Part 1

The Review

VOLUME I, No. 2. FEBRUARY, 1911

THE REVIEW

A MONTHLY PERIODICAL, PUBLISHED BY THE =NATIONAL PRISONERS’ AID ASSOCIATION=

AT 135 EAST 15th STREET, NEW YORK CITY.

TEN CENTS A COPY. SEVENTY-FIVE CENTS A YEAR

E. F. Waite, President. F. Emory Lyon, Vice President. O. F. Lewis, Secretary and Editor Review.

E. A. Fredenhagen, Chairman Ex. Committee. Charles Parsons, Member Ex. Committee. A. H. Votaw, Member Ex. Committee.

G. E. Cornwall, Member Ex. Committee Albert Steelman, Member Ex. Committee

LEGISLATION

These are the months that count. This issue of the REVIEW brings notice of many bills introduced in various states for the betterment of prison conditions and for the welfare of the prisoner. Let prisoners’ aid societies show during these next few months that they can work for legislation as well as talk, co-operate with other organizations as well as criticize, get results as well as get out annual reports. Let us not be discouraged because it may often be said that “there is no hope of getting a bill like that through this year.” Passing a bill is only one of the steps in the process of educating public sentiment up to the acceptance of a new idea. Education must begin somewhere and sometime. So let us be active in advocating and introducing good legislation, even though we may not get all we want in any one year.

=MESSAGE OF THE PRISONERS’ AID SOCIETIES=

We have one of the most important messages in the field of practical philanthropy. Americans, particularly in the eastern states, are loth to wear their hearts upon their sleeves. So we hesitate sometimes perhaps, to emphasize the message we have. Yet—life is short, and the field is wide. Prisons are still far from solving the problems of the deprivation of liberty, punishment, the protection of society, the rehabilitation of the criminal, and the reduction of crimes.

Therefore, let us not forget the missionary nature of the prisoners’ aid society. But, in spreading far and wide the facts regarding the prisoner and the duty of society in his behalf, let us not fall into the error of being fanatical because our field is one of magnitude. Accepting the proposition that the great public wants definite and impressive information, not simply emotional enthusiasm or tirade, let us present honestly and vigorously conditions as they are, and also make constructive suggestions as to their possible betterment, never forgetting the many difficulties that prison administrators are forced to meet which are not of their own making.

=THE REVIEW=

This number of the REVIEW begins to illustrate the purpose of the editors. This periodical should be a live news sheet of events and discussions in the prison and prisoners’ aid field. So we publish this month a noteworthy article by an Iowa warden with progressive ideas; we print also Mr. Whitin’s conclusion about the use of prisoners in road making and about the administrative problems raised by their use.

Several prisoners’ aid societies are described by their own representatives. This journal’s first purpose is to be a bond of union between these societies. Then follow a number of pages of notes on events in the prison field. We hope the Review deserves the co-operation of all engaged in the prison field. Paraphrasing the Old Farmer’s Almanac: “Now is the time to subscribe!”

THE MAN GOING OUT.[1]

=By WARDEN J. C. SANDERS, Ft. Madison, Iowa.=

Footnote 1:

Reprinted from “Man for Man,” annual report for 1911 of Central Howard Association.

I do not feel enough can ever be said to eternally damn, as they should be, the vicious, barbarous, degenerating method, which until within comparatively recent years, robbed penology of the right to be classed as a science and converted our prisons and penitentiaries into forcing beds for the germinating and spreading of folly, vice and crime. Society, however, has paid the price for the mistaken views it endorsed, and as the new era is fast sweeping away the old, I have elected to deal with the man produced by it. And mark you, I say MAN, for in Iowa we are trying to make men in our prisons today, not ex-convicts. I want to feel, and I am going to feel, when the day of liberation comes, and a man stands in my office prepared to re-enter the world, that society is about to receive back in the economic value of the man returned, the principal and interest on all it has cost to produce him. But to come at once to my subject, the “MAN GOING OUT.”

If there is one thing a man needs most at such a time it is self-confidence. Its absence marks the weakling and is almost a sure precursor of his certain return to old habits of thought with their accompanying results. Self-confidence rests upon a self-recognition of ability, and this in turn is the outgrowth of experience which has been productive of pre-designed results. If in his prison experience he has been taught that results—all results—come through intelligent, systematic application and has learned to concentrate his efforts and apply himself and thus to realize them, he would be a strange anomaly if he lacked confidence in himself. This is education expressed in its highest term, acquired under that master preceptor—experience. To the man imbued with this spirit, society’s attitude toward him he feels is immaterial, not that he vicariously courts its hostility, but he is possessed of the sublime assurance that his character-force will carry him through. Accompanying this attitude and as vital to it for him as the sunshine to the rose, is to make of the past a dead and, so far as is possible, a forgotten existence. This I know is contrary to the theory of the value of its lessons, but the man who, like Sinbad, burdens himself with “an old man of the sea,” and thus accepts a self-imposed handicap, possesses but little of the initiative in his character.

The new going out, whom I insist upon holding in view, ought to be a new spirit incarnate in a rebuilt body, born over a second time into a new life, has nothing in common with the deal self buried in the past. If he is not such, he ought not to be released. Why then embalm it in memory and forever travel in the company of a mummy! The funeral urn never pampered to anything but a sickly, morbid sentiment. A constant reviewing of failure is no inspiration to succeed. The most sanguine temperament falls a helpless victim before ravishing regret, and the man or woman, ex-prisoner, allowed to re-enter society unfortified by the philosophical truth that the past must have culminated in the present to make possible a happier, better, greater future, has been badly instructed in the ways of Providence—ever a witness to the wisdom and mercy that rejoiceth more over the lost sheep that is found than over the “Ninety and Nine.”

Next to self-confidence and a stoical attitude toward the past, the important thing to a man going out is “purpose.” I do not mean merely purpose to do right—that, of course, will be a conceded essential. What I do mean is a definite, well considered and reasonable aim—something higher and beyond. God alone knows how many men inspired with the best of intentions have gone forth from our prisons and penitentiaries within the past year, who have failed, are failing, or will fail, simply because they have been led into attempting commercial impossibilities! The responsibility for these failure will rest less on the men themselves than upon us. If there is one duty above all others we owe to society, to the men and to ourselves, it is to see that the man going out has not lost his job—but goes out to go into one. In a large measure this may be accomplished by reconciling the man to the necessity of filling any position which will support him until he can catch his balance and soar up to something higher. Where he is employed the prejudice said to exist against ex-prisoners is very much a popular error. I have observed that most business men, for purely selfish reasons, if for none higher, recognize and are willing to pay for ability, nor are they given to looking for or picking flaws in a man’s past record.

So far I have spoken only of the three character-traits I regard as indispensable to the present and future of the man going out—self-confidence, emancipation from the past, and purpose. It is our duty as missionaries in the field of prison philanthrophy to devote our uttermost efforts to secure them to him. But character-traits great and invaluable as they are and primarily of first importance in the work we have assumed, should be supplemented in a material way. No ex-prisoner should be turned loose into society unprovided with sufficient funds to maintain him suitably—not in luxury—if you please, but comfortably, for at least thirty days. And to be explicit and not misunderstood as meaning to convert penal institutions into finishing schools turning out embryonic millionaires at the expense of the tax-payers—I will say that no sum less than $50.00 is sufficient for such a purpose. And you, dear reader, with your practical experience, will acknowledge that this sum is not an extravagant estimate. If there is one thing the ex-prisoner should be spared during the period immediately following release it is a financial stringency. I appreciate, as do we all, the noble efforts being made by Mrs. Booth, the Central Howard Association, and kindred organizations, and I am fully aware of the miraculous results being achieved by them every day. And while I am grateful to them, and those who so liberally support and second them, I cannot help feeling chagrined at the thought that the great commonwealths of this country should leave a duty so palpably belonging to them to be discharged by philanthropic associations. I believe nothing is productive of greater practical good than to secure a prisoners’ compensation law in each state where one is not in operation at present. And, furthermore, I am persuaded that any such general law which received the indorsement of the public would meet with sufficient popular approval to assure its legislative passage in any state where it is introduced. There are those, I have been made aware, who are skeptical as to the policy of providing ex-prisoners with more money than is sufficient to meet immediate requirements. They argue that the pressure of necessity will have a stimulating effect, that the man determined to lead an honest life will, driven by it, go to work at once. But I question the logic of this reasoning. For I cannot conceive of abject poverty under such circumstances as other than demoralizing in its moral effects. And I am sure every man works more cheerfully—more contentedly and more effectively with a ten or a twenty dollar bill in his pocket than when he feels himself to be absolutely insolvent.

And now permit me to briefly suggest what I regard as an important, indispensable, and in time to be, universally adopted prison innovation, directly affecting the man going out and which can be productive of only beneficial results.

I believe we do the man going out an injury when we permit the transit from prison regime to freedom to be marked simply by the opening and shutting of a gate. It seems to me that this could be largely obviated if what might be termed a “transit squad” was organized, and to which all first offenders would be advanced two weeks prior to discharge. Here the discipline should be relaxed and the daily experiences of the men brought into close touch with those of the outside world. We recognize the utility of such a step already—for we all know how prevalent the custom is of giving near discharge men outside work.

In connection with the transit squad I would advocate complete segregation from the rest of the prison—providing a dormitory ward properly furnished, and connected with its own dining room, where a special dietary should be served. I should advocate even going further than this and permit the wearing of the citizen’s clothing furnished by the state. In this direction the ice has already been broken, for it is a general custom to allow prisoners to draw their outgoing shoes and wear them several weeks before being discharged. During this period I believe it would be wise to permit the men to purchase such personal effects as they will need later—additions to their wardrobe and toilet articles—and in selecting them I should be in favor of taking the men on shopping expeditions—not in prison garb. We are all familiar with the temptations besetting men going out—and their attraction would be greatly lessened by a less precipitous exit from prison and entrance into society than that now in vogue. Too often the last thing a man gets on leaving prison is the “ice-eye” of a turnkey, immune to any sentiment other than that arising from the expectation that his coming back is only a question of time.

I have often wondered whether we fully realize that in the experience of every man there is always the “middle man.” By the “middle man” I mean the character taken after its evolution from the innocent years of early life and out of which the last state of the man will evolve. The man when received at a penal institution is invariably the “middle man.” If we realize this, and in connection therewith that character remains plastic, despite the old adage that “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” and we conscientiously endeavor to secure the adoption of regulations designed with the idea in view that we are dealing with human beings, the “man going out” is an entirely new fellow from the man we received—while our prisons will become vast catacombs, the eternal resting place for the shade of the “middle man.”

MAKING ROADS THROUGH PRISON LABOR

=Dr. E. Stagg Whitin, General Secretary, National Committee on Prison Labor.=

(By Dr. E. Stagg Whitin, General Secretary, National Committee on Prison Labor).

“Open up your jails, penitentiaries and prisons!” cry the good roads associations throughout the country—“a solution is at hand for your most difficult problem. Bad men on bad roads make good roads, while good roads make good men.”

“Good roads and good men” has become a slogan and no topic of prison news today is more widely discussed in the press from coast to coast than this—the employment of convicts in public road building.

Convict road making is a pressing question before the present sessions of legislatures, county supervisors and boards of control. Members are hesitating as to what answer to make and what arguments pro or con to bring forth. The literature on the subject is abundant, but in the suggestions there is little that is new. That thirty-three states had laws on their statute books in 1905 permitting the employment of convicts on state and county roads shows that a solution of the problem does not necessarily lie in legislation but in its administration. The various forms which these laws take demonstrate the fact that there is as yet no satisfactory or uniform law. The many different experiments going on today appear to have grown out of local needs and conditions rather than out of any generally accepted theory of what is right from the standpoint of penology. To solve satisfactorily the difficult problem involved, or even to suggest its proper solution, would require long research and experimentation, but perhaps it may be timely to point out some of the difficulties which must be encountered wherever convict road making is tried.

The theory that convict labor is a proper source of exploitation either by a lessee through his peonage, a contractor through his cheap contract, or a co-ordinate department of a state government through its subtle bookkeeping, is one that is untenable from any point of view. Road making is a legitimate use of state funds and is of practical benefit to all citizens by reducing the cost of transportation of the products of the farms to the great markets; therefore anything that will expedite the building of good roads is for the common welfare. It is on this basis that it is urged that the labor of convicts be used for this purpose. The state has a right to its use and under certain conditions it would greatly reduce the cost of production and tend to a more rapid development of good roads projects.

Still, we are face to face with a condition whereby the state directs its prison department to allow its highway department to have the labor of the convicts at little or no cost to the highway department and consequently at a figure much below that at which free labor might be induced to seek employment in road building. The claim that free labor cannot be had at any wage for work on roads in certain communities is generally advanced as a justification for this, but the large employment agencies of the country as well as the student of economics will soon show conclusively that the difficulty lies not in securing labor at any price, but in reluctance to give an adequate wage which will induce labor to come into the work.

The value of the convict’s labor on the roads is the same as the value of his labor in the prison factory—the wage at which free labor can be secured to perform the same work. Shall the prison department turn over gratis its convicts to the highway department—this is the question. If it does, it is giving to the highway department exactly that amount of money for which the highway department could hire free labor. It makes little difference to the taxpayers which he is taxed to maintain, prisons or roads. Prisons are deemed a necessity and the community is afraid to get along without them. Bad roads are a habit and the community is accustomed to get along with them. But with a single tax maintaining prisons and developing highways, which community could hesitate?

A much more legitimate argument, but one less often advanced, is the healthful, wholesome environment thrown around the convict while at work in road building. The experience of the men who developed the road work in Colorado shows that this is an advantageous way of employing able-bodied convicts—of transforming the sallow ghost-like prisoner, fresh from the prison pen, into a rosy, happy specimen of humanity. Under God’s own sky, with the fresh air of heaven, free from shackles and living on his honor with few guards to do more than supervise, the prisoner is surrounded by the best environment and governed under a method which is sane. While it remains to be proved how long this method will be a success and whether the experience of Colorado can be duplicated both north and south, the work at Kalamazoo, Mich., at Richmond, Va., and other places tends to raise our hope. These practical arguments should have weight.

A movement equally important with that of good roads is passing over the country. Efficiency is demanded in the management of prisons, with a wage for the convict which will benefit those dependent on him. To build up an efficient organization of prison industries is a task of no mean magnitude on an inadequate salary and hampered by red-tape of officialdom and incompetency of subordinates. The man at the head of prison departments needs sympathetic encouragement. To place upon him the burden of securing large appropriations for maintenance of his institution while the labor of his charges is handed over to others for exploitation is destructive of all ambition for the attainment of efficiency.

So it is that the movements of the day tend to clash and we are left with a dilemma. Is there a demand on the part of the highway and road people which is legitimate, which will open this seemingly large opportunity for the convict and still not offer it on a basis of exploitation? This conflict is full of interest to the student of the subject.

IN THE PRISONERS’ AID FIELD

=THE PENNSYLVANIA PRISON SOCIETY=

Early in the year 1776 a society was organized by some benevolent citizens of Philadelphia under the name “The Philadelphia Society for Assisting Distressed Prisoners.” After a career of nineteen months the society was dissolved on account of difficulties arising during the War for Independence.

In 1787 philanthropic citizens constituted themselves “The Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons.” From that time until the present this society has been actively engaged in securing measures to improve the conditions of prisons, and also in earnest endeavors to reform criminals, and so far as known it is the oldest prison society in continued existence in the world. The name of the society was legally changed in 1886 to “The Pennsylvania Prison Society.”

The present president, Joshua L. Baily, whose membership dates from 1851, has been connected with the society longer than any other living member.

In the first year of the existence of the society about 150 gentlemen of Philadelphia were connected with the organization. Their object was to discover “such degree and modes of punishment” as might restore our “fellow-creatures to virtue and happiness.”

An annuity of the value of about $70, the donation of John Dickinson, was the only permanent revenue of the new society.

In 1788, the society addressed the following letter to John Howard, the great apostle in the work of ameliorating the condition of prisons: “The Society heartily concurs with the friends of humanity in Europe in expressing their obligation to you for having rendered the miserable tenants of prisons the objects of more general attention and compassion, and for having pointed out some of the means not only of alleviating their miseries, but of preventing those crimes and misfortunes which are the cause of them.” A year or two later John Howard left on record an expression of appreciation of the work of the Philadelphia Society. The following sentiment was found among his papers: “Should the plan take place during my life of establishing a permanent charity under some such title as that at Philadelphia, viz: ‘a society for alleviating the miseries of public prisons,’ I would most readily stand at the bottom of a page for five hundred pounds.”

The organizers of the society had a tremendous task before them, and they went at their work with energetic diligence. Very little effort had ever been made to carry out William Penn’s injunction that “all prisons should be considered workhouses for the employment of criminals and of the idle and vicious.” There was an ill-constructed prison at the corner of High and Third Streets with subterranean dungeons for those under sentence of death. At least half a dozen crimes were punishable by death. “In one common herd were kept by day and night prisoners of all ages, colors and sexes. There was no separation of the most flagrant felon from the prisoner held on suspicion for some trifling misdemeanor. There was no separation of the fraudulent swindler from the unfortunate, and often estimable, debtor.”

The society early resolved that two leading elements of the desired reformation were to find employment for the inmates and to interdict the use of intoxicants. They also insisted that there must be a segregation, not only of the sexes, but also that there must be an individual separation in order that the penal institutions should not become “schools for crime.”