
any political subdivision therein, and in other industries which
may be approved by the board of managers of the State industrial
farm and the Committee on Delinquency of this Commonwealth.
Should any State industrial farm produce supplies or materials in
excess of its needs and demands, or in excess of the demands of
the Commonwealth, or of any political subdivision thereof, such
surplus may be sold by the Committee on Delinquency at the
prevailing market price.
Section 12. Any State industrial farm shall make such reports
and keep such accounts as are now or may hereafter be required
by law, and shall in all such matters be subject to the rules and
regulations established by the Committee on Delinquency.
Section 13. The original cost of the site and buildings of any
State industrial farm, and all additions thereto, and all fixed overhead
charges in conducting the institution, shall be paid by the
Commonwealth out of moneys appropriated for the purpose by the
General Assembly.
The cost of the care and maintenance of the inmates of such
institution shall be certified monthly to the counties from which
inmates shall have been committed. Such cost shall be paid by
the counties in proportion to the number of days spent by the inmates
committed from each county. All payments shall be on requisition
of the board of managers and on warrants of the county commissioners
countersigned by the county controller.
Section 14. (Provides for transferring prisoners from one
institution to another, if deemed advisable.)
Section 15. All the property real and personal authorized to
be held by virtue of this act shall be exempt from taxation by the
Commonwealth or any political subdivision thereof.
Section 16. The rules and regulations governing State industrial
farms shall be uniform and shall be made by the Committee on
Delinquency. They shall be general in character and the respective
boards of managers of each institution may add local rules not
inconsistent with the spirit and substance of the regulations adopted
by the Committee on Delinquency.
Section 17. To carry out the purposes of this act the sum of
two hundred thousand dollars ($200,000), or so much thereof as
shall be necessary, is hereby appropriated but not more than fifty
thousand dollars ($50,000) shall be expended for the purchase and
equipment of the State industrial farm of any district.
Section 18. (Repeals the Act of 1917, authorizing the establishment
of nine Industrial Farms.)
An article prepared for the County Commissioners’ Convention, Pittsburgh,
August 7, 1918.
Agricultural prison labor is strongly advocated by prison authorities
and has been in general use in the penal institutions of Pennsylvania
for many years. The movement for outdoor work for
prisoners has grown rapidly, and as a result, the Pennsylvania
legislature, at its 1917 session, extended the scope of agricultural
work for prisoners, and authorized by an Act approved July 17,
1917, the employment of prisoners, undergoing sentence in county
jails, on county or poor farms.
There is no greater curse than idleness. An unemployed prisoner
is a future menace to society, and no effort should be spared to keep
him busy—to impress upon him the dignity and necessity of work,
and to make him know that he is stronger physically and better
morally if he is regularly employed.
Prison labor should be approached with a desire to help the
prisoner and restore him to society cured of his criminal ailment.
If the only purpose in the minds of the authorities is to make a
profit for their district, they are in grave danger of reverting to the
old convict labor system, which at best was only a modified form
of slavery.
Agricultural prison labor offers the opportunity of a direct profit
to the district, and places the prisoner in an environment peculiarly
adapted to his own physical and mental betterment. I am informed
that it is used with great success in several counties, including Delaware,
Montgomery, Chester, Berks, Lehigh, Beaver, Bucks, Cambria,
Fayette and Westmoreland.
Another important measure enacted by the Pennsylvania legislature
and approved July 20, 1917, requires the erection of an
Industrial Farm, Workhouse and Reformatory in each of nine
districts created by the Act. Each institution is to be built and
managed by a Board of Trustees, consisting of one County Commissioner
from each county in the district, appointed by the President
Judge of the proper Court.
It is the purpose of the institution to keep all persons employed
about the farm and buildings, in growing all kinds of farm produce,
raising live stock and in manufacturing supplies for its own use,
or for the use of the several counties in the district, or any public or
charitable institution owned or managed by any of the district
counties.
Prisoners may also be employed in the making of brick, tile,
and concrete, or other road building supplies for the use of the
several counties. All material manufactured shall be sold at prices
fixed by the Trustees, preference being given in the sale to the
counties comprising the district, and to the cities, boroughs and
townships therein.
The cost of the site, buildings and additions thereto, and all
fixed overhead charges are to be paid by the counties comprising
the district, in ratio to their population. All moneys received from
the sale of produce or manufactured articles or supplies shall be
credited to the overhead expenses.
This, in brief, is a digest of the law which is designed to inaugurate
agricultural prison labor on a large scale in Pennsylvania.
The Trustees were promptly appointed by the Courts of the
State. The Fourth district, organized in March with the election
of Mr. George W. Deeds, of Westmoreland County, as president.
This board has been actively engaged in inspecting proposed sites,
a number of which have been offered, but no selection has, as yet,
been made.
Another phase of prison labor that must be taken into full consideration
in the establishment of industrial farms, is the attitude
of the Courts in reference to the parole law now in effect. If the
Judges believe that the ends of justice are best served by paroling
convicts, rather than committing them to some institution, the
necessary capacity of the proposed buildings would be materially
affected. In most of the counties but little has been done toward a
general use of the parole law, but in a few of them the Courts are
evidently giving it a trial.
The parole law is regarded with especial favor in Washington
County, where the Courts have at the present time, 672 prisoners
under parole. Every one of this number is employed in the county
and must report monthly to the parole officer, who is also the Court’s
employment agent, and who places every paroled prisoner in a job
suitable to his ability and inclination.
This might be called another phase of prison labor, as industry
is one of the conditions of the parole, and the labor is done by the
paroled prisoners for their own profit and advancement—with
freedom to enjoy their homes and pursue their own inclinations
after working hours. So far has the system been carried, that the
Court House, once cleaned entirely by prison labor, is now necessarily
cared for by a paid force of men outside the draft age. You may
better understand why the Court is going to this apparent extreme,
when you know that practically every industry in Washington
County is engaged in war work, and that these paroled men are
placed on farms, and in mines, mills and factories, where they are
helping win the war, though only a small percentage of them are
American citizens and very few are native born.
About 90 per cent. of these men are faithfully complying with
all the conditions of their paroles, 95 per cent. are paying in monthly
installments, the fine and costs imposed upon them by the Court,
and less than five per cent. are proving themselves unworthy of
the confidence reposed in them.
Clearfield County has 10 paroled prisoners; Clinton, 25; Indiana
40; Lycoming, 8; Lehigh, 104; Center, 6; McKean, 47; Butler,
35; and Somerset, 64. It is doubtful if the entire number in all
the other counties in the State would equal the number paroled in
Washington County.
Montgomery County has taken a unique step in the employment
of prison labor and uses the 80 inmates of its county jail in knitting
socks, on knitting machines, for the Red Cross. Many other counties
employ their prisoners, in their jails, in useful occupations.
Agricultural prison labor has been tried out in many States with
gratifying success. Down in Alabama there are 325 men at work
on State farms, where they raised 2300 bushels of wheat last year,
which is an excellent record for a section where wheat is not supposed
to grow. Convicts down there are also worked in the Alabama coal
mines, and are producing 4500 tons of coal daily. Their farm prison
labor is not satisfactory, but in the mines it is pronounced superior
to free labor.
Nebraska is using agricultural prison labor in a small way outside
State institutions and is meeting with splendid success. Maryland
is having the same experience with about 75 convicts who are
helping to relieve the farm labor shortage. Georgia’s male convicts
are employed on the public roads, and the women prisoners are now
engaged in light farm work.
Michigan is farming 4000 acres, but still found sufficient prison
labor to help the farmers with their harvest last year. Wisconsin
has about 100 prison labor farmers and is of the opinion that their
work is as productive as free labor.
New Hampshire objects to agricultural prison labor because it
gives the prisoners no winter employment, and continuous work
is regarded as desirable. Mississippi is meeting with good success
on her State controlled farms, but the law does not permit the use
of prison labor except at State institutions.
Massachusetts is utilizing prison labor on farms, to relieve the
scarcity of farm labor caused by the war, successfully employing
about 100 for that purpose. They regard convict labor, properly
directed, as efficient as free labor.
Vermont believes that its present experience justifies a more
extended use of agricultural prison labor.
Kansas uses its prison labor mostly in prison coal mines, but
is diverting some of its convicts to help the farmers during the war.
Six hundred convicts are employed in Florida on State owned farms.
They are meeting with great success and their prison labor is in
considerable demand. Tennessee has a number of convicts employed
in agricultural labor. The men have gained in health and
earned a profit for the State.
Connecticut uses her prison labor on roads and farms. They
think it is better and more efficient than available free farm labor,
and the farmers of the State are well satisfied with the results
obtained.
Minnesota uses prison labor on roads, and is conducting State
agricultural farms with success. Nevada uses prison labor to harvest
crops on shares. They report the cost disappointing and think
their best results are obtained with agricultural prison labor on
State farms. Virginia uses its prison labor for grinding agricultural
lime for fertilizer. The State employs about 250 convicts on its
own farm, in agricultural work, and finds the work beneficial to
the prisoner as well as to the State.
Illinois is making a special effort to utilize its prison labor, not
only to relieve the scarcity of farm workers, but to help in all other
war industries. About 100 men have been paroled especially for
farm labor, and 350 are successfully employed in factories where
equipment for the government is being manufactured.
The great war has brought forth one outstanding fact in criminology—no
matter what his instincts may be in times of peace,
the convict is a patriot, according to his lights, in time of war, and
in all my investigations, covering practically every eastern, southern
and middle western State, I have not learned of a single prisoner
who violated a parole given him to engage in work that would help
win the war.
Iowa is operating nearly 3000 acres by agricultural prison labor,
and is making a wonderful success, not only from a financial viewpoint
but also in fitting the convicts to regain their place in society.
Indiana has done wonders with prison labor along agricultural
lines, having established one large Industrial Farm for misdemeanants.
In addition, the State is utilizing its prisoners to a considerable
extent to relieve the scarcity of farm labor caused by the war.
About 100 convicts built sidings to coal mines to get out fuel for the
war. At the time of a disastrous flood they worked day and night,
without guards, saving by their efforts thousands of dollars worth of
private property. They were also successfully used at the time of
a severe tornado, recovering the lost, and clearing away the debris.
Indiana does not favor the use of prison labor on public roads.
North Carolina is working 500 prisoners on State owned farms
with excellent success, and in addition is helping out the farmers
to some extent. The State also employs about 100 men on the
highways, but believes road work by prison labor is good for the
roads but bad for the men.
New York thinks that every available prisoner should be employed,
but because of constitutional limitation cannot use its
convicts on private farms. Practically every penitentiary and
county jail in the State is employing its prisoners either at gardening
or farm work on State or county owned or leased farms. Food
production has been materially increased by these concerted efforts
towards agricultural products, and the prisoners themselves are
benefited by the outdoor work. Prison labor is also extensively
used on the public roads.
A notable example of the successful employment of agricultural
prison labor, that is coming into more than local prominence, is in
our own State of Pennsylvania, where Warden Francies is working
wonders with his advanced methods at the new penitentiary at
Bellefonte.
Washington, Pa., August 7, 1918.
It will be generally granted that useful employment in the open
air will be beneficial, but let us also consider the financial side of
the proposition. It will be remembered that the General Assembly
of 1917 passed a bill providing for the establishment of nine Industrial
Farms, to which convicts usually sent to the county jails may be
sent for discipline and employment. I am indebted to Mr. Harry
J. Campbell, of Washington, Pa., for some statistics from nine
counties in the southwestern part of the Commonwealth, constituting
one of the Districts in which an Industrial Prison was to be located.
In order to determine whether such a Prison Farm would be remunerative,
Mr. Campbell collected the statistics from these nine
counties which afford fairly conclusive proof of the economy of the
proposition.
These nine counties in 1917 sent:—
| 179 |
prisoners |
to |
the |
Allegheny Co. Workhouse |
at |
a |
cost |
of |
$20,869 |
| 532 |
“ |
“ |
“ |
Western Penitentiary |
“ |
“ |
“ |
“ |
102,401 |
| 313 |
“ |
“ |
“ |
Morganza (Boys & Girls) |
“ |
“ |
“ |
“ |
60,267 |
| 122 |
“ |
“ |
“ |
Huntingdon Reformatory |
“ |
“ |
“ |
“ |
13,742 |
| 409 |
“ |
“ |
“ |
County Prison |
“ |
“ |
“ |
“ |
81,381 |
| —— |
|
———— |
| 1555 |
“ |
“ |
“ |
various prisons at a total cost of |
$278,660 |
If a Prison Farm were established, they would send none to the
Allegheny County Workhouse.
It is estimated they would send to this farm one-fourth of those
sent to the Penitentiary.
They would send to the Farm one-tenth of those sent to Morganza.
Likewise, one-third of the number sent to the Reformatory
(some have estimated the number to be one-half).
The number of prisoners held for trial at the County Jail varies
from one-tenth to one-half of the whole number imprisoned. However,
we will estimate those convicted at one-half of the number.
Hence, to this Penal Agricultural Institution a minimum number of
587 may be sent, according to the last available statistics.
The funds available for such Institution may be computed as
follows:—
| Money heretofore paid to the Allegheny County Workhouse |
$20,869 |
| One-fourth the cost of prisoners at the Western Penitentiary |
25,600 |
| One-tenth the cost of prisoners at Morganza |
6,026 |
| One-third the cost of prisoners at Huntingdon Reformatory |
4,580 |
| At the County prisons there are certain overhead expenses
which must be taken into account. Estimating that one-half
the number in the County Jails would be removed to
the District Farm, and that the cost of maintenance
amounts to 50c daily for each prisoner, the saving would
amount to |
30,782 |
|
——— |
Total estimated sum available for the District Farm in one
year from nine counties |
$87,857 |
| Let us be entirely fair in our estimate. The 587 prisoners
are expected to earn a large part of their maintenance;
but should we estimate the net cost of maintenance at 25c
daily per prisoner, the cost amounts to |
53,563 |
|
——— |
| Balance |
$34,294 |
This balance would go far toward meeting the expense of purchasing
and stocking the farm and providing the temporary buildings
which may be constructed by the prisoners themselves. The saving
to these counties in two or three years would suffice to purchase
and equip the plant, and with efficient management, the Penal
Farm ought soon to be self-supporting—a result not only satisfactory
to taxpayers but, what is far more important, in the highest degree
beneficial to the delinquent in whose restoration the community is
vitally interested.
These facts have been gleaned from a study of nine counties,
but it must be remembered that the bill now before the General
Assembly provides for the establishment of such an Institution by
almost double the number of counties, hence it is apparent that
within two or three years the entire expense of the farm and its
equipment will be returned to the managers and with self-support
practically assured, the future expense of caring for such delinquents
will be reduced to a minimum or will entirely vanish.
A. V. H.
We gladly present the following facts which have been gleaned
from interviews with Edward Wilson, Esq., one of the agents of
this Board.
So far as prison labor is involved, the Board of Public Charities
has been deeply interested in developing the possibilities of an Act
which on their initiative was passed and approved in 1917. This
allows the employment of prisoners on lands belonging to any county.
In 1915 Judge Isaac Johnson, in Delaware County began a
system of employing prisoners which the Board desires to extend.
In the year 1918, the receipts from the crops produced by the labor
of prisoners amounted to $14,000, in addition to a large amount of
vegetable products consumed at the prison. The net profit is near
$7000. Report comes that Berks County will be able to supply
the prison with vegetables for the winter. Northampton County
employed fifteen to twenty prisoners on a small farm recently purchased.
Dauphin County had a few prisoners at work on the almshouse
farm. In Montgomery County from fifteen to twenty prisoners
have been employed on the Poor farm. In Columbia County
seven Italians are engaged in operating a war garden which it is
said has been very profitable. In one or two counties with large
population, there is no land available for such purpose. Mr. Wilson
states that little or nothing has been accomplished in this direction
in those counties whose jail population is small. At one time
in the year 1918, there were 13 counties without a prisoner. In
some counties prisoners have worked on the roads. A few counties
have been willing for selected prisoners to be paroled to farmers.
Mr. Wilson is inclined to the belief that in some of our counties,
the prevailing type of prisoner is too vicious to be allowed the
freedom which belongs to the cultivation of the soil. From observations
elsewhere we are inclined to the belief that the vilest man
or woman, unless defective in mentality, will respond when treated
with kindness and made to feel that he or she is trusted. Granted,
however, that it may be considered unwise to send all prisoners
without reservation to work on the farm, under the system proposed
by the Commission to investigate Prison Systems, and whose Report
to the General Assembly is found elsewhere in this number of the
Journal, all the State Industrial Prison Farms are to foster some
industry or industries aside from the horticultural and agricultural
employments. On these farms there will be found opportunity for
the employment of all prisoners, whatever may be their character
or temperament.
Last year in a casual inspection of the prison at Wilkes-Barre,
the secretary announced that he considered 46 out of the 75 prisoners
would be available for an Industrial Farm. Mr. Wilson after a
very careful study of the situation concluded that 11 could be sent
to work on the outside. Now something depends on the viewpoint.
If the State should own an Industrial Farm fully equipped for the
permanent accommodation of prisoners with diverse industries, Mr.
Wilson probably would add materially to the number which might
be sentenced to the penal farm instead of to the county prison
affording so little opportunity for continuous profitable labor. The
secretary consents to some reduction of his estimates, if real employment
with some remuneration can be supplied at the county
jail. The tendency of this practical age is to give regular employment
to all those whom we for a time exclude from community
freedom, and to place over them officials who will direct these
industries.
This Institution which we allowed some 30 years ago to
pass beyond our control, perhaps to its advantage, has just issued
a Report of its work for the year 1918. There was some honest
difference of opinion in 1890 as to the value of this enterprise, but
we believe the principal reason for the abandonment of the project
by The Pennsylvania Prison Society was the lion in the way in
the shape of a financial bugaboo.
During the last year this institution cared for 275 men, keeping
them on an average of 32 days for each man. Their industries
have contributed $9,422 toward its own support.
We have always thought that the institution should be removed
to a farm. In 1917 some of the men did work on land which
they secured and the results were very favorable. In 1918 they
entered upon the same work with high expectations, but from a
variety of causes the agricultural operations have not been prosperous.
Labor went elsewhere. We hope for better results next year.
We recommend this Home as worthy of continued support.
The Committee on Public Information acting under the authority
of the United States Government have from time to time published
and issued pamphlets giving some extremely valuable facts and
explanations with regard to the Great War and dealing with its
causes and results. Not the least valuable among these circulars is
No. 113, issued March, 1918, and devoted to “German Militarism
and its German Critics.” This handbook contains forty pages and
is compiled from sources which the Government regards as sufficiently
reliable to justify extensive circulation. It may be obtained
by any one who will send request, and refer to it by title, from the
Committee on Public Information, Washington, D. C.
From this document we quote a few instances of brutality which
have been presented by credible witnesses:—
1. “A Polish recruit was maltreated so fearfully by an
officer that he finally hanged himself. The officer induced
the soldiers to certify that they had seen nothing.
2. “An officer struck a sick recruit repeatedly on the
chest so that he screamed with pain and soon thereafter
died in a hospital.
4. “Soldiers were struck in the face during instruction.
... Witness saw hundreds of times helmets pressed
down and the bands which held them under the chin pulled
so that the soldiers grew red in the face. Alsatians and
Lorrainers particularly were maltreated and frequently
called ‘French Skulls’ and worse. The officers warned the
men against complaining, promising worse treatment if they
dared to report these outrages.
5. “During the maneuvers no day passed without
brutality.... Boxing of ears, blows, even with the
sword and riding-whip, were daily occurrences....
Complaints were omitted for fear of the consequences.”
Enough. In the circular it is stated that at a certain military
trial in Germany, held in 1914, 922 men from all parts of Germany
had signified their willingness to give testimony and were ready to
report some 30,000 separate instances of brutal treatment of soldiers.
Hence it seems apparent that the spirit of dominant militarism is
arrogant, ferocious, brutal. It harks back to the time of medieval
tortures. By the circulation of Tract No. 113, the Government of
the United States has indicated its abhorrence and utter condemnation
of such cruel and inhuman methods of enforcing discipline.
Naturally we expected that our army officials would not for a moment
countenance such arbitrary and tyrannical treatment of offenders.
When we take into consideration the inexperience of this nation
with large armies, there is cause for congratulation that the instances
of cruelty and unwarranted severity have been proportionately so
few. And yet there have been some instances of pitiless malevolence
inflicted upon a class of offenders who least deserve it. We are
aware of the penalties for disobedience to orders which naturally
belong to a military system. In accordance with the military code,
disobedience is a heinous crime. So when the officials were confronted
with refusal to obey orders, even though the offenders were
of the highest character, the mind of the militarist could view the
offense from only one angle. We are referring to the treatment
accorded to some—not all—of the “conscientious objectors.” They
constituted an exceedingly small proportion of the American Army
which at the time the armistice was signed numbered 3,665,000.
The number altogether of those conscripted whose religious convictions
forbade them to use carnal weapons was about 3,900—less
than one-ninth of one per cent. of the vast American Army.3 Of
these 1,300 accepted non-combatant service and 1,500 were allowed
to be employed on farms or to aid France and Belgium in the work
of reconstruction of their ruined homes and devastated lands.
Our latest advices inform that 527 of these “conscientious objectors”
have been court-martialed and sent to the Military Prison at Fort
Leavenworth. A majority of these belong to religious bodies whose
creeds are opposed to war. These men were not hunting for trouble.
Conscription brought them from their peaceful homes and from their
farms where they were so much needed to aid in increasing the food
supply of the nation. They were living inoffensively and were
brought into difficulties by no overt act. It is not our intention to
uphold or combat their interpretation of “The Sermon on the
Mount.” They were men who were regarded as useful, upright
members of the communities where they resided. Some of them
belonged to bodies whose members have been foremost in every
philanthropic effort for the last two centuries. We may attach no
special virtue to works of superogation, yet we venture to suggest
that men and women who in times of peace have been foremost in
honest industrial pursuits, who have been prominent in all movements
to advance the best interests of the community, who have devoted
their time and their means lavishly to social betterment, should in
time of war be entitled to some consideration on account of their
past services in the uplift of humanity. Between the ages of 21 and
31, less than one to every 36,000 were found who claimed immunity
from military service on account of their creed, and as many of these
accepted some form of non-combatant service, the number absolutely
refusing to comply with any military command was less than
one out of 60,000 conscripts. Would it not have been wiser to allow
these men to continue their lawful avocations on the farm, in the
shop, in the mills, than to support them in idleness, to detail a special
force to guard them, and to ruin their health by harsh treatment?
The Hofers case is an authentic instance of an infliction of tortures
by methods which acknowledge no obligation outside of military
authority. Jacob Wipf and the three Hofer brothers were members
of the Huttrian sect, a small body residing in California, “They
believed, with an intense conviction, that their duty to their God
utterly precluded any submission to military command....
It must be remembered that this was no degenerate whim, nor yet
the stubbornness of criminals—it was the highest spiritual conviction
of deeply religious men.” They refused to wear the uniform. A
mere outline of the penalties will suffice. Thrown into the “Hole,”
30 feet below the base of the building at the level of the sea. Murky
atmosphere. Stripped to underwear. Handcuffed to an iron bar
so that their feet barely reached the floor. Remained strung up
for 36 hours. No food; one glass of water. Repeatedly beaten
with clubs. Then for five days exempted from “hanging up,”
but confined without food, or sufficient clothing. The authorities
were finally broken, not these God-fearing men. It seems like a
tale from the “Book of Martyrs,” not an event in a civilized nation.
They were released from the dungeon broken in health, afflicted
with scurvy, and after suffering a lot of petty persecutions, were
transferred to another prison in a colder climate. Here they were
placed in “Solitary,” with diet of bread and water, strung up for
nine hours a day, forced to sleep on the floor. The cold draughts had
a natural effect. When it was learned that they were ill, they were
removed to a hospital where two of them died in a few days from
pneumonia. The surviving brother, though scarcely able to walk,
was mercifully released to accompany the dead bodies of the two
brothers to their homes. Military vengeance was satiated. It is
incredible to believe that such methods in this enlightened age are
used.
From the New York World, we note the following instances of
treatment accorded to “objectors” at Camp Funston. Sleeping
on bare floor. No food all day. Kicked repeatedly. Beaten with
rifle butts, pricked with bayonets, dragged over filth, choked till
they are breathless, placed under a cold shower at midnight, clothes
and all, hung temporarily by the neck, some rendered insane for the
time. It is hard to realize that such things could happen in America.
Do we not speak of civilized warfare? Does war necessarily make
fiends of men prematurely? It is a pleasure to report that the
officers at Camp Funston responsible for these outrages were either
dismissed or removed to a different field.
The larger proportion of those imprisoned at Fort Leavenworth
belong to the peace-loving, inoffensive, industrious Mennonites.
Take the case of the Amish Mennonites. Last summer 45
of these quiet people were sentenced to life imprisonment for refusing
to obey the orders of their inferiors in many points of view
except that of military rank. This sentence was commuted to an
imprisonment of 25 years. Twenty-seven of the same sect were
sentenced from 10 to 20 years each for a similar offence. Virtually
in every one of these 72 cases, the crimes consisted in a refusal to
don uniforms. Most of them have longer sentences than are usually
dispensed for manslaughter.
The length of these sentences and also of many other sentences
pronounced upon others who have broken the regulations of the
military code has been made the special object of investigation by
Congress. The excuse that some of these excessively long sentences
were military bluff for the deterrent effect and were never intended
to be carried out in full is irrational. If such statement is correct,
our system of military court procedure ought to be overhauled and
renovated. We are not contending that offenders should go unpunished,
we are merely insisting that the penalties prescribed shall
be commensurate with the offense, and shall be consistent with
modern jurisprudence.
Let us be thankful that the instances of cruelty and preposterous
punishments have been so few. Grant that some of the reported
instances are a species of brutal hazing, that some few bone-headed
young officials “drest in some brief authority,” with an overweening
sense of their importance, have taken a narrow view of military
discipline, still there have been sufficient complaints to elicit the
following editorial in the sober Public Ledger of Philadelphia.
“If any branch of the Government’s military activities
calls for an instant and searching investigation, it is certainly
the treatment accorded the “conscientious objectors”
in the military prisons to which they have been sent by
court-martial. Even if half the allegations contained in the
complaints concerning the prisoners of this type, at Governor’s
Island, New York, and at Fort Leavenworth, are
true, the conditions demand instant correction and those
responsible therefor summary punishment.
“In times of war severity of treatment, within the limits
of humanity, is to be expected by those who refuse to fulfill
their obligations to the nation; but the term ‘severity of
treatment’ is an euphemism when used to describe the
experiences of conscientious objectors, shackled, unclothed,
for hours to cell doors, kept for days in dark cells,
and forced for weeks to subsist under physical conditions
which the law would not permit in the case of animals.
If these charges are substantiated, and the outraged sense of
justice of the nation demands that they be either substantiated
or disproved, then the drastic revision of military law
and practice is an imperative duty of Congress which it dare
not ignore or neglect.
“There is abundant reason to believe, in the severity
of the sentences permitted to be imposed by army courts-martial,
that there is lacking in the military mind that sense
of fitness and of humanity which is in accordance with the
age in which we live. The United States cannot with clean
hands ask the nations with which it is allied in the war to
humanize the laws of war while it tolerates inhumanity in the
enforcement of its own military regulations at home. Recalcitrant
soldiers offer a difficult problem, of course; but the
fact is a greater reason for dealing with such offenders with
tact and, above all, with humanity. Torture has no place
in the penology of the day, and least of all in the service
which prides itself on its patriotism.”
The Acting Committee of The Pennsylvania Society, having
been informed of some instances of punishment which seemed to
resemble soulless European autocratic methods, sent the following
remonstrance to Secretary Baker:—
“The Pennsylvania Prison Society learns with astonishment
and a profound sense of sorrow of the brutal
methods of punishment employed in some of our Federal
Prisons upon military offenders—especially upon so-called
“Conscientious Objectors” whose only offense is a consistent
adherence to their sense of duty. The studied
attempt to break the spirit of prisoners at Fort Leavenworth
and elsewhere by unspeakable cruelty suggests the
practices of a barbaric past rather than those of a civilized
and enlightened people. Granting that a Nation must at
times deal firmly with political offenders, can any crime ever
justify the employment of cruel and inhumane treatment?
If such barbarous punishment has the sanction of law, then
an outraged sense of justice demands the immediate revision
of our Military Code.”
The following note was received, which indicates that the War
Department at Washington has taken measures to relieve the
harsh conditions.
“February 6, 1919.
“... The War Department immediately upon
having conditions at the Disciplinary Barracks called to its
attention, instituted an investigation. The report of that
investigation disclosed the fact that the trouble at Leavenworth
was due, not at all to the administration of the
prison, but to the regulations which were ill-adapted to the
unusual type of prisoner that the Selective Service Act
brought to military prisons. The Secretary at once made
some appropriate modifications of those regulations and
has called a conference to consider further changes in
disciplinary regulations, not only to meet this unusual
condition but to bring the Army’s disciplinary methods up
to the most modern penological standards, in case they
shall be found to be deficient. The conference will also
consider ways of meeting the immediate emergency of the
overcrowding of disciplinary barracks due to the increased
size of the Army during the war. The conference will
come to its conclusions in the near future and you may be
assured that action leading out of its conclusions will be
promptly taken.”
“Very truly,
“F. P. KEPPEL,
“Third Assistant Secretary.”
Confidential orders, recently made known, of the War Department,
issued in October, 1918, prescribed that those conscripts,
refusing on account of conscientious scruples to perform military
service, should not be treated as traitors or as guilty of rank insubordination.
The Government thus in some form recognized the
validity of their scruples. As a rule such persons were entirely
segregated from the other men. For a time solitary confinement
was discontinued, but we regret to report that at the military prison
at Leavenworth some 25 of these objectors have recently been
remanded to cellular isolation. One of these men has for some
time been engaged in Christian work under the auspices of the
Y. M. C. A. Very recently he received a visit from a gentleman in
whose office he had often been a visitor, but his mind seemed a
blank, as he did not appear to recognize his visitor who called to
offer services. This mode of punishment was having its logical effect.
We fully endorse the attitude of the U. S. Government as indicated
in its Official Bulletin, No. 113, page 5:—“Accustomed as
these leaders have been for many years to universal military service,
to a large standing army, ... to marked class distinctions,
they have absorbed, and are now wedded to, certain notions which
to us, who have grown up under very different conditions, seem like
worship of constituted authority and the unwarranted surrender
of individual responsibility. The gradual development of these
very notions has brought about an inordinate influence of the
military group in public affairs.”
We rejoice that our Government so clearly sets forth the evils
of a military authority, the spirit of which is so manifestly opposed
to the genius of our free institutions.
On behalf of the Editorial Committee,
J. F. OHL,
FLORENCE BAYARD KANE,
ALBERT H. VOTAW.
Within the last few years the general public has been informed
of the real life of the convict by intelligent observers who have
suffered a few days of incarceration in order to gain an insight into
the actual effects of imprisonment. The accounts were interesting
and instructive, but we now have another opportunity to acquire
knowledge of prison conditions from some intelligent and conscientious
persons who have been imprisoned without resorting to a
fake process in order to have such experience. We refer to a class
of offenders who from religious scruples and in some cases for other
reasons have disobeyed the military requirements. We hold no
brief for these offenders, but the observations of some of these persons
are a decided contribution to the science of penology. Making due
allowance for hasty conclusions arrived at from a brief period of
incarceration, and also after insufficient opportunity to grasp the
subject in its entirety, nevertheless, the facts related, and the
arguments and deductions derived from their experiences should
appeal to all who have interest in the reformation of criminals.
Rev. Evan Thomas, a young man of deep religious conviction,
and of a keen sense of injustice, has recently published in The
Survey some details of prison life in the Federal Prison at Leavenworth,
Kansas.
We quote some portions of his article.
“The burden of prison life as I experienced it, however, was
not the physical hardships but the unspeakable moral filth and vice
to which one is constantly exposed. I could not have believed many
of the things I heard and witnessed at Fort Leavenworth had they
been reported to me before going there. No sexual vice or moral
depravity is too low for some of the men confined there. The Disciplinary
Barracks have been called the ‘cess pool for the dregs of
the army.’ But many a fine young soldier whose only offense was
to overstay his leave or be the helpless victim of the antiquated
military law in this country, has found his way among the ‘dregs’
of the army; and as for the others, the great majority are the products
of our reform schools, orphan asylums and jails. These men are
indiscriminately grouped together in the prison. It is true that
there are two so-called honor wings for prisoners in the Disciplinary
Barracks, but I was never able to discover just what was necessary
to be assigned to these wings. The information generally given me
by other prisoners was that it was necessary to do ‘some hand-shaking’
first. As a matter of fact, as nearly as I was able to learn,
the power lay very largely in the hands of a group of prisoners, who
through clever politics and the holding of certain important jobs in
the executive office and elsewhere, were able to control things to
a large extent. I was told that even in these honor wings moral
conditions were bad, but in the other wings where men were indiscriminately
alloted, it often happened that diseased men were
assigned to the same cells with others who had to share the same
toilet facilities. The sixth wing, composed of eight tiers of open
cells, each of which contains three double-decked cots and six occupants,
is known as the ‘mad-house’ by the prisoners. Any thoughtful
reading, writing or study in this wing is next to impossible. Before
going into solitary confinement as a protect against the severe treatment
accorded to such conscientious objectors as refused to work, I
spent one day in this wing and the thought of ‘solitary’ lost much of
its dread for me.
“It is certainly possible for the man of wide interests or strong
character to live in such surroundings without any great degree of
moral harm to himself, but for the young, the weak, the very immature,
such conditions are nothing short of ruinous. The conversation
is confined largely to sex, ‘booze’ and the personal daring of the
prisoners. No crime is too terrible and no feat too desperate for most
of these men in their talk. The menace of this sort of thing to those
whose interests are almost entirely within the prison walls is the most
insidious and destructive thing imaginable. Yet no real effort is
made by the authorities to group the prisoners so that at least some
of the men could be spared a great deal of temptation. Much more
serious is the fact that the prison life itself is not calculated to give a
man any interests but those of the basest sort. Self-government is
practically unknown at Fort Leavenworth except in the honor
wings, where I believe the occupants are allowed to elect their own
orderlies.
“At the Disciplinary Barracks there is a department of psychiatry
which takes a very careful record of every prisoner’s history and this
record is faithfully verified by the authorities through letters and
other means of information. But once this record is completed and
on the files, apparently everything has been done that is required.
So far as I was able to observe, at least, no really constructive efforts
were made to relieve the conditions in the wings which I have spoken
of, where a man of refined sensibilities is often quartered in the same
double-decked bunk with a degenerate or a moral pervert.
“The condition of affairs which I have been attempting to describe
is greatly aggravated by the fact that the idea of punishment and
discipline reigns supreme in the prison. Much is said in the rules and
regulations about the aim of the institution being to improve every
prisoner and turn each man out a better and more useful individual
than when he came in. That is one of the standing jokes of the
prisoners and not without reason, for one has only to read the book
of rules itself to see that the military tradition of punishment and
discipline is the medicine which is expected to work this great transformation.
But unfortunately most of the occupants of a military
prison are there because of their failure or refusal to accept this
military tradition. They are there because they are weak, mentally
and morally, or too independent for the army or because they object
to it on principle.
“So far as I have had experience in life I have yet to observe
anything more absolutely negative in its purpose and effects than
this method of discipline. The prisoner who has the distinction of
having been longest at Fort Leavenworth, had only two more days
of his sentence to complete when a guard called him a vile name,
and utterly regardless of the inevitable consequences this prisoner
knocked the guard down with a brick. He has since received several
extensions of sentence because of other defiant acts. The ball and
chain, solitary confinement and all the other repressive measures of
the prison system have some way not succeeded as yet in turning
this man out of prison a ‘better man than when he came in.’ There
unquestionably is a criminal element in prison that is a menace to
society, but depraved or vicious as some of these men may be, there
is yet some good in every one of them and possibilities of truly
chivalrous conduct in all of them when properly treated. But the
ball and chain, the iron rule, the cursing and foul threats by guards
do not seem to bring out the good side of these men.
“Not long before I was released two men were caught fighting in
the corridor of the wing near my cell. These two men were not
equally guilty. To go into the details of the case would require more
space than I have, but the point I wish to bring out is that they both
were at once taken to the executive officer of the prison and in ten
minutes were back, sentenced alike, to ten days in the ‘hole’ on
bread and water. The great object of such prison punishment is to
break a man, make him humble, meek and obedient. When this is
done the process of making a man of the prisoner seems to be considered
completed. A guard once told me while I was in solitary that
when he chained a man up backwards as punishment for talking
in solitary, as used to be done, he was generally kind-hearted enough
to let the man down if he repented and asked for it in the ‘right
spirit,’ but if the man was too ‘damned proud to show how much
it hurt him he would let him take his medicine.’ I mention this
because to my mind it is typical of the punishment and discipline
idea of the prison. Actually what happens in this process of breaking
is that the prisoner in the great majority of cases is shoved still further
down the scale of degradation and lack of self-respect. He becomes
either flabby or vicious. This is especially true of such criminal types
as need the helpful, sympathetic and human advice and correction
of trained men above everything else.
“It is my belief that at the bottom of all that I have been trying
to tell, lies not the dishonesty or cruelty of individual officials but
a state of mind shared largely by us all, even prisoners themselves
oftentimes, viz., the idea that the convict is something apart, something
taboo, a person who has forfeited all the rights of normal
human beings, and with this idea goes that of punishment, the
ingrained belief that the only way to deal with viciousness or wrong-doing
is to keep the big stick constantly at hand. This certainly is
the theory of our prisons if one is to judge from the products of our
reform schools and jails whom I met at Fort Leavenworth. These
men very largely had grown up with no other idea of life than that
of the big stick. Put one of these prisoners in authority over others
and in the majority of cases he can be more dictatorial and cruel than
any guard. The supposition is that to make this outcast—the
prisoner—bow to authority will make a man of him.
“Prison reform is no easy matter. It must be the work of devoted
and expertly trained men and women. Sentimentalism can play no
part in it and certainly discipline, properly understood, will always
have its place, but it will be discipline in which mutual responsibility,
human sympathy and understanding will replace autocracy and
indifference to the individual and personal element at stake. It is,
perhaps, only fair to say that with the arrival of Major Adler at Fort
Leavenworth at the beginning of this year certain very important
reforms have been started. But it is going to be a long, uphill fight
which will require the enlightened support of the public if prisons are
ever to cease being a degrading influence in the prisoner’s life to say
nothing of becoming the constructive help that they should be and
can be.”
... We have a detailed report of the number of arrests
in Detroit during the last eight months of license as compared with
the first eight months under prohibition. Detroit became dry
May 1, 1918, and this report covers the two periods of eight months
each, preceding and following that date. It is issued by George H.
Walters, deputy police commissioner. Detroit is the largest city in
the world to experiment with prohibition, it having close to 1,000,000
people.
We have grouped kindred offenses to secure brevity. The first
column shows the number of arrests during the wet period and the
second column shows arrests for the same offenses during the dry
regime. In the third column we have worked out the percentage
of reduction. Under the dry period there were 1511 arrests for
violation of the prohibition law and 550 convictions resulted. These
are omitted from the list because, obviously, no comparison on this
offense could be made. The following figures tell their own story:
Under
license. |
Under
prohibition. |
Percentage
reduction. |
| 28,156 |
10,543 |
64 |
It is worthy of note that these results are not materially different
from what happened in the cities of Denver and Seattle, which became
dry January 1, 1916. They afford a hint of what may be possible,
at least to a degree, in Philadelphia after the 1st of next July.
Philadelphia, February 20, 1919.
HONORARY MEMBERS.
|
Maud Ballington Booth (1909) |
New York City. |
|
Judge Ben B. Lindsey (1909) |
Denver, Colo. |
| 4 |
Frederick Howard Wines (1909) |
|
|
Judge McKenzie Cleland (1909) |
Chicago, Ill. |
| 4 |
Gen. R. Brinkerhoff |
|
|
Z. R. Brockway (1909) |
Elmira, N. Y. |
| 4 |
Prof. Charles Richmond Henderson (1910) |
|
|
Dr. Hastings H. Hart (1914) |
New York City. |
| 4 |
James A. Leonard (1914) |
|
Timothy Nicholson (1915) |
Richmond, Ind. |
|
Amos W. Butler (1915) |
Indianapolis, Ind. |
LIFE MEMBERS.
| 4 |
Ashmead, Henry B., |
4 |
Lewis, Howard W., |
| 4 |
Bailey, Joel J., |
|
Lewis, Mrs. Sarah A., |
| 4 |
Baily, Joshua L., |
|
Longstreth, W. W., |
| 4 |
Bartol, B. H., |
4 |
Love, Alfred H., |
| 4 |
Benson, E. N., |
4 |
Lytle, John J., |
| 4 |
Bergdoll, Louis, |
4 |
Maginnis, Edw. I., |
| 4 |
Betts, Richard K., |
4 |
Manderson, James, |
|
Bonham, Eleanor M., |
4 |
Milne, Caleb J., |
| 4 |
Bonsall, E. H., |
4 |
McAllister, Jas. W., |
| 4 |
Brooke, F. M., |
4 |
Nicholson, Robert P., |
| 4 |
Brown, Alexander, |
4 |
Osborne, Hon. F. W., |
| 4 |
Brown, T. Wistar, |
|
Patterson, Robert, |
|
Brush, C. H., |
4 |
Pennock, George, |
|
Buckley, Daniel, |
4 |
Perot, Joseph, |
|
Carter, John E., |
|
Perot, T. Morris, Jr., |
| 4 |
Cattell, Henry S., |
|
Pooley, Fred. J., |
| 4 |
Childs, George W., |
4 |
Potter, Thomas, |
|
Cochran, Miss Mary N., Jr., |
4 |
Powers, Thomas H., |
|
Coles, Miss Mary, |
4 |
Price, Thomas W., |
| 4 |
Collins, Alfred M., |
|
Randolph, Miss Anna, |
|
Coxe, Eckley B., Jr., |
|
Rhoads, Joseph R., |
| 4 |
Downing, Richard H., |
4 |
Roach, Joseph H., |
| 4 |
Dreer, Edw. G., |
4 |
Saul, Rev. James, |
|
Dreer, Ferd. J., Jr., |
4 |
Santee, Charles, |
| 4 |
Douredore, B. L., |
4 |
Seybert, Henry, |
| 4 |
Duhring, D. D., Rev. H. L., |
4 |
Sharpless, Townsend, |
|
Duncan, John A., |
4 |
Steedman, Rosa, |
| 4 |
Elkinton, Joseph S., |
|
Stephens, Emily J. I., M. D., |
|
Elwyn, Alfred, |
4 |
Stokes, Wm. C., |
| 4 |
Elwyn, Mrs. Helen M., |
4 |
Sulzberger, David, |
| 4 |
Fotterall, Stephen G., |
4 |
Thomas, Geo. C., |
|
Frazer, Dr. John, |
|
Thompson, Emma L., |
|
Frazier, W. W., |
4 |
Tracey, Charles A., |
| 4 |
Goodwin, M. H., |
4 |
Townsend, Henry T., |
|
Grigg, Mary S., |
|
Tyler, W. Graham, |
| 4 |
Hall, George W., |
|
Votaw, Albert H., |
|
Harrison, Alfred C., |
4 |
Waln, L. Morris, |
|
Harrison, Chas. C., |
4 |
Walk, Jas. W., M. D., |
| 4 |
Hockley, Thomas, |
|
Warren, E. Burgess, |
|
Ingram, Wm. S., |
4 |
Watson, Jas. V., |
| 4 |
Jeans, Joshua T., |
|
Way, John, |
|
Jenks, John Story, |
4 |
Weightman, William,
|
| 4 |
Jones, Mary T., |
4 |
Weston, Harry, |
| 4 |
Jordan, John, Jr., |
|
Wetherell, William Henry, |
| 4 |
Justice, W. W., |
|
Whelen, Emily, |
| 4 |
Kinke, J., |
4 |
Whelen, Mary S., |
| 4 |
Knight, Reeve L., |
4 |
Williams, Henry J., |
| 4 |
Laing, Anna T., |
4 |
Williamson, I. V., |
| 4 |
Laing, Henry M., |
4 |
Willits, Jeremiah, |
|
Lea, M. Carey, |
4 |
Willits, Jeremiah, Jr., |
| 4 |
Leaming, J. Fisher, |
|
Wistar, Edward M., |
|
Leeds, Deborah C., |
|
Wood, Walter. |
| 4 |
Lewis, F. Mortimer, |
|
|
ANNUAL MEMBERS.
Adger, Miss Willian,
Allen, Clara Hodges,
Allen, H. Percival,
Arrison, Anna D.,
Ashton, Tabor,
Baggs, Nicholas, Capt.,
Baily, Albert L.,
Baird, John E.,
Baldwin, Harriet H.,
Barakat, Layyah,
Barnes, Rev. R. Heber,
Bartram, T. E.,
Beiswenger, Paul F.,
Beiswenger, Rev. F.,
Belfield, T. Broom,
Biddle, Miss Christine W.,
Biddle, Mrs. Clement M.,
Biddle, William,
Boggs, Samuel R.,
Bok, Mrs. Mary Louise,
Booth, Henry D.,
Borden, G. W.,
Bowers, Virginia R.,
Bradford, Miss Annie,
Brewer, Franklin N.,
Brink, Fred Swarts,
Brinton, Joseph Hill,
Brown, Ellis, Y.,
Browning, Mrs. G. G.,
Buckley, Mrs. Edward S.,
Burnham, George, Jr.,
Butterworth, Elizabeth W.,
Butz, J. Treichler, M. D.,
Byers, Joseph P.,
Canby, W. Marriott,
Carpenter, Mrs. E. Payson,
Cassell, Henry C.,
Chichester, S. E.,
Clark, Frederic L.,
Clark, E. W.,
Coale, Thomas E.,
Coburn, George A.,
Collins, Henry H.,
Collins, Henry H., Jr.,
Colton, Mrs. Mary R.,
Colton, Mrs. S. W., Jr.,
Comfort, Henry W.,
Conard, C. Wilfred,
Cope, Mrs. Edward,
Cope, Mrs. Eliza M.,
Cope, Miss Margaret,
Daniel, C. A.,
de Benedetto, Rev. A.,
De Haven, Miss Clara B.,
De Haven, Miss Sarah Cole,
deLong, Mary Ella,
Develin, James Aylward,
Dewees, J. H.,
Dewees, Watson W.,
d’Invilliers, Charles E.,
Disston, Albert H.,
Disston, Jennie C.,
Drexel, Mary S. Irick,
Dripps, Robert Dunning,
Ecroyd, Charles E.,
Edmonds, Franklin S.,
Elkinton, Joseph,
Emlen, Samuel,
Emlen, Miss Dorothea,
Fernberger, Henry,
Fisher, Geo. Harrison,
Fleisher, Samuel S.,
Fleisher, Moyer,
Frick, Esther,
Funk, Lawson C.,
Galenbeck, Louis C.,
Garges, Anna K.,
Garrett, Elizabeth N.,
Gerhard, Luther,
Gerhard, Arthur H.,
Gerhard, Mrs. Arthur H.,
Gillingham, Anna H.,
Graff, Charles F.,
Greene, Sallie H.,
Haines, Dr. H. I.,
Haines, Henry E.,
Haines, Robert B., Jr.,
Hallowell, William S.,
Haney, Rein G.,
Harding, Miss M. W.,
Harris, Rev. J. Andrews,
Harris, Mrs. J. Campbell,
Harris, J. Linn,
Hastings, Charles P.,
Heller, Clyde A.,
Henderson, George R.,
Hill, Miss Elizabeth A.,
Hodge, Mrs. Lydia B. Penrose,
Hoffman, Jacob,
Howe, Mrs. Mary W. F.,
Hutton, George S.,
Jenkins, Theodore F.,
Kane, Miss Florence Bayard,
|
Kaufman, John G.,
Kehler, Dr. B. Frank,
Keith, Elsie Wister,
Kennedy, Harry,
Koelle, William,
Lamartine, Rev. Phillip,
Landis, Dr. H. R. M.,
Latimer, Emilie T.,
Latimer, George A.,
Latimer, Rebecca P.,
Latimer, Rev. Thomas,
Leeds, Austin C.,
Lewis, William Draper,
Longshore, Frank H.,
Lovett, Louisa D.,
Lowry, Wm. C.,
McCord, Rufus,
McFedries, Miss Annie.
Magee, George W.,
Maier, Paul D. I.,
Mallery, Otto T.,
Marshall, Bertha K. C.,
Martin, Hon. J. Willis,
Mayer, Mrs. Henry C.,
Mellor, Alfred,
Miller, Isaac P.,
Miller, Mrs. Benj.,
Minnich, Rev. M. Reed,
Montgomery, Henry S.,
Morris, Anna Wharton,
Morris, C. Christopher,
Morris, Marriott C.,
Morris, William,
Mullowney, John J., M. D.,
Murphy, William T.,
Newkirk, John B.,
Newlin, Sarah,
Nichols, Carroll B.,
Niles, Henry C.,
Obermayer, Leon J.,
Oetinger, Albert,
Ohl, Rev. J. F,
Paisley, Harry E.,
Palmer, T. Chalkley,
Pancoast, Linda H.,
Park, Richard G.,
Patterson, T. H. Hoge,
Perot, Mary William,
Platt, Miss L. N.,
Purves, G. Colesbury,
Rakestraw, Frederick A.,
Randolph, Mrs. Evan,
Reeves, Francis B.,
Reilly, Anna L.,
Rhoads, William E.,
Richardson, Charles,
Roberts, Charles C.,
Roberts, Owen J.,
Robinson, Anthony W.,
Robinson, Louis N.,
Rosengarten, Joseph G.,
Roser, William,
Rouse, Wm. M.,
Schaeffer, Paul N.,
Schoch, Mrs. Parke,
Schwarz, G. A.,
Scott, Norris J.,
Scull, E. Marshall,
Senft, Rev. F. H.,
Shoemaker, Comly B.,
Simmington, Charles C.,
Snellenburg, Samuel,
Starr, Miss Rhoda,
Steele, Joseph M.,
Stewart, Henry C.,
Stone, Mrs. Virginia G.,
Tatum, Joseph W.,
Thesen, Oluf,
Thomas, Mrs. George C.,
Tomkins, Rev. Floyd W.,
Turner, Mrs. Charles P.,
Vaux, Miss Meta,
Wallace, Mrs. C. Jaquins,
Walton, Harrison,
Warren, William C.,
Wentz, Catharine A.,
Wetherell, George S.,
Wetherell, Mary S.,
Wetherill, Rev. Francis Macomb,
White, Elias H.,
White, Elizabeth W.,
Wilkins, George W.,
Williams, Charles,
Williams, Ellis D.,
Williams, Henry S.,
Wilson, James L.,
Wing, Asa S.,
Wood, H. Wellington,
Yarnall, William S.,
Yarrow, George R.,
Yarrow, Mrs. George R.,
Ziegler, J. W.
|
