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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/75368-0.txt b/75368-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..40b0304 --- /dev/null +++ b/75368-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1466 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75368 *** + + + + + + VOLUME IV, No. 8. AUGUST, 1914 + + THE DELINQUENT + + A MONTHLY PERIODICAL, PUBLISHED BY THE + NATIONAL PRISONERS’ AID ASSOCIATION + AT 135 EAST 15th STREET, NEW YORK CITY. + + THIS COPY TEN CENTS. ONE DOLLAR A YEAR + + T. F. Garver, President. + O. F. Lewis, Secretary, Treasurer and Editor The Delinquent. + Edward Fielding, Chairman Ex. Committee. + F. Emory Lyon, Member Ex. Committee. + W. G. McLaren, Member Ex. Committee. + A. H. Votaw, Member Ex. Committee. + E. A. Fredenhagen, Member Ex. Committee. + Joseph P. Byers, Member Ex. Committee. + R. B. McCord, Member Ex. Committee. + + Entered as second-class mail matter at New York. + + + + +TOM BROWN AT AUBURN + +By Hastings H Hart. + +Director Child Caring Work, Russell Sage Foundation. + + [This very illuminating book review of “Within Prison Walls,” a book + by Thomas Mott Osborne, has, by agreement, been published jointly + in _The Delinquent_ and The Survey. The editor of _The Delinquent_ + had at first planned to give to several persons the pleasant task + of reviewing Mr. Osborne’s important book. But Dr. Hart has written + so graphic a review that we shall be content with this. The second + article in this month’s magazine follows logically this review.] + + +In his book, “Within Prison Walls,” “Tom Brown,” (Hon. Thomas Mott +Osborne) has given a remarkable study of the mind of the convict. +This book should be read in connection with Donald Lowrie’s book, “My +Life In Prison,” which portrays the prisoner from the vantage point +of actual and prolonged experience but without the advantage of Mr. +Osborne’s wider knowledge of human life and human philosophy. + +Mr. Osborne’s study is an astonishing achievement for a single week. +To break the crust of officialism and without legal authority to +command the co-operation of unwilling prison officials; to overcome +the suspicions and the reticence of the prisoners, to secure their +general co-operation in his plan, and to gain admission to the inner +circles of convict life; and then to really put himself in the place of +a prisoner and to realize how he feels, how he thinks and to catch his +viewpoint--to do all this in a week was an astonishing piece of work. + +Of course, his work was fragmentary and incomplete, but the writer has +known prison officers who have associated with prisoners for years +without obtaining such a knowledge of their mental processes as Mr. +Osborne gained in a week. + +It is much to be regretted that Mr. Julian Hawthorne did not seize the +opportunity of his experience at Atlanta and apply his literary genius +to record and analyze the effects of prison life upon himself and his +associates. He might have written a classic equal to De Quincey’s +“Confessions of an Opium Eater,” but he choose instead to retell the +gossip and scandals of the State prisons, true and false, as given him +by second and third-term convicts. + +Mr. Osborne, having been appointed by Governor Sulzer as chairman of +a commission to recommend improvements in the prison system of the +State of New York, resolved to become a voluntary prisoner at Auburn +and to put himself, as nearly as possible, in the place of the actual +convict. He frankly declared his purpose in the prison chapel, asking +the co-operation of the officers and prisoners to make his experience +as realistic as possible; and they took him at his word. + +He entered the prison gates in citizen’s clothes and was registered by +the receiving officer as “Thomas Brown, 33,333x.” He was conducted by +an officer to the tailor shop, where in a corner of the shop without +any screens and in full view of all passers in and out, are three +porcelain lined iron bath tubs side by side. He stripped, bathed and +dressed in the conventional prison suit and was supplied with a “cake +of soap, one towel and a bible.” He was admonished by the Principal +Keeper (“P. K.”), was given a copy of the prison rules and was assigned +to work in the basket shop. During the first two days he was catechized +as to his past life, occupations, habits, etc., by the principal +keeper, the chaplain, the doctor, and the clerk of the Bertillon +identification system, with much repetition. + +It had been agreed with the warden that Tom Brown should be placed, +at first, with the “Idle Company,” a group of prisoners who were +characterized by one of the officers as “the toughest bunch of fellows +in the prison.” He was disappointed therefore when he found himself +in the basket shop where the men were courteous, communicative and +helpful, and was astonished after two days to discover that this was +the identical “worst bunch in the prison” of which he had been told. +Tom Brown was assigned to a cell 4 by 7½ feet and 7½ feet high. +(Many of the cells are only 3½ feet wide). Many cells of this kind +contain two men each. The cell contained a stool, a folding shelf, a +folding bed, a wash basin, a tin cup, a broom, a small wooden locker, +and an electric bulb. + +Tom Brown swung open his cell door at a signal, marched in line, +carried out and emptied his own cell bucket, ate prison fare in the +prison dining-room (including prison hash), did his stint in the basket +shop with refractory material which made his fingers sore, and served +on a detail moving railroad cars with block and tackle. He received +from his fellow prisoners donations of sugar, of doubtful origin, for +his oatmeal. He received communications and newspapers from numerous +sources by underground communication. He learned to talk without moving +his lips and he found himself instinctively joining with his associates +“agin the government.” He details most interestingly the petty items +that make up the life of the prisoner and revealed how much unhappiness +may be caused by things which appear insignificant in themselves, such +as the collapsing of the folding cot, under inexperienced hands, after +the extinguishment of the lights. + +Tom Brown reveals startlingly the horrors of prison life to the man of +refined sensibilities--the shock of the first night of cell life when +the lights went out. + + “The bars are so black that they seem to close in upon you,--to come + nearer and nearer, until they press upon your forehead.... You can + feel the blackness of those iron bars across your closed eyelids; they + seem to sear themselves into your very soul. It is the most terrible + sensation I ever experienced. I understand now the prison pallor; I + understand the sensitiveness of this prison audience; I understand the + high nervous tension which makes anything possible. How does any man + remain sane, I wonder, caged in this stone grave, day after day, night + after night?” + +He tells the ghastly story of the collapse of a poor old prisoner in a +shop: + + “In due time a litter is brought; the pitiful fragment of humanity is + placed gently upon it and is carried out of the shop into which he + will probably never return. The look on his face was one not easy to + forget in its white stare of patient suffering. It seemed to typify + long years of stolid endurance until the worn-out old frame had simply + crumpled under the accumulated load.” + +He experienced the humiliation of being the object of pursuit by +pertinacious curiosity-hunters and camera-fiends; yet the change in his +appearance was so great that he escaped recognition by personal friends +who were watching carefully for him. The crowning horror he describes +as follows: + + “The cell house has settled down for the night. Only a few muffled + sounds make the stillness more distinctly felt. Then, suddenly, the + unearthly quiet is shattered by a terrifying uproar. It is too far + away to hear at first anything with distinctness; it is all a confused + and hideous mass of shouting--a shouting first of a few, then of more, + then of many voices. I have never heard anything more dreadful--in the + full meaning of the word--full of dread. My heart is thumping like a + trip hammer and the cold shivers run up and down my back. + + “I jump to the door of the cell, pressing my ear close to the cold + iron bars. Then I can distinguish a few words sounding against the + background of the confused outcry: ‘Stop that!’ ‘Leave them alone!’ + ‘Damn you, stop that!’ Then some dull thuds; I even fancy that I hear + something like a groan, along with the continued confused and violent + shouting. What can it be! + + “While I am perfectly aware that I am not in the least likely to be + harmed, I am shivering close akin to a chill of actual terror. If + anyone near at hand were to give vent to a sudden yell I feel that I + might easily lose my self control and shout and bang my door with the + rest of them. + + “The cries continue, accompanied with other noises that I cannot make + out. Then my attention is attracted by whispering at one of the lower + windows.... It is so dark outside that I can see nothing, not even the + dim shapes of the whisperers.... + + “The shouts die down. There are a few more vague and uncertain + sounds--all the more dreadful for being uncertain; somewhere an iron + door clangs! Then stillness follows, like that of the grave.” + +Tom Brown reported this mysterious occurrence to the warden who +promised to investigate. Next day the warden “has inquired into it, he +says, and found it was only a case of a troublesome fellow sent up from +Sing Sing, who was making some little disturbance in the gallery. After +they had admonished him he wouldn’t stop, so they had to take him down +to the jail. When the officer entered his cell, he threw his bucket at +the officer and there was a little row. ‘I’m inclined to think,’ adds +the warden, ‘that he may be a little bit crazy, and I’m ed further +investigation, telling the warden that, from information which has come +to him, he thinks that the officers are “trying to slip one over” on +him.’ + +From his fellow prisoners Tom Brown obtained what he believes to be +the correct version of the incident, as follows: “There had lately +been sent up from Sing Sing a young prisoner ... pale, thin and +undersized; weight about 120 pounds; age 21.” On charge of impertinence +to an officer he had been kept in a dark punishment cell five days, +on bread and water. (The allowance of water was 3 gills per day). +He was sent back to work but was unfit and next day remained in his +cell ill, but “in spite of his repeated requests, the doctor was not +summoned. The reason probably was that he was in the state known in +prison as bughouse--that is to say at least flighty, if not temporarily +out of his mind”.... “In the evening, he created some disturbance by +calling out remarks which violated the quiet of the cell-block.” “I +understand,” Tom Brown says, “something of this sort: ‘If you want to +kill me, why don’t you do it at once and not torture me to death?’ He +seemed to be possessed with the idea that his life was in danger.” + + “Now here was a young man, hardly more than a lad, in a sick and + nervous condition that had produced temporary derangement of mind. + What course did the system take in dealing with that suffering being! + Two keepers opened his cell, made a rush for him and knocked him + down.... During the brief scuffle in the cell the iron pail and the + bucket were overturned. Then, after being handcuffed, the unresisting + if not unconscious youth was flung out of his cell with such violence + that, if it had not been for a convict trusty who stood by, he would + have slipped under the rail of the gallery and fallen to the stone + floor of the corridor four stories below, and been either killed or + crippled for life. + + “Then the two keepers, being reinforced by a third, dragged their + victim roughly down stairs, partly on his back, kicked and beat him + on the way, and carried him before the Principal Keeper, who promptly + sent him down to the jail again.” (i.e., the punishment cells). + + “This scene of violence could not pass unnoticed; and the loud + protests and outcries of the prisoners whose cells were near by, + ... were the sounds I heard far away in my cell.” A trusty who saw + most of the occurrence “so far forget his position as to venture the + opinion that it was ‘a pretty raw deal’. This remark was overheard by + an officer; and the trusty at once received the warning that he had + better keep his mouth shut and not talk about what didn’t concern him. + + “If it is realized that these officers have what almost amounts to the + power of life and death over the convicts it can be understood that + such a warning was not one to be lightly disregarded.” + +After three days further detention in the “jail” the prisoner was +transferred to the hospital, where he received proper care, but “he had +at first no clear recollection of the brutal treatment of which he had +been the victim.” + +An interesting side light is thrown upon the official side of prison +life by an episode connected with this case of punishment. Immediately +after the episode, Tom Brown questioned one of the officers who refused +to answer the questions. On the following morning the same officer came +to Tom Brown, who writes: + + “This morning he is exceedingly bland.... He enters upon a long + rigmarole, the gist of which is how necessary it is for a man to + do his duty.... Then he casually turns the conversation around to + show how closely connected he is to various admirers of my father + and myself, and gracefully insinuates that he also shares these + feelings.... It is borne in upon me that he not only knows all about + last night’s disturbance, but that he was probably concerned in it, + and is now deliberately trying to switch me off the track.” + +Another side light upon the official side of prison life is that Tom +Brown discovered that prisoners under punishment were never released +from the jail on Sunday. When he made an appeal to the Principal Keeper +to transfer the sick boy from the dark cell to the hospital, the +Principal Keeper objected strenuously, but when the prison physician +joined in the appeal, “finally the P. K. with an air of triumph brings +out his last and conclusive argument. ‘There is a great deal in what +you say, gentlemen, and I should like to oblige you, Mr. Osborne, but +you see this is Sunday; and you know we never let ’em out of jail on +Sunday.’ ... ‘Sunday!’ I exclaimed. ‘In Heaven’s name, P. K., what is +Sunday? Isn’t it the Lord’s Day? Very well, then. Do you mean to tell +me you actually think if you take a poor sick boy, with an open wound +in his ear, out of a close, dirty, vermin-filled, dark cell, where he +isn’t allowed to wash, and has but three gills of water a day ... and +put him back into the hospital, where the Doctor says he belongs--do +you really think that such an act of mercy would be displeasing to +God?’ ‘Why,’ he gasps, ‘that’s true. I think you’re right. We put ’em +in on Sunday; why shouldn’t we take ’em out?’” + +Mr. Osborne certified that this story is fully corroborated by careful +inquiry from different men and comments as follows: + + “Doubtless some will say that the statements of convicts are not to + be believed. That touches upon one of the very worst features of the + situation. No discrimination is ever made. It is not admitted, that + while one convict may be a liar, another may be entirely truthful; + that men differ in prison exactly as in the world outside. It is held, + quite as a matter of course, that they are all liars, and an officer’s + word will be taken against that of a convict or any number of + convicts. The result is that the officers feel themselves practically + immune from any evil consequences to them from their own acts of + injustice or violence. What follows this is inevitable. Our prisons + have often been the scenes of intolerable brutality, for which it has + been useless for the victims to seek redress. They can only cower and + endure in silence; or be driven into insanity by a hopeless revolt + against the System.... + + “The point is this: that no convict has any rights--not even the + right to be believed; not even the right to reasonable considerate + treatment. He is exposed without safeguard of any sort to whatever + outrage and inconsiderate and brutal keeper may choose to inflict + upon him; and you cannot under the present system guard against such + inconsiderate and brutal treatment. + + “I should not like to be understood as asserting that all keepers are + brutal or even a majority of them.” ... But, “we must recognize, in + dealing with our Prison System, that many really well-meaning men + will operate a system, in which the brutality of an officer goes + unpunished, in a brutal manner. + + “The reason of this is not far to seek--a reason which also obtained + in the slave system. The most common and powerful impulse that drives + an ordinary, well-meaning man to brutality is fear.... In prison, + where each officer believes that his life is in constant danger, the + keeper tends to become callous; the sense of that danger blunts his + higher qualities.... Undoubtedly there is basis for his fear, for some + of those men are dangerous, rendered more so by the nerve-racking + System. I can conceive no more terribly disintegrating moral + experience than that of being a keeper over convicts. + + “I am not now in any way disputing the necessity of a keeper being + constantly on his guard; I am not saying whether this view of things + is right or wrong; and when I use the word fear I do not mean + cowardice--a very different thing, for a brave man can feel fear. I am + simply trying to point out that in prison, as elsewhere, when men are + dominated by fear, brutality is the evitable result.” + +In view of this episode, Tom Brown determined to undergo the horrors +of the “Jail.” To this the prison warden very reluctantly consented. +It was agreed that he should be treated exactly like a convict under +punishment except that a “jail suit” should be cleansed for his use, +whereas the ordinary prisoners use them interchangeably, without +cleaning. Accordingly, Tom Brown suddenly knocked off work, declaring +that the material furnished was unfit and he wasn’t going to work any +more anyhow. His shop captain, finding him obdurate, had no option +and was obliged to send him to the Principal Keeper who, finding him +still obdurate, reluctantly ordered him to the “jail,” which Tom Brown +describes as follows: + + “A vaulted stone dungeon, about 50 by 20 feet, having on one side + the death chamber for electrocuting murderers, and on the other + side the prison dynamo with its ceaseless grinding, night and day. + It is absolutely bare, except for one wooden bench along the north + end, a locker where the jail clothes are kept, and eight cells, of + solid sheet iron; floor, sides, back and roof. They are studded with + rivets, projecting about a quarter of an inch. At the time that Warden + Rattigan came into office there was no other floor; the inmates slept + on the bare iron and the rivets! The cells are about 4½ by 8 feet + and 9 feet high. There is a feeble attempt at ventilation--a small + hole in the roof of the cell, which does not ventilate. Practically + there is no air in the cell except what percolates in through the + extra heavily grated door.” Two windows in the vaulted room outside + admit some light but, except on a bright sunny day, an electric light + is necessary in order to see the inside of the cell. “Up to the time + of Supt. Riley’s and Warden Rattigan’s coming into office the supply + of water for each prisoner was limited to one gill for 24 hours.” + +There is a sink in the outer room but “the sink was not used for the +prisoners to wash for the simple reason that the prisoners in the jail +were not allowed to wash.” + +On entrance, Tom Brown was instructed to take off his clothes and +put on the jail suit which had been cleansed in anticipation of his +coming. He says: “If these are the clothes which have been carefully +washed and cleaned for me, I should like to examine--at a safe +distance--the ordinary ones. They must be filthy beyond words.” He +was carefully searched by the captain to discover whether he had any +weapon or instrument upon his person. His handkerchief was taken from +him, presumably to avoid danger of suicide, because a prisoner once +strangled himself with his handkerchief. He was given a small tin water +can. + +The cell contained no seat, bed, mattress or bedding--nothing except a +papier-mache bucket. A convict trusty handed in through a slot in the +door a slice of bread and inserted the spout of a tin funnel through +which he poured into the prisoner’s can exactly a gill of water to last +through the night. The officers and the trusty departed and very soon +five other prisoners in adjacent cells made themselves known. Then +followed an animated discussion on prison fare; ethics of the jail; +comparative merits of transatlantic liners, politics, prison reform, +etc. Tom Brown says: “On the whole, more intelligent, instructive and +entertaining conversation it has seldom been my lot to enjoy.” To his +surprise he finds that these men, presumably the worst in the prison, +are human and even sympathetic. One has been sent down “because he +had talked back to one of the citizen instructors;” two others for +a little scrap which involved no special bitterness; a fourth for +hitting a convict with a crow bar because he had called him a bad +name; the fifth was a sick boy whose ear was still discharging after +an operation. He had been sent down for making trouble in the hospital +and was not allowed a handkerchief to take care of the discharge from +his ear. All prisoners punished, whatever the character of the offense, +received the same treatment and in addition to confinement on bread and +water were fined 50 cents for each day of confinement; the fine to be +worked out at the rate of 1½ cents per day, allowed each prisoner as +“earnings.” The prisoner also has to wear a mark upon his sleeve from +that day forward indicating that he has been punished and, if he has +previously earned a good-conduct bar by a year’s perfect record, that +bar is taken from him and, finally, some portion, if not all, of the +commutation time which he may have gained by previous good conduct is +forfeited. Manifestly a prison punishment is a serious matter to the +convict. + +After four hours confinement Tom Brown was visited by two prison +officers, it having been understood that he would not stay longer, but +to their astonishment he refused to go, having determined to experience +the full limit of jail life. They left him very reluctantly. As the +night wore on he says: + + “Now that all chance of escape is gone I begin to feel more + than before the pressure of the horror of this place; the close + confinement; the bad air; the terrible darkness, the bodily + discomforts, the uncleanness, the lack of water. My throat is parched, + but I dare not drink more than a sip at a time, for my one gill--what + is left of it--must last until morning. And then there is the constant + whir-whir-whirring of the dynamo next door and the death chamber at + our backs.” + +The prisoners seek to mitigate their misery. One asks: “Say fellows! +what would you say now to a nice thick juicy steak with fried +potatoes?” One “sings an excellent ragtime ditty;” another “follows +with the Toreador’s song from Carmen, sung in a sweet, true, light +tenor voice that shows real love and appreciation of music. + +“This is the place where I had expected to meet the violent and +dangerous criminals; but what do I find! A genial young Irishman, as +pleasant company as I have ever encountered, and a sweet voiced boy +singing Carmen.” + +These entertainments over, the night drags on. The wooden floor proves +a hard bed until a prisoner instructs him how to make a pillow of his +felt shoes and his shirt. Bed bugs infest the place and after killing +one, he imagines multitudes. The sick prisoner accidentally upsets his +water can and soon becomes delirious, seeming likely to become a raving +maniac. There is no way to summon an officer, but one of the prisoners +with amazing tact and patience soothes his agitation until he finally +falls asleep. + +At last Brown falls into a doze but is speedily awakened by a +patrolling officer who awakens the prisoners at 12:30 and 4:30 A. M. +but refuses his request to renew the water spilled by the sick prisoner +because it is “’gainst the rules.” + +At 6 A. M. on Sunday, Tom Brown is released from his punishment, +convinced that the “System” is illogical, antiquated, barbarous, cruel +and destructive to the character of prisoners and officers alike. He +is exhausted, body and soul; but he finds strength to make a chapel +address to the prisoners, which must have been memorable. The prisoners +are tremendously impressed by the fact that this man of education, +culture and wealth has voluntarily endured for six days the same +treatment as themselves, in the endeavor to understand their situation +and, if possible, to improve it; they recognize that the cell, the +march, the shock and the dungeon affect the man of culture and +refinement more keenly than the ordinary prisoner; but the thing which +affects them most profoundly is the vicarious character of his act. +They would almost apply to it the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Surely +he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.” + +Mr. Osborne is not content to discover and reveal the vices of the +prison system but he seeks a practical remedy. To this end he has +taken counsel, not only with the prison authorities and students +of penological science, but also with the prisoners who live under +the system and, some of whom, are keenly alive to its destructive +influence. A prisoner in the shops gave him the basic idea. He says: + + “For some years I have felt that the principles of self-government + might possibly be the key to the solution of the prison problem; + but as yet I have not been able to see clearly how to begin its + application. There have seemed to be almost insuperable difficulties. + In this connection Jack” (Jack Murphy, a prisoner) “made a suggestion + which supplies a most important link in the chain. + + “In discussing the various aspects of prison life we reached the + subject of the long and dreary Sundays. Jack agrees with all those + with whom I have talked that the long stretch in the cells, from + the conclusion of the chapel service, between ten-thirty and eleven + o’clock Sunday morning until seven Monday morning--over twenty hours, + is a fearful strain both physical and mental upon the prisoners. + + “‘Well, Jack,’ I say, ‘from what I have heard Superintendent Riley + say, I feel sure he would like to give the men some sort of exercise + or recreation on Sunday afternoons; but how could it be managed! You + can’t ask the officers to give up their day off, and you don’t think + the men could be trusted by themselves, do you!’ + + “‘Why not?’ says Jack. + + “I look at him enquiringly. + + “‘Why, look here, Tom. I know this place through and through. I know + these men; I’ve studied ’em for years. And I tell you that the big + majority of these fellows in here will be square with you if you give + ’em a chance. The trouble is they don’t treat us on the level. I + could tell you all sorts of frame-ups they give us. Now if you trust + a man, he will try and do what’s right; sure he will. That is, most + men will. Of course, there are a few that won’t. There are some dirty + curs--degenerates--that will make trouble, but there ain’t so very + many of those. Look at that road work! Haven’t the men done fine! How + many prisoners have you out on the roads! About 130; and you ain’t had + a single runaway yet. And if there should be any runaways you can just + bet we’d show ’em what we think about it.’ + + “‘Do you really think, Jack, that the Superintendent and the Warden + could trust you fellows out in the yard on Sunday afternoons in + summer!’ + + “‘Sure they could,’ responds Jack.... ‘And there could be a band + concert.... And it would be a good sight better for us than being + locked in our cells all day. You’d have fewer fights on Monday, I know + that.’ + + “‘But how about the discipline! Would you let everybody out in the + yard! What about those bad actors who don’t know how to behave! Won’t + they quarrel and fight and try to escape?’ + + “‘But don’t you see, Tom, that they couldn’t do that without putting + the whole thing on the bum, and depriving the rest of us of our + privileges? You needn’t be afraid we couldn’t handle those fellows all + right! Or why not let out only those men who have a good conduct bar! + That’s it!’ He continues, enthusiastically warming up to the subject, + ‘That’s it, Tom, a good conduct league, and give the privilege of + Sunday afternoons to the members of the league.’” + +This suggestion of Jack Murphy bore practical fruit. Soon after his +“discharge,” Mr. Osborne, with the co-operation of the Superintendent +of Prisons and the Warden of Auburn Prison, succeeded in establishing +a Good Conduct League composed of prisoners, with officers elected by +their fellow prisoners. The prisoners are given the liberty of the yard +on Sunday afternoons, with a greatly reduced force of guards. They +march to and from their cells and their work under the direction of +prisoners. They prepare entertainments with the permission and approval +of their officers. This plan has now been in operation for several +months without the slightest disorder or accident and with marked +improvement in the spirit and behaviour of the men. + +This inspiring demonstration represents no new discovery by Jack Murphy +or by Mr. Osborne. It is only a re-discovery of what was practiced +by Captain Alexander Machonochie at Norfolk Island with transported +British convicts seventy years ago. The writer saw Colonel Gardner +Tufts doing similar things with convicts at Concord, Massachusetts, +nearly thirty years ago, where prisoners were carrying on evening +literary societies in perfect order without the presence of an officer. +He saw similar things done by Captain Hickox at the Michigan State +Prison more than twenty years ago, where the old chaplain gathered +200 men in a single room for an evening assembly with no officer +present but himself. This same principal is being worked out in the +State prisons of Oregon and Colorado, in the Ohio State Reformatory at +Mansfield and in Doctor Gilmour’s splendid work at Guelph, Ontario. In +all of these places it has been found that when you build a wall around +a man he immediately wants to climb over it and that when you turn him +loose and say, “I trust you and I know that you will not betray me,” +there is almost always an instant response. + +Mr. Osborne believes that this is the first instance of the application +of the democratic principle to the management of convicts in a large +convict prison, and that the Auburn experiment differs from others +in that the prisoners there themselves originated the movement. He +says that “the good conduct of the prisoners is in reality an outward +expression of an outward spiritual impulse.” “Hence the name, ‘Mutual +Welfare League,’; hence the motto, ‘Do good, make good.’ By doing good +to others the man makes good for himself.” + +Mr. Osborne’s demonstrations make it clear that those who believe +that severity is an essential part of prison methods need not worry. +Every convict is punished. When you pillory a man before the world as +a criminal, transport him by public conveyance and march him through +the streets in irons, put him behind prison walls, deprive him of his +liberty, subject him absolutely to the will of another man who holds +practically the powers of life and death, lock him in an ill-ventilated +prison cell, 4½ by 7 feet (perhaps with an uncongenial cell mate), +dress him in prison garb, exhibit him to curious visitors at 25 cents +per head, subject him to strict compliance with thirty to fifty +exacting rules on pain of loss of privileges and increase of term, +restrict his correspondence to two censored letters per month, permit +him to see his wife and children only in the presence of an officer and +clad in prison garb--under these circumstances no one need question +that the prisoner is punished, even though he may have the privilege +of listening to a band concert and watching a baseball game once a +week, conversing with his fellow convicts in subdued tones at meals and +witnessing a moving picture show once or twice a month. Let it never be +forgotten that the convict is punished! + +Those who ridicule or condemn Mr. Osborne’s adventure make a mistake. +It may have been sensational, but there was need of a sensation. His +experiment was valuable because it was sincere and because it has +brought out the truth. But it has brought out only part of the truth. + +We wish that Mr. Osborne would secure an opportunity to be installed as +prison guard in some one of the great prisons of the United States like +the Illinois State Penitentiary, the Indiana State Prison of Michigan +City, or the Penitentiary at Pittsburgh, Pa. Let him go incog., unknown +to anyone except the prison warden, and let him come into the same +intimate familiarity with the life and thinking of the prison guard +as that which he has acquired in the case of the prison convict. He +has already discovered the demoralizing tendency of life of the prison +guard, and has discovered its chief flaw, namely, the ruling principle +of fear, to which must be added the lack of psychological understanding +of the prisoner and the entire lack of any adequate preliminary +training. There must be taken into account also the fact that there +exists among prison guards, in an exaggerated degree, the sentiment +that it is dishonorable to “snitch” upon a fellow officer and, while +a superior officer is likely to report a subordinate for cruelty or +misconduct, the exposure of such actions by a guard of equal rank is +very unusual. The difficulty can only be overcome by improving the +personnel and raising the moral standards of prison guards. The day is +not far distant when training schools for prison guards will hold the +same relation to prison work which training schools for nurses hold to +well-conducted hospitals. + +We wish that Mr. Osborne, or someone equally discerning, might put +himself in the place of the convict all the way through and tell an +equally convincing story. Let him go forth with a five-dollar discharge +suit on his back so marked as to betray to every passing policeman the +shop where it was made. Let him go out with five dollars or possibly +ten dollars in his pocket to satisfy a sharpened appetite and find a +job in these hard times. Let him meet the watchful policeman, or the +plain clothes man, who advises him that “We’re on to you.” Let him +meet the discharged convict who solicits the loan of a dollar with +implied threat of exposure. Let him take a job in good faith and render +faithful service, only to be discharged at the end of the second week +because somebody has given him away. + +Let him be arrested, guilty or not guilty, as a suspect of some +crime. Let him be subjected to the inquisition of “the third degree,” +regardless of the rights which are supposed to be guaranteed to every +citizen that he shall be deemed to be innocent until proven to be +guilty. Let him experience the starvation, buffeting insults and +detectives’ lies which are incident to this inquisition. + +Then, by all means, let Mr. Osborne’s representative await trial in a +county jail and discover the beauties of a System which is twice as +vicious as the Auburn Prison System which he describes. Thrust him +into a steel cage and exhibit him to all comers like a wild beast in a +menagerie. Let him share his cell with five other prisoners in a place +where he cannot keep himself free from vermin, where he cannot take a +bath, and force him into intimate association, day and night, with a +mob of prisoners who are kept in idleness, with no occupation except +to corrupt one another and to concoct plans to escape by bribing or +mobbing the jailer or by cutting out of jail. + +Let him stand trial in a court whose judge is overwhelmed with +business or is fixed in the tradition that severity is the only remedy +for crime, with a prosecuting attorney whose reputation depends upon +making as many convictions as possible. Let him have assigned to his +defense an attorney who, because of inexperience, incompetency, or +indifference, cannot present his case properly, in order that his +innocence may be demonstrated, if he is innocent, or any mitigating +facts may be made clear if he is guilty. + +Or let Mr. Osborne’s representative essay the role of a paroled +prisoner, going out as a ward of the State under the direction of a +parole officer, in order that he may discover the efficiency and equity +of the Parole Board, the fidelity and good-will of the parole officer, +the patience and fair dealing of the employer, and the advantages and +disadvantages generally of the parole system. + +It is a good thing to call the attention of the public to the +deficiencies of the convict prisons, and the public ought to know that +Sing Sing is, and has been for many years, far worse than Auburn. Think +of a prison where rheumatism and tuberculosis form an inevitable part +of the prison sentence for a large proportion of the prisoners, whose +number can be definitely predicted! But the prison problem of the State +of New York can only be solved by a thoroughly organized and persistent +attack under the leadership of men and women who have social and +economic vision. + +And the prison problem of the State of New York will not be solved +until it is recognized as a technical problem, demanding the services +of tried and expert men. Prisons, like other educational institutions, +should be headed by superintendents of demonstrated training and +efficiency, selected without reference to geographical lines. + +THE NEW FREEDOM AT AUBURN PRISON + +By O. F. Lewis, General Secretary, Prison Association of New York. + + [This article has been reprinted from The Outlook, by special + permission of that periodical. The editor of _The Delinquent_ begs + to say, that although he himself is the author of this article, + he believes the new development of self-government at Auburn, as + described in the following article, is of sufficient importance to + warrant being called earnestly to the attention of our readers.] + + +The afternoon of the Fourth of July was drawing to a close in the long +building-inclosed yard of Auburn Prison, in the State of New York. +Fourteen hundred gray-suited inmates were playing a score of different +games. The afternoon’s track events had come to an end. The South Wing, +with between four and five hundred prisoners, had won from the North +Wing, with some nine hundred prisoners, in the varied contests. A +silver cup, given by the president of a prominent mortgage company in +New York, was the tangible goal of the exciting battle. + +Suddenly the clear bugle notes of the “Retreat” sounded far down the +yard, slowly and melodiously. Instantly the boys in gray began to +fall into line at their appointed places. There was now silence where +a moment before there had been bowling, baseball, running, dancing, +piano, band, and the shouts of swarming inmates. Then came the first +bars of the “Star-Spangled Banner,” played by the prison inmate band. +Off came the caps, and down across the breast. The flag sank slowly, +lowered from the tall pole by three inmates. The music ceased, the caps +were again donned, and from the extreme end of the yard rose suddenly a +cheer: + + “Rah! Rah! Rah! + Rah! Rah! Rah! + South Wing! South Wing! + Rah! Rah! Rah!” + +Then, preceded by the band and with banners flying, the victorious +athletes of the South Wing marched up the center walk between the files +of other prisoners, to receive the silver cup from the hands of the +donor, Mr. Richard M. Hurd. + +I wish I had the power to make the readers of The Outlook sense in +full the enormous significance for both present and future of this +recent Fourth of July in Auburn Prison. You have read in these recent +months so often of the greatly increased liberties granted to prisoners +that mere games or the unchecked intercourse of prisoners on holidays +seems no epoch-making novelty. + +But history was made at Auburn Prison on Independence Day. For the +fourteen hundred men not only ran off their own sports during the +afternoon, but they practically ran themselves, through their appointed +“delegates,” chosen from among their own numbers by their own votes. +And assuredly no more orderly group could have been found on that +Fourth of July anywhere between the Atlantic and the Pacific. + +A year ago Auburn Prison was austere indeed. The holidays and the +Sundays were grievously dreaded by the inmates--dreaded as they had +been for generations, because a Sunday or a holiday meant that the +inmates had been locked into their miserable little cells at about five +o’clock on the previous day, and that, except for a few brief hours +for chapel or for an entertainment on holidays, they were locked in +all through the holiday until the next morning, when work recommenced. +Thirty-six hours, more or less, in a wretched little cell, hardly +large enough to turn around in, with no modern conveniences of toilet +or wash-basins--simply a hole in the solid masonry wall of a building +ninety-eight years old, built at a time when prison meant physical +torture and oblivion, and when prison architecture aided to the maximum +that purpose. + +Is it any wonder that a prisoner recently said to me, on a Sunday +afternoon at Clinton Prison in New York State, where they still lock +up their prisoners from Saturday until Monday, with the exceptions +noted: “My God! It’s a wonder we don’t all go insane in here!” Is it +any wonder that at Auburn Prison, according to the words of one of the +leading prisoners, the inmates used to consider themselves supremely +lucky if by some means they could get “dope” on Saturday, with which +to “put a shot into themselves” on Sunday morning? Then they would lie +befuddled and bevisioned during Sunday--the Lord’s Day! “And on Monday +morning,” laconically said the prisoner, “we used to have the biggest +number of fights in the shops of any day in the week. The effects of +the drug were wearing off, you know.” + +This summer the difference is enormous and fundamental. For an hour or +a little more on each week-day, and for four full hours on Sunday, the +prisoners are turned out to recreation according to their bent. And +coincidentally with this all-important change in the prison’s policy +toward the inmates has come an all-important reduction in the number +of prison guards needed to supervise the prisoners at their play. On +the morning of the Fourth, for instance, an entertainment was given +in the auditorium by a local theatrical company. Practically all the +inmates--fourteen hundred--were present. Many of the guards sat in one +little corner of the room, in the extreme rear. They had been invited +by the Mutual Welfare League, the prisoners’ organization, to attend if +they desired! + +In the afternoon there were four keepers in all in the yard, so I +was informed. They were thoroughly inconspicuous. The “P. K.” (which +is short for Principal Keeper) started the afternoon in uniform, but +shortly changed to street clothes. “You’ll find him playing ball with +the boys later today,” said one inmate to me. All the guarding at the +several exits of the yard was done--apart from the few guards--by the +“delegates” of the Mutual Welfare League. + +The Mutual Welfare League! To many prison officials, long in the +service, the name undoubtedly has a very sentimental sound. I frankly +confess that several of us in the little party invited by Mr. Thomas +Mott Osborne to attend the League’s celebration of the Fourth of +July were skeptical. We were afraid it might prove to be amateurish +and mushy, even though we knew of the signal value of Mr. Osborne’s +self-imposed incarceration at Auburn Prison last fall, as shown by the +Nation-wide attention given to his subsequent story of the fearful and +unnecessary monotony and desperation of prison life. But, as one of our +party said on Sunday morning, after we had sat for several hours with +the Executive Committee of the League: “I didn’t exactly come to scoff +and remain to pray; but I did come with doubt, and I go away converted.” + +What is it, then, about this new freedom at Auburn Prison that has +not only converted a cautious, conservative president of a board of +reformatory managers in another State, but has led him within a week +from his experience at Auburn to urge successfully the introduction +of a similar league in his own institution? Two facts, principally, +I think. In the first place, the Mutual Welfare League plan works. +Secondly, there is a convincing air of sincerity, and even devotion, +about it all. + +May I repeat what seems to me the all-important fact about this +development at Auburn? The prisoners, in their hours of recreation, in +their attendance at chapel, in their attendance at Sunday afternoon +concerts or entertainments, _run themselves in large measure_. They +have not only given their promise to be good, but they have chosen +their own inmate officers to see that they keep their promise. There is +all the difference in the world between being run by a group of prison +guards, even under the best of benevolent prison despotisms, and being +run by prisoner guards of one’s own election. + +If, then, the most sacred prerogative of the traditional prison +official can thus be usurped by the prisoners themselves, and if, +in their own expressive language, they can “get away with it,” in +the sense of securing better order, more work in the shops, a marked +reduction in the number of offences committed or reported, and a +radical betterment in the always limited joy of life in a penal +institution, what is the inference? + +The organization and development of the Mutual Welfare League were +simple enough. Last fall, when Mr. Osborne, as chairman of a prison +reform commission that had been appointed by the Governor, sent himself +to prison for a week, aided thereto by a friendly warden, he informed +the prisoners at a previous chapel service that he was coming into +prison to try to understand the prison life from the standpoint of the +prisoner. He asked the inmates to regard him, “Tom Brown,” not as a +stool-pigeon, nor as simply a foolish amateur, but as thoroughly in +earnest in his desire to better prison conditions by experiencing them, +even if only briefly and partially for a week. + +That was point Number One in the development of what has happened at +Auburn. Those who make light of Mr. Osborne’s brief career in prison +may have a certain justification, in so far as the real prison life can +be learned only slowly; but, after all, the results of that October +week of Mr. Osborne’s, measured by general results both upon himself +and upon the prison, have been perhaps the greatest in the history of +the century-old prison. + +Point Number Two in the development of the new freedom occurred in the +basket shop, where Mr. Osborne was given as a teacher and side-partner +for the week Jack Murphy, whom Mr. Osborne describes as a very fine and +sincere man. From Murphy’s character came unconsciously to Mr. Osborne +the suggestion that prisoners could be trusted far more than had been +the case at Auburn. “Why couldn’t there be started here,” asked Mr. +Osborne, “a kind of mutual improvement or mutual welfare league among +the prisoners, whereby, in return for pledges of obedience and loyalty +to the prison administration, greater freedom and more privileges +might be obtained?” + +The third step toward the present modified form of self-government +occurred after Mr. Osborne, having emerged from his week’s +imprisonment, gave public expression to his indignation at the +alleged mediæval methods of treating human beings behind the bars. +These published accounts, spread broadcast over the country, are +well remembered. He set to work then to establish a league among the +prisoners. And from the beginning he sought to have the League evolve +its principles and its pledges from among the men themselves, not +through him or through officials of the prison. + +The organization was simple. Any prisoner could join the League. The +motto was: “Do good, make good.” Unquestionably the incentive in the +minds of most inmates to join the League was that there might be +something in it for them. When similar motives are eliminated from the +minds of men who undertake enterprises on the outside of the prison, it +will be time to criticise unfavorably such motives inside the walls. + +From the League members--and at present nearly every prisoner in Auburn +is a member, wearing his little green and white button with “M. W. L.” +thereon--a board of delegates, forty-nine in number, was elected by +the prisoners themselves. This is Point Number Four. The prisoners did +their own choosing of their delegate officers. The officers were not +superimposed upon them by the prison officials. And in consequence, +if these delegate officers did not act on the level; if they became +stool-pigeons, bearing all sorts of tales to the prison officials and +currying favor thereby, then the prison administration would not be to +blame for the choice of inmate officers. It would be squarely up to the +inmates themselves. What was the result? A very simple one. Both the +companies of inmates and their officers instinctively aimed to adjust +themselves to secure the minimum of trouble, at chapel, in the shops, +at recreation. Splendid group psychology, and withal so simple. And +incidentally it can be said that the inmates have been able to handle +most dexterously not a few “tough guys” who had been giving great +trouble to the prison administration. + +At this stage the movement became bigger than any one man, even Mr. +Osborne. The latter had imprisoned himself, he had suggested the +formation of the League; he had organized the League; but now it was up +to the inmates to make of the League a success. + +The fifth stage in the development of the League came suddenly and +through necessity. Early in June an epidemic of scarlatina struck the +prison. Ultimately, about a thousand prisoners were infected. Few +were in the hospital, but shop work slackened up to a considerable +degree. Were the prisoners in consequence to be locked day after day +in their cells? Was it longer necessary? The answer came one afternoon +when Warden Rattigan took a long chance. He turned all the prisoners +belonging to the League out to exercise or play according to their +hearts’ content in the big yard, principally under the supervision +of the delegates, who until now had been used to move the prisoners +to chapel and to entertainments. It was a crucial test. It worked +perfectly. Order was maintained, and no efforts to escape were made. + +“The boys would tear a fellow to pieces that tried it,” one of the +prisoners explained to me. “We’ve pledged ourselves to behave. Besides, +do you think we want to lose the privileges we’ve gained?” + +By the Fourth of July the daily recreation period, from four o’clock +on, had been going for about a month. What have been the results? + +“Everything,” answered one of the delegates. “Take my own case. Now +I can sleep nights in that small hole in the wall called a cell. I +have been here for years, and hardly ever had I had a decent night’s +sleep. Now I get tired in the recreation hour. And then, too, we have +something to look forward to. It’s a fearful mistake to make prison +life so hopeless. You can’t get the best out of a man, in work or +anything else, if you don’t give him something to work for. Now, if +we behave ourselves and are decent members of the League, we have a +decent amount of freedom and privileges. We have competitive games in +baseball, bowling, and the like. We feel we amount to something. The +boys march now with their heads up. We eat better. The food tastes +better. A lot of the sullen resentment and hatred of the prison +administration is gone. The work in the shops is better. There’s better +discipline.” + +“What about dope?” we asked. “They say it’s a curse at Sing Sing.” + +“Very little here now,” said several delegates at once. “It isn’t +needed now, and it’s frowned upon.” Then up spoke one of the huskiest +and best proportioned of the Executive Committee of the League. “I’ll +be frank,” he said, emphatically. “I’ve taken pretty nearly every kind +of dope that’s known. I took it deliberately. Now I don’t need it, and +I’ve cut it out.” + +“Let me say something else, too,” said another delegate. “There’s +mighty little prison vice here now. You know what I mean. Formerly, +when we were all locked up for sixteen hours a day, and hadn’t had any +decent exercise, or anything to take our minds off of ourselves and +our grievances, all sorts of bad things happened. That’s the curse of +the old prison regime. It turned out, among other things, a lot of +degenerates. Now--well, we get pretty well tired, and our mind’s taken +off of ourselves, and we sleep. There’s a good deal, too, in having +that sort of thing put under the ban by the fellows themselves.” + +One of us then asked, “How about the growing criticism that prisoners +are getting to have too easy a time of it? When we tell the public +in general about this Fourth of July celebration, many will say that +the prisoners are having more fun and an easier time than the honest +taxpayer.” + +The delegate, in answering, flared up. “Tell those people to try any +prison for a while! What’s a prison for? To torture a man, and send +him out hating society, and determined to get even for the years he’s +spent as the old-line prison made him spend it? Nobody except the +fellow that’s been through it knows what being in prison is. Does the +public want us to go insane, get tuberculosis, contract wretched vices, +rebel in mutinies, live sixteen hours out of twenty-four in a living +tomb, and have day-in and day-out a miserable monotony of existence +that dulls our minds and makes us hate the State that munificently pays +us a cent and a half a day, and then often takes away the earnings +of months in one single fine for some offense that the very manner +of existence here almost forces us to commit? Why, what is this hour +of recreation, anyway? It’s a health measure, a safety measure, a +reformatory measure. + +“Do you think fellows would commit crime in order to get into prison to +have this little pittance of pleasure? Let me tell you that the very +people that talk so about putting the clamps on this giving of soft +snaps to prisoners don’t know what that other system did to us. Why, +there are a lot of fellows here that had made up their minds to pull +off another trick just as soon as they got out. Why shouldn’t they? But +now we have something else to work for.” + +Much of the above conversation occurred at a meeting of the Executive +Committee of the League, to which we were invited. It was essentially +a novel experience. Here sat, in the warden’s office, and without the +warden or any prison official present, a round dozen of convicts, +gray-suited and thoroughly in earnest. They discussed prison conditions +and prison problems with all the freedom of a board of managers, +and with far greater knowledge of actual conditions. Prisoners know +more about a prison than does the warden, the warden than does the +superintendent of prisons, the superintendent of prisons than do the +inspectors, and the inspectors than does the public. Therefore, if the +best efforts and the best loyalty of the prisoners can be harnessed +up to a reformatory programme of the square deal for both sides, the +possibilities of the future loom far larger than have reformatory +possibilities in the past. + +So Auburn Prison is pointing the way, by an almost revolutionary +experiment, to large possibilities in inmate self-government in State +prisons and reformatories. As I write these lines the newspapers +bring a word of a similar Saturday afternoon passed in sports for +the first time in the history of Sing Sing. Within the last week the +State Reformatory of New Jersey, at Rahway, has adopted tentatively a +modified form of inmate self-government. Great Meadow Prison, in New +York State, which has been for several years the conspicuous honor +prison of the eastern part of the country, marched its six hundred men +down to the baseball game on July Fourth, a half-mile from the prison, +under inmate overseers. + +Self-government, to the limit of its possibilities, is almost a fetish +with Mr. Osborne. For many years he was President of the Board of +Trustees of the George Junior Republic; there he became convinced that +self-government is workable not only for youngsters but for older +delinquents. + +In the old-line prison the ever-present dread of the traditional warden +was an escape. His career was judged largely by his ability to suppress +escapes and frequently by his ability to suppress public knowledge of +the methods he used to keep order. Today the warden is judged able or +poor partly by his ability to develop men out of his prisoners, men +who on going out will make good. The entire theory of the old-line +prison construction was based on the principle that any prisoner would +escape if he could, and use desperate means of so doing. The bars and +steel-work that you see everywhere in prisons throughout the country +show how ingrained the theory has been. But up at Great Meadow, where +the bulk of the prisoners roam unattended by guards at their work +during the day, it is almost ridiculous to see them securely caged +behind several strata of tool-proof steel at night. + +In the last few years demonstrations in scores of prisons and other +correctional institutions have shown that, if given the chance, when +on honor, the prisoners won’t run away. The old adage of “honor among +thieves” has taken on an entirely new meaning. It is now “honor among +thieves toward the State that trusts them.” + +The power of discipline in the League is very limited. The only +punishment is suspension or elimination from the League. Such action +is delegated to the Executive Committee of the League. Actually, this +exclusion from the body politic--since almost every prisoner is a +member of the League--carries with it two important disadvantages. It +stamps the excluded inmates as _anti-social, not only to the prison +administration, but to the body of prisoners_. Secondly, it bars the +prisoner from enjoying the freedom privileges that the League enjoys. +Therefore the power of suspension, be it for but a few days, has real +force. The powers of discipline given to the League by the warden have +not been accurately fixed as yet. The warden has told the League that +all minor cases of discipline could be punished by them; wisely, I +think, the officers of the League have not been desirous of punishing. + +So that at present men are turned back to the prison authorities by +the League for violation of the League discipline. The theory is that +these men will be put back under the old discipline of silence and +confinement, because they are no longer members of the League. The main +body of the prisoners have then no official interest in them, so that +the suspension involves practically a return to the old prison routine. + +Recently a new Board of Delegates has been elected, and one of their +first acts was to adopt a probation system instead of the definite +sentence, in the cases of offenders against the League. A committee of +parole has been established, which shall visit the suspended men at +least once a week, and as soon as the committee thinks that the state +of mind of the suspended men warrants the action the Parole Committee +recommends to the Executive Committee the restoration of the men to the +full privileges of the League. + +“A big test is coming,” said one delegate, “when the members of the +League go out. It will be up to them to justify by their conduct after +prison the principles they accepted here and the privileges they +received.” And the story was told us of one young man who was the first +of the delegates to receive his release from prison. He is said to have +made a hard fight to stay straight, mainly because he didn’t want to +“put the League in bad” by having one of its officers go crooked. + +And here opens up still another far-reaching possibility. Why should +not the members of the League, once released from prison, form +committees in the various cities and communities of the State for the +purpose of helping the still later ones who come out of Auburn to make +good? Heretofore the best that we of the Prison Association of New York +have achieved has been to employ big-hearted and sympathetic parole +officers--real friends of the released inmates. And we have scored good +success. But it has been always a case of supervision and encouragement +by the officer. + +And so this was the proposition which we members of the Board of +Managers of the Prison Association made to the Executive Committee of +the League: “Will you co-operate with us in helping released prisoners +from Auburn make their parole satisfactorily? Will you have small +groups of ex-League members ready in various parts of the State to work +with our county committees to the one end of tiding and helping the +discharged and released prisoner over the hard months that immediately +follow his release?” + +With enthusiasm the suggestion has been accepted. One delegate spoke +up: “I’m going out next month. I don’t know where I’ll get work, but +I’m willing to go anywhere the League sends me. I’m willing and eager +to give my life to this work, if I’m wanted!” + +Such, briefly, is a picture of the Mutual Welfare League. That it is +significant in its possibilities no one can doubt. What its outcome +will be a year from now it would be hazardous to forecast. It may +be but a burst ahead of the general humanitarian movement that +characterizes prison reform throughout the country. It may be that when +the altruistic enthusiasm that now holds the more thoughtful members +of the League wanes, as wane it will to some extent, there will come a +slump, and an arrogance of demand for more privileges that will give to +the reactionary among prison administrators a chance to say, “I told +you so!” + +But I much doubt it. The greater danger will come from possible +stupidity of prison administration, a change perhaps of authority at +the prison, and a consequent lack of sympathy with the purpose of the +League. + +One thing seems sure. Prisons and reformatories will not go back to +the old-line repressive and often brutal treatment. The transition to +what will ultimately become the new treatment of delinquents is being +attended by various experiments, often startling and sometimes amazing. +We are not a Nation that thinks for a long time before acting in prison +reform. Our successes have come so far largely from experimenting, +retaining the successes and scrapping the failures. How much of the +honor system, the back-to-the-land movement, the road-work movement, +and the increasing classification of prisoners will be scrapped, it is +much too early as yet to say. + +The final test will probably be along two lines. We shall determine how +the “new freedom” works within prison walls, applying the acid tests of +health, increased efficiency in labor, reformative value, education, +and general training for a decent life in society. We shall also have +to show, if we are friends of the “new freedom,” that such treatment +within the prison produces a larger number of permanent reformations +after prison, a higher percentage of those who make good. + +In short, the ultimate test is going to be not the increased +possibility afforded the prisoner of enduring his prison term, nor yet +the increased ease of administration of correctional institutions, +but fairly and squarely as to whether society, from which all these +prisoners come, and which has been the sufferer by them, is to be +permanently better protected from their further depredations by giving +them what today seems to be a square deal within the prisons, and a +decent chance to make good after they come out. + +EVENTS IN BRIEF + +[Under this heading will appear each month numerous paragraphs of +general interest, relating to the prison field and the treatment of the +delinquent.] + + +_Road Work and Farm Work by Convicts_--(In the clipping service of +_The Delinquent_, road work and farm work by prisoners has become the +most frequent single item of news. All over the country prisoners are +working, or are “being worked.” We cite this month a number of items, +taken at random, and showing the wide scope of the movement to use +prisoners for out-door occupations that will benefit the community and +the men also). + +The first gang of convicts from Sing Sing prison are working on +Catskill roads, and are camping. Most of them are short-term men.... +In Pennsylvania, at Bellefonte, it is expected that the State will +raise 10,000 bushels of wheat and 5,000 tons of hay on the State +prison farm.... A bill providing that Federal prisoners kept in State +penitentiaries or jails may be used for improving the public roads of +any State has been introduced into the House of Representatives.... +20 prisoners have been at work in Franklin county, N. Y., and are +netting $20. a day to the taxpayers, putting in stone roads.... The +State prison of Wisconsin is running two prison camps. The preliminary +work in constructing the new industrial home for women is being done +by the prisoners, making the roadbed, building a railroad spur, laying +the sewer system, digging the tunnels and otherwise excavating. The +workers wear khaki trousers, work shirts, overalls and straw hats. +The road the other camp is working on is the regulation road with a +fifteen-foot macadam driveway.... At Ames, Iowa, the convicts have had +a “raise” in wages, as a result of their first week’s showing. They +were receiving twenty cents an hour; now they get twenty-five. They +have been working for the Iowa State College, first doing “odd jobs” +around the institution, then oiling and cutting roads. “Adams, the +guard with the men, is virtually losing his job as guard and becoming +merely time-keeper for the bunch.” ... There are now three road camps +in New Jersey, with 40, 60, and 60 men respectively. The State Road +Department has a large appropriation for hiring prisoners to improve +the roads of the State.... At the farm of the New York City Reformatory +for Misdemeanants, now under construction in Orange county, the results +are as follows: “Two hundred tons of hay and two thousand bushels of +potatoes already. A promise of ten thousand tons of fresh vegetables +each season.” This farm was started only last spring, and less than +fifty young fellows have been at work on it. The produce is shipped to +the Department of Correction in New York City.... Sussex county, N. +J., requires its prisoners to work on the roads.... Warden Sanders, +of Iowa State Prison, has 175 prisoners at work on farms near Fort +Madison. With a big auto truck he can take gangs of laborers thirty or +forty miles from the Penitentiary where help is needed.... At Auburn +Prison, N. Y., a road camp of long-term men has been established, +and the prisoners to be sent out in this camp have been chosen by the +Mutual Welfare League, who stand sponsor for their good work while +outside. Several men of the gang had never seen an automobile.... In +Mesa county, Colo., prisoners in the county jail will next summer be +allowed to choose whether they will make hay, build or repair roads. +This summer it was hay or the rockpile.... Dr. O. F. Lewis, general +secretary of the Prison Association of New York, has issued a public +statement supporting the plan of Commissioner Davis to establish a +municipal farm of 500 acres on land reclaimed from the sea in Long +Island Sound, to be worked by prisoners of the Department.... Only +one desertion from the Ames, Ia., prison camp had been reported up +to July 22.... Residents of Tybee, Ga., have petitioned the county +commissioners to use convicts in building roads.... Governor Major +of Missouri will ask the next legislature to purchase a farm of at +least 1,000 acres across the river from the State penitentiary, for +the production of vegetables and meats. He estimates that 400 convicts +could be employed. Contracts under the contract system expire at +the end of this year.... Provisions of a bill before the Georgia +legislature are that the county chain gang shall work four months of +each year within the city limits of Macon, under the direction of the +mayor and council.... A survey of the proposed prison farm of Ohio +has been made by students of the engineering department of Ohio State +University. The farm consists of 1,455 acres.... Jefferson county, N. +Y., is contemplating purchasing a county jail farm.... The sheriff +of Washington county, N. Y., is using a garden for prisoners’ labor, +partly because “weeding an onion bed is about the most tiresome work +you can put a tramp to, and you won’t see the fellow again after his +term expires.”... The North Carolina Good Roads Association resolved +in July that all State convicts who are suitable for road work should +be used in the construction of public roads.... Prisoners from Great +Meadow Prison, N. Y., are building a State road in the Adirondacks.... +The Lancaster, Pa., Automobile Club asks convict labor for public +roads.... Fifty more prisoners have been sent to the State Prison Farm +of New Jersey. Ultimately about 300 prisoners will be busy there. There +will be about 2,000 acres of land to cultivate.... Governor Stuart +of Virginia has pointed out that there are 1,056 men in the jails of +Virginia of whom no work is required, and he has urged the several +State departments interested in the matter to consider ways and means +to get these prisoners out on the roads.... It has been estimated that +the State of Ohio has realized 88.8 per cent. profit in raising cattle +on the penitentiary farm. 278 head of cattle were bought for 8 cents a +pound in Chicago. It is estimated that the total gain of the cattle, +which will be sold to State institutions, will be about $4,500. A large +dairy will be established on the farm.... From the District of Columbia +Workhouse Farm, which received a maintenance appropriation this last +year of $130,000, $60,000 will be returned in revenue, coming from the +sale of brick manufactured on the farm.... The city of Washington has +purchased 1,800 more acres on which to build a reformatory farm.... +Superintendent Peyton, of the Indiana State Reformatory, wants to teach +his inmates scientific farming, after the foundry contracts expire in +November, 1915.... Thomas Mott Osborne has been spending several weeks, +working with the prisoners, at several of the Auburn Prison camps.... +City prisoners in Burlington, Ia., will again work on the streets. +Sometime ago the prisoners were removed, but it was found that the +city was the loser thereby, and that the prisoners wanted to work on +the streets.... West Virginia is working State prisoners on roads.... +The Sheriff of Suffolk county, N. Y., says that a prison farm is a +necessity, and he has started to get one.... A life convict has run +away from the honor camp at Auburn prison.... It is claimed that at +least a dozen prisoners have escaped in the last few months from the +New Jersey State prison farm.... Motion pictures showing convict road +builders from the State penitentiary of Colorado at work will be taken +in a few days on the Boulder Canon road.... + +(And the list might be continued almost indefinitely. The above notes +are from clippings received during the first two weeks of August). + + +_Important Resignations Announced_--A number of important changes +are taking place in executive positions in well-known prisons and +reformatories. Warden Wolfer is shortly to leave the Minnesota State +Prison. Warden Bridges has resigned from his long service at the +Massachusetts State Prison, Warden Brown has been succeeded in West +Virginia by State Senator M. Z. White. Chairman Frank L. Randall of the +Massachusetts Prison Commission is said to be resigning on September +1st, Superintendent Reid of the Minnesota State Reformatory is to take +Warden Wolfer’s place, and Henry K. W. Scott, formerly warden of the +New Hampshire State Prison, is to go to the position left vacant by +Superintendent Reid. + +Henry Wolfer has been in prison work 43 years. He began, says the +Minneapolis Tribune, in a day when filth, vermin, brutality and torture +were prominent features of prison life. He ends it as warden of a +prison declared by many authorities to be one of the finest in the +world. Warden Wolfer began as guard at Joliet Prison as a boy of 18. +A recent number of the Delinquent ( ) contained an article +about the Warden’s remarkable work as an administrator and as a +business man. + +Warden Bridges has been 21 years at the Massachusetts State Prison. The +Boston Herald says that when he took hold, conditions were chaotic. The +Warden has made a specialty of inmate education. The correspondence +courses, run entirely within the prison, are noteworthy. The prison +paper, the Mentor, is written entirely by hand, and facsimiled. The +prison is a congregate, old, cramped structure. Recently, sports have +been developed in the limited prison yard. + +Warden Brown of the West Virginia Penitentiary seems to be making a +place for another appointee. The Wheeling, W. Va., Intelligencer, +says that the prison is losing the best and ablest executive it ever +had. He had in three and a half years renovated the sanitary system, +improved discipline, abolished corporal punishment, elevated the +standard of the prison school, turned over to the State (by contract +labor) $120,000 above expenses, instituted a prison savings bank, with +$35,000 in prisoners’ earnings for the overtime work, and has developed +a prisoners’ aid society for helping the families of convicts. He has +also developed two camps. + +Whether Chairman Randall of the Massachusetts Prison Commission is to +leave Massachusetts is at the time of writing unsettled. Rumor has it +that he has been seriously disappointed at the practically absolute +failure of his extensive prison reform program to pass the Legislature, +and also at the failure of the Legislature to appropriate an increase +in salary which he was given to understand would occur this year, in +view of the fact that he left Minnesota last year at considerable +financial sacrifice. There is no question that Massachusetts will be a +serious loser, if Mr. Randall goes. There seems also a certain amount +of hostility toward an “imported” penologist. This is a sad attitude of +mind, but not confined solely to Massachusetts. + + +_Extension Courses of California University in Folsom Prison._--The +report of the university extension director, in charge of the work at +Folsom Prison, is interesting: + + “We began in January, and the official enrollment is now 324 students. + As I soon found that many of the men had brains no better developed + than those of a child of 8 years, classes were formed in elementary + English, German and arithmetic. + + “The teaching is done by convicts who have proved themselves fitted + for the positions, 15 being on the staff. Aside from financial + reasons, this was done because the prisoners need teachers who are in + sympathy with them. + + “All are not permitted to take the school work; some because of + conduct, others because they are unable to keep up to the required + standard; still others do not wish to take it. Any man who is + unprepared twice in succession is dropped from the class. Many failed + on this account when the work was first began as they were using it + merely as an excuse to get out of their prison duties. + + “A man often wants to follow a profession or trade to which he is + unsuited. Whenever one comes to me asking help in learning a trade, I + find out what trade or profession he is best suited for.” + + When asked if the convicts appreciated the work, Mr. Jacobs’ face + lighted up. “They do now,” he said. “My hand is still sore from the + greetings they gave me when I returned from a trip East, but they + tried all sorts of tricks to get men when the work was first started.” + + +_Funds for Deserted Wives._--According to the Pittsburg Times, +Pennsylvania’s law which went into effect a year ago, providing +payment to wives of men committed to the workhouse for non-support +and desertion during the time the husband is serving his sentence, is +proving a wonderful aid to women of Allegheny county, as proved by a +record of the first year’s results. About $5,200 has been paid to 107 +women since July, 1913, when the law went into effect, the average +having been $12.50 for each woman. + +Lawrence M. Fagan, probation officer in Allegheny county, through +whose hands these funds went, is enthusiastic. “It’s been an excellent +thing,” he said, “an arrangement which has solved a problem that has +confronted probation officers ever since the first man was sent to +prison for non-support. Previously the wives were no better off while +a man was in jail than they had been before and often were much worse +off. They had nothing at all coming in in most cases. Seldom did they +receive more than their earnings which in no case were large.” + +These women now can expect help each month. Every man is credited 65 +cents a day for every day he works and the money is given his wife. +This has amounted to $17.45 a month in some cases, although often it +has only been a few dollars, but in every case it has been received +with great welcome. + +Mr. Fagan explained that men are sent to the workhouse only as a last +resort. They are generally given a chance to support their families +after being arrested for the first time and then if they fail they are +committed to prison. The payments have averaged $400 from this source +alone. + +The general funds that pass through the hands of the probation officer +from husbands who are supporting their families on order of the court, +with the probation office as an intermediary, and from the workhouse to +wives, reached $55,500 during the past six months. During June alone +the total was $10,600. + + + + +NOTES. + +An autobus has been installed to carry prisoners from New York City +to Sing Sing prison. This will do away with the necessity of marching +prisoners from the station at Ossining to the prison, a distance of +about half mile. The prison is thirty miles from New York. + + * * * * * + +A hospital for tubercular convicts is to be established at the Maryland +State Penitentiary, an appropriation of $35,000 having been made by the +legislature. A prison school is also having excellent success. + + * * * * * + +Prison contracts are to be continued “indefinitely” in the New Jersey +State prison, according to the Bayonne, N. J., Review of July 2d, +because there are not sufficient funds for the installation of the +State-use system. About 1,500 convicts are employed at the prison. Were +the contracts permitted to lapse, the prisoners would be idle. + + * * * * * + +The county commissioners of Beaufort county, N. C., have voted that +convicts on the county roads may be whipped. “The superintendent +shall keep in his possession a lash 18 inches long, attached to a +stick 18 inches long and not more than two inches in diameter, and +said lash may split three times half-way from the end,” according +to the resolution. No convict may be whipped more than once during +two consecutive days, shall not receive more than 25 lashes at one +whipping, and must not be beaten on the neck or head. (We append these +details, because relics of barbarism should also be recorded in the +Delinquent. Ed). + + * * * * * + +Out of a total of 1,478 prisoners confined in the Eastern Penitentiary +of Pennsylvania 1,008 have signed a petition which will be submitted to +the next legislature asking Statewide prohibition. + + * * * * * + +The old State prison at Stillwater, Minn, was practically abandoned on +July 31st, when the last shoe contract expired. Hereafter all work at +the Stillwater (new) prison will be done for the State. + + * * * * * + +During July some riots of considerable seriousness occurred on +Blackwell’s Island, New York City. Indictments for assault in the +second degree have now been returned against the five ringleaders in +the riots at the Penitentiary on July 8th. A maximum sentence of five +years is attached to conviction. + +STATEMENT OF THE OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, ETC. of THE DELINQUENT, + + +Published monthly at New York, N. Y., required by the Act of August +24th, 1912. + + NAME OF POST OFFICE ADDRESS + Editor, O. F. Lewis, 135 East 15th St., + New York City + Managing Editor, O. F. Lewis, 135 East 15th St., + New York City + Business Manager, O. F. Lewis, 135 East 15th St., + New York City + Publisher, The National Prisoners’ Aid Association, 135 East 15th St., + New York City + Owners, The National Prisoners’ Aid Association, 135 East 15th St., + New York City + +There are no bondholders, mortgages, or other security holders. O. F. +LEWIS, Editor and Business Manager. + + Sworn to and subscribed before me this 27th day of March, 1914. + H. L. McCORMICK, Notary Public No. 6, Kings County. + My Commission expires March 31, 1914. + + + + +Transcriber’s Notes + +A number of typographical errors were corrected silently. + +Issue number corrected from 7 to 8. + +New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the +public domain. + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75368 *** diff --git a/75368-h/75368-h.htm b/75368-h/75368-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3987056 --- /dev/null +++ b/75368-h/75368-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2566 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + The Delinquent (Volume IV, No. 8), July, 1914 | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.png" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +.h2sub { text-align: center; } + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; +} + +.medium {font-size: medium;} + +.large {font-size: large;} + +.x-large {font-size: x-large;} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + +hr.full {width: 99%; +margin-left: 0.5%; margin-right: 0.5%; + margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em;} + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +ul { + list-style-type: none; +} + +table { + margin: auto; +} +table.autotable { border-collapse: collapse; } + +.w100 {width: 100%;} + +.tcell { + padding: 0 5px; + display: table-cell; +} + +.tdl {text-align: left;} +.tdr {text-align: right;} +.tdc {text-align: center;} + +.table { + display: table; + margin: auto; +} + +.pagenum { /* comment the next line for visible page numbers */ + visibility: hidden; + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-indent: 0; +} /* page numbers */ + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.bb {border-bottom: 2px solid;} + +.bt {border-top: 2px solid;} + +.right {text-align: right;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.copy { + font-size: small; + text-align: center; +} + +/* Images */ + +copy { + font-size: small; + text-align: center; +} + +/* Poetry */ +.poetry-container {text-align: center;} +.poetry {text-align: left; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} +.poetry .stanza {margin: 1em auto;} +.poetry .verse {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;} + +/* Transcriber's notes */ +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:small; + padding:0.5em; + margin-bottom:5em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; +} + +/*set p class=dropcap-first-letter*/ +p.dropcap-first-letter:first-letter + { float: left; + clear: left; + margin: 0 0.1em 0 0; + padding:0; + line-height: 87%; + font-size: 400%; } + +/* Poetry indents */ +.poetry .indent0 {text-indent: -3em;} + +</style> +</head> + +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75368 ***</div> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</span></p> + +<h1> + +<span class="table large w100"> + <span class="tcell tdl">VOLUME IV, No. 8.</span> + <span class="tcell tdr">AUGUST, 1914</span> +</span> +<br> +THE DELINQUENT<br> +<span class="table"> + <span class="x-large">A MONTHLY PERIODICAL, PUBLISHED BY THE<br> + NATIONAL PRISONERS’ AID ASSOCIATION</span><br> + <span class="medium">AT 135 EAST 15th STREET, NEW YORK CITY.</span><br> +</span> + +<span class="table medium w100 bb bt"> + <span class="tcell tdl">THIS COPY TEN CENTS.</span> + <span class="tcell tdr">ONE DOLLAR A YEAR</span> +</span> +</h1> + +<ul> +<li>T. F. Garver, President.</li> +<li>O. F. Lewis, Secretary, Treasurer and Editor The Delinquent.</li> +<li>Edward Fielding, Chairman Ex. Committee.</li> +<li>F. Emory Lyon, Member Ex. Committee.</li> +<li>W. G. McLaren, Member Ex. Committee.</li> +<li>A. H. Votaw, Member Ex. Committee.</li> +<li>E. A. Fredenhagen, Member Ex. Committee.</li> +<li>Joseph P. Byers, Member Ex. Committee.</li> +<li>R. B. McCord, Member Ex. Committee.</li> +</ul> + +<p class="copy bb bt">Entered as second-class mail matter at New York.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="TOM_BROWN_AT_AUBURN">TOM BROWN AT AUBURN</h2> +</div> + +<p class="h2sub"><span class="smcap">By Hastings H Hart.</span> +<br>Director Child Caring Work, Russell Sage Foundation.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>[This very illuminating book review of “Within Prison Walls,” a book by Thomas Mott Osborne, has, by +agreement, been published jointly in <i>The Delinquent</i> and The Survey. The editor of <i>The Delinquent</i> +had at first planned to give to several persons the pleasant task of reviewing Mr. Osborne’s important book. +But Dr. Hart has written so graphic a review that we shall be content with this. The second article in this +month’s magazine follows logically this review.]</p> +</div> + +<p>In his book, “Within Prison Walls,” +“Tom Brown,” (Hon. Thomas Mott +Osborne) has given a remarkable study +of the mind of the convict. This book +should be read in connection with Donald +Lowrie’s book, “My Life In Prison,” +which portrays the prisoner from the +vantage point of actual and prolonged +experience but without the advantage +of Mr. Osborne’s wider knowledge of +human life and human philosophy.</p> + +<p>Mr. Osborne’s study is an astonishing +achievement for a single week. To +break the crust of officialism and without +legal authority to command the co-operation +of unwilling prison officials; to +overcome the suspicions and the reticence +of the prisoners, to secure their +general co-operation in his plan, and to +gain admission to the inner circles of +convict life; and then to really put himself +in the place of a prisoner and to +realize how he feels, how he thinks and +to catch his viewpoint—to do all this in +a week was an astonishing piece of work.</p> + +<p>Of course, his work was fragmentary +and incomplete, but the writer has known +prison officers who have associated with +prisoners for years without obtaining +such a knowledge of their mental processes +as Mr. Osborne gained in a week.</p> + +<p>It is much to be regretted that Mr. +Julian Hawthorne did not seize the opportunity +of his experience at Atlanta +and apply his literary genius to record +and analyze the effects of prison life upon +himself and his associates. He might +have written a classic equal to De Quincey’s +“Confessions of an Opium Eater,” +but he choose instead to retell the gossip<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</span> +and scandals of the State prisons, true +and false, as given him by second and +third-term convicts.</p> + +<p>Mr. Osborne, having been appointed +by Governor Sulzer as chairman of a +commission to recommend improvements +in the prison system of the State +of New York, resolved to become a voluntary +prisoner at Auburn and to put +himself, as nearly as possible, in the +place of the actual convict. He frankly +declared his purpose in the prison chapel, +asking the co-operation of the officers +and prisoners to make his experience as +realistic as possible; and they took him +at his word.</p> + +<p>He entered the prison gates in citizen’s +clothes and was registered by the +receiving officer as “Thomas Brown, +33,333x.” He was conducted by an officer +to the tailor shop, where in a corner +of the shop without any screens and +in full view of all passers in and out, +are three porcelain lined iron bath tubs +side by side. He stripped, bathed and +dressed in the conventional prison suit +and was supplied with a “cake of soap, +one towel and a bible.” He was admonished +by the Principal Keeper (“P. K.”), +was given a copy of the prison rules and +was assigned to work in the basket shop. +During the first two days he was catechized +as to his past life, occupations, habits, +etc., by the principal keeper, the chaplain, +the doctor, and the clerk of the +Bertillon identification system, with +much repetition.</p> + +<p>It had been agreed with the warden +that Tom Brown should be placed, at +first, with the “Idle Company,” a group +of prisoners who were characterized by +one of the officers as “the toughest bunch +of fellows in the prison.” He was disappointed +therefore when he found himself +in the basket shop where the men +were courteous, communicative and +helpful, and was astonished after two +days to discover that this was the identical +“worst bunch in the prison” of +which he had been told. Tom Brown +was assigned to a cell 4 by 7½ feet and +7½ feet high. (Many of the cells are +only 3½ feet wide). Many cells of this +kind contain two men each. The cell +contained a stool, a folding shelf, a folding +bed, a wash basin, a tin cup, a broom, +a small wooden locker, and an electric +bulb.</p> + +<p>Tom Brown swung open his cell door +at a signal, marched in line, carried out +and emptied his own cell bucket, ate +prison fare in the prison dining-room +(including prison hash), did his stint in +the basket shop with refractory material +which made his fingers sore, and served +on a detail moving railroad cars with +block and tackle. He received from his +fellow prisoners donations of sugar, of +doubtful origin, for his oatmeal. He +received communications and newspapers +from numerous sources by underground +communication. He learned to +talk without moving his lips and he +found himself instinctively joining with +his associates “agin the government.” +He details most interestingly the petty +items that make up the life of the prisoner +and revealed how much unhappiness +may be caused by things which appear +insignificant in themselves, such as +the collapsing of the folding cot, under +inexperienced hands, after the extinguishment +of the lights.</p> + +<p>Tom Brown reveals startlingly the +horrors of prison life to the man of refined +sensibilities—the shock of the first +night of cell life when the lights went +out.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“The bars are so black that they seem to +close in upon you,—to come nearer and +nearer, until they press upon your forehead.... +You can feel the blackness of those iron bars +across your closed eyelids; they seem to sear +themselves into your very soul. It is the most +terrible sensation I ever experienced. I understand +now the prison pallor; I understand +the sensitiveness of this prison audience; I +understand the high nervous tension which +makes anything possible. How does any man +remain sane, I wonder, caged in this stone +grave, day after day, night after night?”</p> +</div> + +<p>He tells the ghastly story of the collapse +of a poor old prisoner in a shop:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“In due time a litter is brought; the pitiful +fragment of humanity is placed gently upon +it and is carried out of the shop into which +he will probably never return. The look on +his face was one not easy to forget in its +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span> +white stare of patient suffering. It seemed to +typify long years of stolid endurance until the +worn-out old frame had simply crumpled under +the accumulated load.”</p> +</div> + +<p>He experienced the humiliation of being +the object of pursuit by pertinacious +curiosity-hunters and camera-fiends; yet +the change in his appearance was so +great that he escaped recognition by +personal friends who were watching +carefully for him. The crowning horror +he describes as follows:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“The cell house has settled down for the +night. Only a few muffled sounds make the +stillness more distinctly felt. Then, suddenly, +the unearthly quiet is shattered by a terrifying +uproar. It is too far away to hear at first +anything with distinctness; it is all a confused +and hideous mass of shouting—a shouting +first of a few, then of more, then of many +voices. I have never heard anything more +dreadful—in the full meaning of the word—full +of dread. My heart is thumping like a +trip hammer and the cold shivers run up and +down my back.</p> + +<p>“I jump to the door of the cell, pressing my +ear close to the cold iron bars. Then I can +distinguish a few words sounding against the +background of the confused outcry: ‘Stop +that!’ ‘Leave them alone!’ ‘Damn you, stop +that!’ Then some dull thuds; I even fancy +that I hear something like a groan, along +with the continued confused and violent +shouting. What can it be!</p> + +<p>“While I am perfectly aware that I am not +in the least likely to be harmed, I am shivering +close akin to a chill of actual terror. If +anyone near at hand were to give vent to a +sudden yell I feel that I might easily lose my +self control and shout and bang my door with +the rest of them.</p> + +<p>“The cries continue, accompanied with +other noises that I cannot make out. Then +my attention is attracted by whispering at +one of the lower windows.... It is so dark +outside that I can see nothing, not even the +dim shapes of the whisperers....</p> + +<p>“The shouts die down. There are a few +more vague and uncertain sounds—all the +more dreadful for being uncertain; somewhere +an iron door clangs! Then stillness +follows, like that of the grave.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Tom Brown reported this mysterious +occurrence to the warden who promised +to investigate. Next day the warden +“has inquired into it, he says, and found +it was only a case of a troublesome fellow +sent up from Sing Sing, who was +making some little disturbance in the +gallery. After they had admonished him +he wouldn’t stop, so they had to take +him down to the jail. When the officer +entered his cell, he threw his bucket at +the officer and there was a little row. +‘I’m inclined to think,’ adds the warden, +‘that he may be a little bit crazy, and I’m +ed further investigation, telling the warden +that, from information which has +come to him, he thinks that the officers +are “trying to slip one over” on him.’</p> + +<p>From his fellow prisoners Tom Brown +obtained what he believes to be the correct +version of the incident, as follows: +“There had lately been sent up from Sing +Sing a young prisoner ... pale, thin +and undersized; weight about 120 +pounds; age 21.” On charge of impertinence +to an officer he had been kept in +a dark punishment cell five days, on +bread and water. (The allowance of +water was 3 gills per day). He was +sent back to work but was unfit and +next day remained in his cell ill, but “in +spite of his repeated requests, the doctor +was not summoned. The reason probably +was that he was in the state known +in prison as bughouse—that is to say at +least flighty, if not temporarily out of +his mind”.... “In the evening, he +created some disturbance by calling out +remarks which violated the quiet of the +cell-block.” “I understand,” Tom Brown +says, “something of this sort: ‘If you +want to kill me, why don’t you do it at +once and not torture me to death?’ He +seemed to be possessed with the idea that +his life was in danger.”</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“Now here was a young man, hardly more +than a lad, in a sick and nervous condition +that had produced temporary derangement of +mind. What course did the system take in +dealing with that suffering being! Two keepers +opened his cell, made a rush for him and +knocked him down.... During the brief +scuffle in the cell the iron pail and the bucket +were overturned. Then, after being handcuffed, +the unresisting if not unconscious +youth was flung out of his cell with such violence +that, if it had not been for a convict +trusty who stood by, he would have slipped +under the rail of the gallery and fallen to the +stone floor of the corridor four stories below, +and been either killed or crippled for life.</p> + +<p>“Then the two keepers, being reinforced by +a third, dragged their victim roughly down +stairs, partly on his back, kicked and beat him +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span> +on the way, and carried him before the Principal +Keeper, who promptly sent him down to +the jail again.” (i.e., the punishment cells).</p> + +<p>“This scene of violence could not pass unnoticed; +and the loud protests and outcries of +the prisoners whose cells were near by, ... +were the sounds I heard far away in my cell.” +A trusty who saw most of the occurrence “so +far forget his position as to venture the opinion +that it was ‘a pretty raw deal’. This remark +was overheard by an officer; and the +trusty at once received the warning that he +had better keep his mouth shut and not talk +about what didn’t concern him.</p> + +<p>“If it is realized that these officers have +what almost amounts to the power of life and +death over the convicts it can be understood +that such a warning was not one to be lightly +disregarded.”</p> +</div> + +<p>After three days further detention in +the “jail” the prisoner was transferred +to the hospital, where he received proper +care, but “he had at first no clear +recollection of the brutal treatment of +which he had been the victim.”</p> + +<p>An interesting side light is thrown +upon the official side of prison life by an +episode connected with this case of punishment. +Immediately after the episode, +Tom Brown questioned one of the officers +who refused to answer the questions. +On the following morning the +same officer came to Tom Brown, who +writes:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“This morning he is exceedingly bland.... +He enters upon a long rigmarole, the gist of +which is how necessary it is for a man to do +his duty.... Then he casually turns the +conversation around to show how closely connected +he is to various admirers of my father +and myself, and gracefully insinuates that he +also shares these feelings.... It is borne +in upon me that he not only knows all about +last night’s disturbance, but that he was probably +concerned in it, and is now deliberately +trying to switch me off the track.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Another side light upon the official +side of prison life is that Tom Brown +discovered that prisoners under punishment +were never released from the jail +on Sunday. When he made an appeal +to the Principal Keeper to transfer the +sick boy from the dark cell to the hospital, +the Principal Keeper objected strenuously, +but when the prison physician +joined in the appeal, “finally the P. K. +with an air of triumph brings out his +last and conclusive argument. ‘There +is a great deal in what you say, gentlemen, +and I should like to oblige you, Mr. +Osborne, but you see this is Sunday; and +you know we never let ’em out of jail on +Sunday.’ ... ‘Sunday!’ I exclaimed. +‘In Heaven’s name, P. K., what is Sunday? +Isn’t it the Lord’s Day? Very +well, then. Do you mean to tell me you +actually think if you take a poor sick +boy, with an open wound in his ear, out +of a close, dirty, vermin-filled, dark cell, +where he isn’t allowed to wash, and has +but three gills of water a day ... and +put him back into the hospital, where the +Doctor says he belongs—do you really +think that such an act of mercy would be +displeasing to God?’ ‘Why,’ he gasps, +‘that’s true. I think you’re right. We +put ’em in on Sunday; why shouldn’t we +take ’em out?’”</p> + +<p>Mr. Osborne certified that this story +is fully corroborated by careful inquiry +from different men and comments as +follows:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“Doubtless some will say that the statements +of convicts are not to be believed. That +touches upon one of the very worst features +of the situation. No discrimination is ever +made. It is not admitted, that while one convict +may be a liar, another may be entirely +truthful; that men differ in prison exactly as +in the world outside. It is held, quite as a +matter of course, that they are all liars, and an +officer’s word will be taken against that of a +convict or any number of convicts. The result +is that the officers feel themselves practically +immune from any evil consequences to +them from their own acts of injustice or violence. +What follows this is inevitable. Our +prisons have often been the scenes of intolerable +brutality, for which it has been useless +for the victims to seek redress. They can +only cower and endure in silence; or be driven +into insanity by a hopeless revolt against the +System....</p> + +<p>“The point is this: that no convict has any +rights—not even the right to be believed; not +even the right to reasonable considerate +treatment. He is exposed without safeguard +of any sort to whatever outrage and inconsiderate +and brutal keeper may choose to inflict +upon him; and you cannot under the present +system guard against such inconsiderate and +brutal treatment.</p> + +<p>“I should not like to be understood as asserting +that all keepers are brutal or even a +majority of them.” ... But, “we must recognize, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span> +in dealing with our Prison System, +that many really well-meaning men will operate +a system, in which the brutality of an officer +goes unpunished, in a brutal manner.</p> + +<p>“The reason of this is not far to seek—a +reason which also obtained in the slave system. +The most common and powerful impulse +that drives an ordinary, well-meaning +man to brutality is fear.... In prison, +where each officer believes that his life is in +constant danger, the keeper tends to become +callous; the sense of that danger blunts his +higher qualities.... Undoubtedly there is +basis for his fear, for some of those men are +dangerous, rendered more so by the nerve-racking +System. I can conceive no more terribly +disintegrating moral experience than +that of being a keeper over convicts.</p> + +<p>“I am not now in any way disputing the +necessity of a keeper being constantly on his +guard; I am not saying whether this view of +things is right or wrong; and when I use the +word fear I do not mean cowardice—a very different +thing, for a brave man can feel fear. +I am simply trying to point out that in prison, +as elsewhere, when men are dominated by fear, +brutality is the evitable result.”</p> +</div> + +<p>In view of this episode, Tom Brown +determined to undergo the horrors of +the “Jail.” To this the prison warden +very reluctantly consented. It was +agreed that he should be treated exactly +like a convict under punishment except +that a “jail suit” should be cleansed for +his use, whereas the ordinary prisoners +use them interchangeably, without cleaning. +Accordingly, Tom Brown suddenly +knocked off work, declaring that the material +furnished was unfit and he wasn’t +going to work any more anyhow. His +shop captain, finding him obdurate, had +no option and was obliged to send him +to the Principal Keeper who, finding him +still obdurate, reluctantly ordered him +to the “jail,” which Tom Brown describes +as follows:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“A vaulted stone dungeon, about 50 by 20 +feet, having on one side the death chamber +for electrocuting murderers, and on the other +side the prison dynamo with its ceaseless +grinding, night and day. It is absolutely bare, +except for one wooden bench along the north +end, a locker where the jail clothes are kept, +and eight cells, of solid sheet iron; floor, +sides, back and roof. They are studded with +rivets, projecting about a quarter of an inch. +At the time that Warden Rattigan came into +office there was no other floor; the inmates +slept on the bare iron and the rivets! The +cells are about 4½ by 8 feet and 9 feet high. +There is a feeble attempt at ventilation—a +small hole in the roof of the cell, which does +not ventilate. Practically there is no air in +the cell except what percolates in through +the extra heavily grated door.” Two windows +in the vaulted room outside admit some +light but, except on a bright sunny day, an +electric light is necessary in order to see the +inside of the cell. “Up to the time of Supt. +Riley’s and Warden Rattigan’s coming into +office the supply of water for each prisoner +was limited to one gill for 24 hours.”</p> +</div> + +<p>There is a sink in the outer room but +“the sink was not used for the prisoners +to wash for the simple reason that the +prisoners in the jail were not allowed to +wash.”</p> + +<p>On entrance, Tom Brown was instructed +to take off his clothes and put on the +jail suit which had been cleansed in anticipation +of his coming. He says: “If +these are the clothes which have been +carefully washed and cleaned for me, I +should like to examine—at a safe distance—the +ordinary ones. They must +be filthy beyond words.” He was carefully +searched by the captain to discover +whether he had any weapon or instrument +upon his person. His handkerchief +was taken from him, presumably +to avoid danger of suicide, because a +prisoner once strangled himself with his +handkerchief. He was given a small tin +water can.</p> + +<p>The cell contained no seat, bed, mattress +or bedding—nothing except a papier-mache +bucket. A convict trusty +handed in through a slot in the door a +slice of bread and inserted the spout of +a tin funnel through which he poured +into the prisoner’s can exactly a gill of +water to last through the night. The +officers and the trusty departed and very +soon five other prisoners in adjacent cells +made themselves known. Then followed +an animated discussion on prison fare; +ethics of the jail; comparative merits of +transatlantic liners, politics, prison reform, +etc. Tom Brown says: “On the +whole, more intelligent, instructive and +entertaining conversation it has seldom +been my lot to enjoy.” To his surprise +he finds that these men, presumably the +worst in the prison, are human and even +sympathetic. One has been sent down<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 5]</span> +“because he had talked back to one of +the citizen instructors;” two others for +a little scrap which involved no special +bitterness; a fourth for hitting a convict +with a crow bar because he had called +him a bad name; the fifth was a sick boy +whose ear was still discharging after an +operation. He had been sent down for +making trouble in the hospital and was +not allowed a handkerchief to take care +of the discharge from his ear. All prisoners +punished, whatever the character +of the offense, received the same treatment +and in addition to confinement on +bread and water were fined 50 cents for +each day of confinement; the fine to be +worked out at the rate of 1½ cents per +day, allowed each prisoner as “earnings.” +The prisoner also has to wear a mark +upon his sleeve from that day forward +indicating that he has been punished and, +if he has previously earned a good-conduct +bar by a year’s perfect record, that +bar is taken from him and, finally, some +portion, if not all, of the commutation +time which he may have gained by previous +good conduct is forfeited. Manifestly +a prison punishment is a serious +matter to the convict.</p> + +<p>After four hours confinement Tom +Brown was visited by two prison officers, +it having been understood that he +would not stay longer, but to their astonishment +he refused to go, having determined +to experience the full limit of +jail life. They left him very reluctantly. +As the night wore on he says:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“Now that all chance of escape is gone I +begin to feel more than before the pressure +of the horror of this place; the close confinement; +the bad air; the terrible darkness, the +bodily discomforts, the uncleanness, the lack +of water. My throat is parched, but I dare +not drink more than a sip at a time, for my +one gill—what is left of it—must last until +morning. And then there is the constant +whir-whir-whirring of the dynamo next door +and the death chamber at our backs.”</p> +</div> + +<p>The prisoners seek to mitigate their +misery. One asks: “Say fellows! what +would you say now to a nice thick juicy +steak with fried potatoes?” One “sings +an excellent ragtime ditty;” another “follows +with the Toreador’s song from Carmen, +sung in a sweet, true, light tenor +voice that shows real love and appreciation +of music.</p> + +<p>“This is the place where I had expected +to meet the violent and dangerous +criminals; but what do I find! A genial +young Irishman, as pleasant company as +I have ever encountered, and a sweet +voiced boy singing Carmen.”</p> + +<p>These entertainments over, the night +drags on. The wooden floor proves a +hard bed until a prisoner instructs him +how to make a pillow of his felt shoes +and his shirt. Bed bugs infest the place +and after killing one, he imagines multitudes. +The sick prisoner accidentally +upsets his water can and soon becomes +delirious, seeming likely to become a +raving maniac. There is no way to summon +an officer, but one of the prisoners +with amazing tact and patience soothes +his agitation until he finally falls asleep.</p> + +<p>At last Brown falls into a doze but is +speedily awakened by a patrolling officer +who awakens the prisoners at 12:30 +and 4:30 A. M. but refuses his request +to renew the water spilled by the sick +prisoner because it is “’gainst the rules.”</p> + +<p>At 6 A. M. on Sunday, Tom Brown is +released from his punishment, convinced +that the “System” is illogical, antiquated, +barbarous, cruel and destructive to +the character of prisoners and officers +alike. He is exhausted, body and soul; +but he finds strength to make a chapel +address to the prisoners, which must +have been memorable. The prisoners +are tremendously impressed by the fact +that this man of education, culture and +wealth has voluntarily endured for six +days the same treatment as themselves, +in the endeavor to understand their situation +and, if possible, to improve it; they +recognize that the cell, the march, the +shock and the dungeon affect the man of +culture and refinement more keenly than +the ordinary prisoner; but the thing +which affects them most profoundly is +the vicarious character of his act. They +would almost apply to it the words of +the prophet Isaiah: “Surely he hath +borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span></p> + +<p>Mr. Osborne is not content to discover +and reveal the vices of the prison +system but he seeks a practical remedy. +To this end he has taken counsel, not +only with the prison authorities and students +of penological science, but also +with the prisoners who live under the +system and, some of whom, are keenly +alive to its destructive influence. A +prisoner in the shops gave him the basic +idea. He says:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“For some years I have felt that the principles +of self-government might possibly be the +key to the solution of the prison problem; but +as yet I have not been able to see clearly how +to begin its application. There have seemed +to be almost insuperable difficulties. In this +connection Jack” (Jack Murphy, a prisoner) +“made a suggestion which supplies a most important +link in the chain.</p> + +<p>“In discussing the various aspects of prison +life we reached the subject of the long and +dreary Sundays. Jack agrees with all those +with whom I have talked that the long stretch +in the cells, from the conclusion of the chapel +service, between ten-thirty and eleven o’clock +Sunday morning until seven Monday morning—over +twenty hours, is a fearful strain both +physical and mental upon the prisoners.</p> + +<p>“‘Well, Jack,’ I say, ‘from what I have heard +Superintendent Riley say, I feel sure he would +like to give the men some sort of exercise or +recreation on Sunday afternoons; but how +could it be managed! You can’t ask the officers +to give up their day off, and you don’t +think the men could be trusted by themselves, +do you!’</p> + +<p>“‘Why not?’ says Jack.</p> + +<p>“I look at him enquiringly.</p> + +<p>“‘Why, look here, Tom. I know this place +through and through. I know these men; +I’ve studied ’em for years. And I tell you that +the big majority of these fellows in here will +be square with you if you give ’em a chance. +The trouble is they don’t treat us on the level. +I could tell you all sorts of frame-ups they +give us. Now if you trust a man, he will try +and do what’s right; sure he will. That is, +most men will. Of course, there are a few +that won’t. There are some dirty curs—degenerates—that +will make trouble, but there +ain’t so very many of those. Look at that +road work! Haven’t the men done fine! +How many prisoners have you out on the +roads! About 130; and you ain’t had a single +runaway yet. And if there should be any +runaways you can just bet we’d show ’em +what we think about it.’</p> + +<p>“‘Do you really think, Jack, that the Superintendent +and the Warden could trust you +fellows out in the yard on Sunday afternoons +in summer!’</p> + +<p>“‘Sure they could,’ responds Jack.... +‘And there could be a band concert.... And +it would be a good sight better for us than +being locked in our cells all day. You’d have +fewer fights on Monday, I know that.’</p> + +<p>“‘But how about the discipline! Would you +let everybody out in the yard! What about +those bad actors who don’t know how to behave! +Won’t they quarrel and fight and try +to escape?’</p> + +<p>“‘But don’t you see, Tom, that they couldn’t +do that without putting the whole thing on +the bum, and depriving the rest of us of our +privileges? You needn’t be afraid we couldn’t +handle those fellows all right! Or why not +let out only those men who have a good conduct +bar! That’s it!’ He continues, enthusiastically +warming up to the subject, ‘That’s +it, Tom, a good conduct league, and give the +privilege of Sunday afternoons to the members +of the league.’”</p> +</div> + +<p>This suggestion of Jack Murphy bore +practical fruit. Soon after his “discharge,” +Mr. Osborne, with the co-operation +of the Superintendent of Prisons +and the Warden of Auburn Prison, succeeded +in establishing a Good Conduct +League composed of prisoners, with +officers elected by their fellow prisoners. +The prisoners are given the liberty of +the yard on Sunday afternoons, with a +greatly reduced force of guards. They +march to and from their cells and their +work under the direction of prisoners. +They prepare entertainments with the +permission and approval of their officers. +This plan has now been in operation for +several months without the slightest disorder +or accident and with marked improvement +in the spirit and behaviour of +the men.</p> + +<p>This inspiring demonstration represents +no new discovery by Jack Murphy +or by Mr. Osborne. It is only a re-discovery +of what was practiced by Captain +Alexander Machonochie at Norfolk +Island with transported British convicts +seventy years ago. The writer saw Colonel +Gardner Tufts doing similar things +with convicts at Concord, Massachusetts, +nearly thirty years ago, where +prisoners were carrying on evening literary +societies in perfect order without +the presence of an officer. He saw similar +things done by Captain Hickox at the +Michigan State Prison more than twenty +years ago, where the old chaplain gathered +200 men in a single room for an<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span> +evening assembly with no officer present +but himself. This same principal is being +worked out in the State prisons of +Oregon and Colorado, in the Ohio State +Reformatory at Mansfield and in Doctor +Gilmour’s splendid work at Guelph, +Ontario. In all of these places it has +been found that when you build a wall +around a man he immediately wants to +climb over it and that when you turn +him loose and say, “I trust you and I +know that you will not betray me,” there +is almost always an instant response.</p> + +<p>Mr. Osborne believes that this is the +first instance of the application of the +democratic principle to the management +of convicts in a large convict prison, and +that the Auburn experiment differs from +others in that the prisoners there themselves +originated the movement. He +says that “the good conduct of the prisoners +is in reality an outward expression +of an outward spiritual impulse.” “Hence +the name, ‘Mutual Welfare League,’; +hence the motto, ‘Do good, make good.’ +By doing good to others the man makes +good for himself.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Osborne’s demonstrations make +it clear that those who believe that severity +is an essential part of prison methods +need not worry. Every convict is +punished. When you pillory a man before +the world as a criminal, transport +him by public conveyance and march +him through the streets in irons, put him +behind prison walls, deprive him of his +liberty, subject him absolutely to the will +of another man who holds practically +the powers of life and death, lock him +in an ill-ventilated prison cell, 4½ by 7 +feet (perhaps with an uncongenial cell +mate), dress him in prison garb, exhibit +him to curious visitors at 25 cents per +head, subject him to strict compliance +with thirty to fifty exacting rules on +pain of loss of privileges and increase +of term, restrict his correspondence to +two censored letters per month, permit +him to see his wife and children only in +the presence of an officer and clad in +prison garb—under these circumstances +no one need question that the prisoner is +punished, even though he may have the +privilege of listening to a band concert +and watching a baseball game once a +week, conversing with his fellow convicts +in subdued tones at meals and witnessing +a moving picture show once or +twice a month. Let it never be forgotten +that the convict is punished!</p> + +<p>Those who ridicule or condemn Mr. +Osborne’s adventure make a mistake. +It may have been sensational, but there +was need of a sensation. His experiment +was valuable because it was sincere +and because it has brought out the +truth. But it has brought out only part +of the truth.</p> + +<p>We wish that Mr. Osborne would secure +an opportunity to be installed as +prison guard in some one of the great +prisons of the United States like the +Illinois State Penitentiary, the Indiana +State Prison of Michigan City, or +the Penitentiary at Pittsburgh, Pa. Let +him go incog., unknown to anyone except +the prison warden, and let him come +into the same intimate familiarity with +the life and thinking of the prison guard +as that which he has acquired in the case +of the prison convict. He has already +discovered the demoralizing tendency +of life of the prison guard, and has discovered +its chief flaw, namely, the ruling +principle of fear, to which must be +added the lack of psychological understanding +of the prisoner and the entire +lack of any adequate preliminary training. +There must be taken into account +also the fact that there exists among +prison guards, in an exaggerated degree, +the sentiment that it is dishonorable to +“snitch” upon a fellow officer and, while +a superior officer is likely to report a +subordinate for cruelty or misconduct, +the exposure of such actions by a guard +of equal rank is very unusual. The difficulty +can only be overcome by improving +the personnel and raising the moral +standards of prison guards. The day is +not far distant when training schools +for prison guards will hold the same relation +to prison work which training +schools for nurses hold to well-conducted +hospitals.</p> + +<p>We wish that Mr. Osborne, or someone<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span> +equally discerning, might put himself +in the place of the convict all the +way through and tell an equally convincing +story. Let him go forth with a five-dollar +discharge suit on his back so marked +as to betray to every passing policeman +the shop where it was made. Let +him go out with five dollars or possibly +ten dollars in his pocket to satisfy a sharpened +appetite and find a job in these +hard times. Let him meet the watchful +policeman, or the plain clothes man, who +advises him that “We’re on to you.” +Let him meet the discharged convict +who solicits the loan of a dollar with +implied threat of exposure. Let him take +a job in good faith and render faithful +service, only to be discharged at the end +of the second week because somebody +has given him away.</p> + +<p>Let him be arrested, guilty or not +guilty, as a suspect of some crime. Let +him be subjected to the inquisition of +“the third degree,” regardless of the +rights which are supposed to be guaranteed +to every citizen that he shall be +deemed to be innocent until proven to be +guilty. Let him experience the starvation, +buffeting insults and detectives’ lies +which are incident to this inquisition.</p> + +<p>Then, by all means, let Mr. Osborne’s +representative await trial in a county +jail and discover the beauties of a System +which is twice as vicious as the Auburn +Prison System which he describes. +Thrust him into a steel cage and exhibit +him to all comers like a wild beast in a +menagerie. Let him share his cell with +five other prisoners in a place where he +cannot keep himself free from vermin, +where he cannot take a bath, and force +him into intimate association, day and +night, with a mob of prisoners who are +kept in idleness, with no occupation except +to corrupt one another and to concoct +plans to escape by bribing or mobbing +the jailer or by cutting out of jail.</p> + +<p>Let him stand trial in a court whose +judge is overwhelmed with business or +is fixed in the tradition that severity is +the only remedy for crime, with a prosecuting +attorney whose reputation depends +upon making as many convictions +as possible. Let him have assigned to +his defense an attorney who, because of +inexperience, incompetency, or indifference, +cannot present his case properly, +in order that his innocence may be demonstrated, +if he is innocent, or any +mitigating facts may be made clear if he +is guilty.</p> + +<p>Or let Mr. Osborne’s representative +essay the role of a paroled prisoner, going +out as a ward of the State under the +direction of a parole officer, in order that +he may discover the efficiency and equity +of the Parole Board, the fidelity and +good-will of the parole officer, the patience +and fair dealing of the employer, +and the advantages and disadvantages +generally of the parole system.</p> + +<p>It is a good thing to call the attention +of the public to the deficiencies of the +convict prisons, and the public ought to +know that Sing Sing is, and has been for +many years, far worse than Auburn. +Think of a prison where rheumatism and +tuberculosis form an inevitable part of +the prison sentence for a large proportion +of the prisoners, whose number can +be definitely predicted! But the prison +problem of the State of New York can +only be solved by a thoroughly organized +and persistent attack under the leadership +of men and women who have +social and economic vision.</p> + +<p>And the prison problem of the State +of New York will not be solved until it +is recognized as a technical problem, demanding +the services of tried and expert +men. Prisons, like other educational institutions, +should be headed by superintendents +of demonstrated training and +efficiency, selected without reference to +geographical lines.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span></p> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_NEW_FREEDOM_AT_AUBURN_PRISON">THE NEW FREEDOM AT AUBURN PRISON</h2> +</div> + +<p class="h2sub"><span class="smcap">By O. F. Lewis</span>, +<br>General Secretary, Prison Association of New York.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>[This article has been reprinted from The Outlook, by special permission of that periodical. The editor of +<i>The Delinquent</i> begs to say, that although he himself is the author of this article, he believes the new +development of self-government at Auburn, as described in the following article, is of sufficient importance to +warrant being called earnestly to the attention of our readers.]</p> +</div> + +<p>The afternoon of the Fourth of July +was drawing to a close in the long building-inclosed +yard of Auburn Prison, in +the State of New York. Fourteen hundred +gray-suited inmates were playing a +score of different games. The afternoon’s +track events had come to an +end. The South Wing, with between +four and five hundred prisoners, had won +from the North Wing, with some nine +hundred prisoners, in the varied contests. +A silver cup, given by the president +of a prominent mortgage company +in New York, was the tangible goal of +the exciting battle.</p> + +<p>Suddenly the clear bugle notes of the +“Retreat” sounded far down the yard, +slowly and melodiously. Instantly the +boys in gray began to fall into line at +their appointed places. There was now +silence where a moment before there +had been bowling, baseball, running, +dancing, piano, band, and the shouts of +swarming inmates. Then came the first +bars of the “Star-Spangled Banner,” +played by the prison inmate band. Off +came the caps, and down across the +breast. The flag sank slowly, lowered +from the tall pole by three inmates. The +music ceased, the caps were again donned, +and from the extreme end of the +yard rose suddenly a cheer:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Rah! Rah! Rah!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Rah! Rah! Rah!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">South Wing! South Wing!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Rah! Rah! Rah!”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>Then, preceded by the band and with +banners flying, the victorious athletes of +the South Wing marched up the center +walk between the files of other prisoners, +to receive the silver cup from the hands +of the donor, Mr. Richard M. Hurd.</p> + +<p>I wish I had the power to make the +readers of The Outlook sense in full +the enormous significance for both present +and future of this recent Fourth of +July in Auburn Prison. You have read +in these recent months so often of the +greatly increased liberties granted to +prisoners that mere games or the unchecked +intercourse of prisoners on holidays +seems no epoch-making novelty.</p> + +<p>But history was made at Auburn Prison +on Independence Day. For the +fourteen hundred men not only ran off +their own sports during the afternoon, +but they practically ran themselves, +through their appointed “delegates,” +chosen from among their own numbers +by their own votes. And assuredly no +more orderly group could have been +found on that Fourth of July anywhere +between the Atlantic and the Pacific.</p> + +<p>A year ago Auburn Prison was austere +indeed. The holidays and the Sundays +were grievously dreaded by the inmates—dreaded +as they had been for +generations, because a Sunday or a holiday +meant that the inmates had been +locked into their miserable little cells at +about five o’clock on the previous day, +and that, except for a few brief hours +for chapel or for an entertainment on +holidays, they were locked in all through +the holiday until the next morning, when +work recommenced. Thirty-six hours, +more or less, in a wretched little cell, +hardly large enough to turn around in, +with no modern conveniences of toilet +or wash-basins—simply a hole in the solid +masonry wall of a building ninety-eight +years old, built at a time when prison +meant physical torture and oblivion, +and when prison architecture aided to +the maximum that purpose.</p> + +<p>Is it any wonder that a prisoner recently +said to me, on a Sunday afternoon +at Clinton Prison in New York State,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span> +where they still lock up their prisoners +from Saturday until Monday, with the +exceptions noted: “My God! It’s a +wonder we don’t all go insane in here!” +Is it any wonder that at Auburn Prison, +according to the words of one of the +leading prisoners, the inmates used to +consider themselves supremely lucky if +by some means they could get “dope” on +Saturday, with which to “put a shot into +themselves” on Sunday morning? Then +they would lie befuddled and bevisioned +during Sunday—the Lord’s Day! “And +on Monday morning,” laconically said +the prisoner, “we used to have the biggest +number of fights in the shops of +any day in the week. The effects of the +drug were wearing off, you know.”</p> + +<p>This summer the difference is enormous +and fundamental. For an hour or +a little more on each week-day, and for +four full hours on Sunday, the prisoners +are turned out to recreation according to +their bent. And coincidentally with this +all-important change in the prison’s policy +toward the inmates has come an all-important +reduction in the number of +prison guards needed to supervise the +prisoners at their play. On the morning +of the Fourth, for instance, an entertainment +was given in the auditorium by +a local theatrical company. Practically +all the inmates—fourteen hundred—were +present. Many of the guards sat +in one little corner of the room, in the +extreme rear. They had been invited +by the Mutual Welfare League, the prisoners’ +organization, to attend if they desired!</p> + +<p>In the afternoon there were four +keepers in all in the yard, so I was informed. +They were thoroughly inconspicuous. +The “P. K.” (which is short for +Principal Keeper) started the afternoon +in uniform, but shortly changed to street +clothes. “You’ll find him playing ball +with the boys later today,” said one inmate +to me. All the guarding at the +several exits of the yard was done—apart +from the few guards—by the “delegates” +of the Mutual Welfare League.</p> + +<p>The Mutual Welfare League! To +many prison officials, long in the service, +the name undoubtedly has a very sentimental +sound. I frankly confess that +several of us in the little party invited +by Mr. Thomas Mott Osborne to attend +the League’s celebration of the Fourth +of July were skeptical. We were afraid +it might prove to be amateurish and +mushy, even though we knew of the signal +value of Mr. Osborne’s self-imposed +incarceration at Auburn Prison last fall, +as shown by the Nation-wide attention +given to his subsequent story of the fearful +and unnecessary monotony and desperation +of prison life. But, as one of +our party said on Sunday morning, after +we had sat for several hours with the +Executive Committee of the League: “I +didn’t exactly come to scoff and remain +to pray; but I did come with doubt, and +I go away converted.”</p> + +<p>What is it, then, about this new freedom +at Auburn Prison that has not only +converted a cautious, conservative president +of a board of reformatory managers +in another State, but has led him +within a week from his experience at +Auburn to urge successfully the introduction +of a similar league in his own +institution? Two facts, principally, I +think. In the first place, the Mutual +Welfare League plan works. Secondly, +there is a convincing air of sincerity, and +even devotion, about it all.</p> + +<p>May I repeat what seems to me the +all-important fact about this development +at Auburn? The prisoners, in their +hours of recreation, in their attendance +at chapel, in their attendance at Sunday +afternoon concerts or entertainments, +<i>run themselves in large measure</i>. They +have not only given their promise to be +good, but they have chosen their own inmate +officers to see that they keep their +promise. There is all the difference in +the world between being run by a group +of prison guards, even under the best of +benevolent prison despotisms, and being +run by prisoner guards of one’s own +election.</p> + +<p>If, then, the most sacred prerogative +of the traditional prison official can thus +be usurped by the prisoners themselves, +and if, in their own expressive language,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span> +they can “get away with it,” in the sense +of securing better order, more work in +the shops, a marked reduction in the +number of offences committed or reported, +and a radical betterment in the always +limited joy of life in a penal institution, +what is the inference?</p> + +<p>The organization and development of +the Mutual Welfare League were simple +enough. Last fall, when Mr. Osborne, +as chairman of a prison reform commission +that had been appointed by the Governor, +sent himself to prison for a week, +aided thereto by a friendly warden, he +informed the prisoners at a previous +chapel service that he was coming into +prison to try to understand the prison +life from the standpoint of the prisoner. +He asked the inmates to regard him, +“Tom Brown,” not as a stool-pigeon, +nor as simply a foolish amateur, but as +thoroughly in earnest in his desire to +better prison conditions by experiencing +them, even if only briefly and partially +for a week.</p> + +<p>That was point Number One in the development +of what has happened at Auburn. +Those who make light of Mr. +Osborne’s brief career in prison may +have a certain justification, in so far as +the real prison life can be learned only +slowly; but, after all, the results of that +October week of Mr. Osborne’s, measured +by general results both upon himself +and upon the prison, have been perhaps +the greatest in the history of the +century-old prison.</p> + +<p>Point Number Two in the development +of the new freedom occurred in the +basket shop, where Mr. Osborne was +given as a teacher and side-partner for +the week Jack Murphy, whom Mr. Osborne +describes as a very fine and sincere +man. From Murphy’s character +came unconsciously to Mr. Osborne the +suggestion that prisoners could be trusted +far more than had been the case at +Auburn. “Why couldn’t there be started +here,” asked Mr. Osborne, “a kind of +mutual improvement or mutual welfare +league among the prisoners, whereby, in +return for pledges of obedience and loyalty +to the prison administration, greater +freedom and more privileges might be +obtained?”</p> + +<p>The third step toward the present +modified form of self-government occurred +after Mr. Osborne, having emerged +from his week’s imprisonment, gave +public expression to his indignation at +the alleged mediæval methods of treating +human beings behind the bars. These +published accounts, spread broadcast +over the country, are well remembered. +He set to work then to establish a league +among the prisoners. And from the beginning +he sought to have the League +evolve its principles and its pledges from +among the men themselves, not through +him or through officials of the prison.</p> + +<p>The organization was simple. Any +prisoner could join the League. The +motto was: “Do good, make good.” Unquestionably +the incentive in the minds +of most inmates to join the League was +that there might be something in it for +them. When similar motives are eliminated +from the minds of men who undertake +enterprises on the outside of the +prison, it will be time to criticise unfavorably +such motives inside the walls.</p> + +<p>From the League members—and at +present nearly every prisoner in Auburn +is a member, wearing his little green and +white button with “M. W. L.” thereon—a +board of delegates, forty-nine in number, +was elected by the prisoners themselves. +This is Point Number Four. +The prisoners did their own choosing of +their delegate officers. The officers were +not superimposed upon them by the prison +officials. And in consequence, if +these delegate officers did not act on the +level; if they became stool-pigeons, bearing +all sorts of tales to the prison officials +and currying favor thereby, then the prison +administration would not be to blame +for the choice of inmate officers. It +would be squarely up to the inmates +themselves. What was the result? A +very simple one. Both the companies of +inmates and their officers instinctively +aimed to adjust themselves to secure the +minimum of trouble, at chapel, in the +shops, at recreation. Splendid group +psychology, and withal so simple. And<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span> +incidentally it can be said that the inmates +have been able to handle most dexterously +not a few “tough guys” who had +been giving great trouble to the prison +administration.</p> + +<p>At this stage the movement became +bigger than any one man, even Mr. Osborne. +The latter had imprisoned himself, +he had suggested the formation of +the League; he had organized the League; +but now it was up to the inmates to +make of the League a success.</p> + +<p>The fifth stage in the development of +the League came suddenly and through +necessity. Early in June an epidemic of +scarlatina struck the prison. Ultimately, +about a thousand prisoners were infected. +Few were in the hospital, but shop +work slackened up to a considerable degree. +Were the prisoners in consequence +to be locked day after day in their cells? +Was it longer necessary? The answer +came one afternoon when Warden Rattigan +took a long chance. He turned all +the prisoners belonging to the League out +to exercise or play according to their +hearts’ content in the big yard, principally +under the supervision of the delegates, +who until now had been used to +move the prisoners to chapel and to entertainments. +It was a crucial test. It +worked perfectly. Order was maintained, +and no efforts to escape were made.</p> + +<p>“The boys would tear a fellow to +pieces that tried it,” one of the prisoners +explained to me. “We’ve pledged ourselves +to behave. Besides, do you think +we want to lose the privileges we’ve +gained?”</p> + +<p>By the Fourth of July the daily recreation +period, from four o’clock on, had +been going for about a month. What +have been the results?</p> + +<p>“Everything,” answered one of the +delegates. “Take my own case. Now I +can sleep nights in that small hole in the +wall called a cell. I have been here for +years, and hardly ever had I had a decent +night’s sleep. Now I get tired in the +recreation hour. And then, too, we have +something to look forward to. It’s a +fearful mistake to make prison life so +hopeless. You can’t get the best out of +a man, in work or anything else, if you +don’t give him something to work for. +Now, if we behave ourselves and are +decent members of the League, we have +a decent amount of freedom and privileges. +We have competitive games in +baseball, bowling, and the like. We feel +we amount to something. The boys +march now with their heads up. We eat +better. The food tastes better. A lot of +the sullen resentment and hatred of the +prison administration is gone. The work +in the shops is better. There’s better +discipline.”</p> + +<p>“What about dope?” we asked. “They +say it’s a curse at Sing Sing.”</p> + +<p>“Very little here now,” said several +delegates at once. “It isn’t needed now, +and it’s frowned upon.” Then up spoke +one of the huskiest and best proportioned +of the Executive Committee of the League. +“I’ll be frank,” he said, emphatically. +“I’ve taken pretty nearly every +kind of dope that’s known. I took it deliberately. +Now I don’t need it, and I’ve +cut it out.”</p> + +<p>“Let me say something else, too,” said +another delegate. “There’s mighty little +prison vice here now. You know +what I mean. Formerly, when we were +all locked up for sixteen hours a day, +and hadn’t had any decent exercise, or +anything to take our minds off of ourselves +and our grievances, all sorts of +bad things happened. That’s the curse +of the old prison regime. It turned out, +among other things, a lot of degenerates. +Now—well, we get pretty well tired, and +our mind’s taken off of ourselves, and +we sleep. There’s a good deal, too, in +having that sort of thing put under the +ban by the fellows themselves.”</p> + +<p>One of us then asked, “How about the +growing criticism that prisoners are getting +to have too easy a time of it? When +we tell the public in general about this +Fourth of July celebration, many will +say that the prisoners are having more +fun and an easier time than the honest +taxpayer.”</p> + +<p>The delegate, in answering, flared up. +“Tell those people to try any prison for +a while! What’s a prison for? To torture<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span> +a man, and send him out hating society, +and determined to get even for the +years he’s spent as the old-line prison +made him spend it? Nobody except the +fellow that’s been through it knows what +being in prison is. Does the public want +us to go insane, get tuberculosis, contract +wretched vices, rebel in mutinies, +live sixteen hours out of twenty-four in +a living tomb, and have day-in and day-out +a miserable monotony of existence +that dulls our minds and makes us hate +the State that munificently pays us a cent +and a half a day, and then often takes +away the earnings of months in one single +fine for some offense that the very +manner of existence here almost forces +us to commit? Why, what is this hour +of recreation, anyway? It’s a health +measure, a safety measure, a reformatory +measure.</p> + +<p>“Do you think fellows would commit +crime in order to get into prison to have +this little pittance of pleasure? Let me +tell you that the very people that talk so +about putting the clamps on this giving +of soft snaps to prisoners don’t know +what that other system did to us. Why, +there are a lot of fellows here that had +made up their minds to pull off another +trick just as soon as they got out. Why +shouldn’t they? But now we have something +else to work for.”</p> + +<p>Much of the above conversation occurred +at a meeting of the Executive +Committee of the League, to which we +were invited. It was essentially a novel +experience. Here sat, in the warden’s +office, and without the warden or any +prison official present, a round dozen of +convicts, gray-suited and thoroughly in +earnest. They discussed prison conditions +and prison problems with all the +freedom of a board of managers, and +with far greater knowledge of actual +conditions. Prisoners know more about +a prison than does the warden, the warden +than does the superintendent of prisons, +the superintendent of prisons than +do the inspectors, and the inspectors +than does the public. Therefore, if the +best efforts and the best loyalty of the +prisoners can be harnessed up to a reformatory +programme of the square deal +for both sides, the possibilities of the future +loom far larger than have reformatory +possibilities in the past.</p> + +<p>So Auburn Prison is pointing the way, +by an almost revolutionary experiment, +to large possibilities in inmate self-government +in State prisons and reformatories. +As I write these lines the newspapers +bring a word of a similar Saturday +afternoon passed in sports for the +first time in the history of Sing Sing. +Within the last week the State Reformatory +of New Jersey, at Rahway, has +adopted tentatively a modified form of +inmate self-government. Great Meadow +Prison, in New York State, which has +been for several years the conspicuous +honor prison of the eastern part of the +country, marched its six hundred men +down to the baseball game on July +Fourth, a half-mile from the prison, under +inmate overseers.</p> + +<p>Self-government, to the limit of its +possibilities, is almost a fetish with Mr. +Osborne. For many years he was President +of the Board of Trustees of the +George Junior Republic; there he became +convinced that self-government is +workable not only for youngsters but for +older delinquents.</p> + +<p>In the old-line prison the ever-present +dread of the traditional warden was an +escape. His career was judged largely +by his ability to suppress escapes and +frequently by his ability to suppress public +knowledge of the methods he used +to keep order. Today the warden is +judged able or poor partly by his ability +to develop men out of his prisoners, +men who on going out will make good. +The entire theory of the old-line prison +construction was based on the principle +that any prisoner would escape if +he could, and use desperate means of so +doing. The bars and steel-work that +you see everywhere in prisons throughout +the country show how ingrained the +theory has been. But up at Great Meadow, +where the bulk of the prisoners +roam unattended by guards at their work +during the day, it is almost ridiculous +to see them securely caged behind several +strata of tool-proof steel at night.</p> + +<p>In the last few years demonstrations<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span> +in scores of prisons and other correctional +institutions have shown that, if given +the chance, when on honor, the prisoners +won’t run away. The old adage of +“honor among thieves” has taken on an +entirely new meaning. It is now “honor +among thieves toward the State that +trusts them.”</p> + +<p>The power of discipline in the League +is very limited. The only punishment is +suspension or elimination from the League. +Such action is delegated to the +Executive Committee of the League. +Actually, this exclusion from the body +politic—since almost every prisoner is a +member of the League—carries with it +two important disadvantages. It stamps +the excluded inmates as <i>anti-social, not +only to the prison administration, but to +the body of prisoners</i>. Secondly, it bars +the prisoner from enjoying the freedom +privileges that the League enjoys. +Therefore the power of suspension, be +it for but a few days, has real force. +The powers of discipline given to the +League by the warden have not been accurately +fixed as yet. The warden has +told the League that all minor cases of +discipline could be punished by them; +wisely, I think, the officers of the League +have not been desirous of punishing.</p> + +<p>So that at present men are turned back +to the prison authorities by the League +for violation of the League discipline. +The theory is that these men will be put +back under the old discipline of silence +and confinement, because they are no +longer members of the League. The +main body of the prisoners have then no +official interest in them, so that the suspension +involves practically a return to +the old prison routine.</p> + +<p>Recently a new Board of Delegates has +been elected, and one of their first acts +was to adopt a probation system instead +of the definite sentence, in the cases of +offenders against the League. A committee +of parole has been established, +which shall visit the suspended men at +least once a week, and as soon as the +committee thinks that the state of mind of +the suspended men warrants the action +the Parole Committee recommends to +the Executive Committee the restoration +of the men to the full privileges of the +League.</p> + +<p>“A big test is coming,” said one delegate, +“when the members of the League +go out. It will be up to them to justify +by their conduct after prison the principles +they accepted here and the privileges +they received.” And the story was +told us of one young man who was the +first of the delegates to receive his release +from prison. He is said to have +made a hard fight to stay straight, mainly +because he didn’t want to “put the League +in bad” by having one of its officers +go crooked.</p> + +<p>And here opens up still another far-reaching +possibility. Why should not +the members of the League, once released +from prison, form committees in the +various cities and communities of the +State for the purpose of helping the still +later ones who come out of Auburn to +make good? Heretofore the best that +we of the Prison Association of New +York have achieved has been to employ +big-hearted and sympathetic parole officers—real +friends of the released inmates. +And we have scored good success. +But it has been always a case of +supervision and encouragement by the +officer.</p> + +<p>And so this was the proposition which +we members of the Board of Managers +of the Prison Association made to the +Executive Committee of the League: +“Will you co-operate with us in helping +released prisoners from Auburn make +their parole satisfactorily? Will you +have small groups of ex-League members +ready in various parts of the State +to work with our county committees to +the one end of tiding and helping the discharged +and released prisoner over the +hard months that immediately follow his +release?”</p> + +<p>With enthusiasm the suggestion has +been accepted. One delegate spoke up: +“I’m going out next month. I don’t +know where I’ll get work, but I’m willing +to go anywhere the League sends +me. I’m willing and eager to give my<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span> +life to this work, if I’m wanted!”</p> + +<p>Such, briefly, is a picture of the Mutual +Welfare League. That it is significant +in its possibilities no one can doubt. +What its outcome will be a year from +now it would be hazardous to forecast. +It may be but a burst ahead of the general +humanitarian movement that characterizes +prison reform throughout the +country. It may be that when the altruistic +enthusiasm that now holds the +more thoughtful members of the League +wanes, as wane it will to some extent, +there will come a slump, and an arrogance +of demand for more privileges +that will give to the reactionary among +prison administrators a chance to say, +“I told you so!”</p> + +<p>But I much doubt it. The greater +danger will come from possible stupidity +of prison administration, a change +perhaps of authority at the prison, and +a consequent lack of sympathy with the +purpose of the League.</p> + +<p>One thing seems sure. Prisons and +reformatories will not go back to the +old-line repressive and often brutal treatment. +The transition to what will ultimately +become the new treatment of delinquents +is being attended by various +experiments, often startling and sometimes +amazing. We are not a Nation +that thinks for a long time before acting +in prison reform. Our successes have +come so far largely from experimenting, +retaining the successes and scrapping +the failures. How much of the honor +system, the back-to-the-land movement, +the road-work movement, and the increasing +classification of prisoners will +be scrapped, it is much too early as yet +to say.</p> + +<p>The final test will probably be along +two lines. We shall determine how the +“new freedom” works within prison +walls, applying the acid tests of health, +increased efficiency in labor, reformative +value, education, and general training +for a decent life in society. We shall +also have to show, if we are friends of +the “new freedom,” that such treatment +within the prison produces a larger number +of permanent reformations after +prison, a higher percentage of those who +make good.</p> + +<p>In short, the ultimate test is going to +be not the increased possibility afforded +the prisoner of enduring his prison term, +nor yet the increased ease of administration +of correctional institutions, but +fairly and squarely as to whether society, +from which all these prisoners come, and +which has been the sufferer by them, is +to be permanently better protected from +their further depredations by giving +them what today seems to be a square +deal within the prisons, and a decent +chance to make good after they come +out.</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="EVENTS_IN_BRIEF">EVENTS IN BRIEF</h2> +</div> + +<p>[Under this heading will appear each month numerous paragraphs of general interest, relating to the prison +field and the treatment of the delinquent.]</p> + +<p><i>Road Work and Farm Work by Convicts</i>—(In +the clipping service of <i>The +Delinquent</i>, road work and farm work +by prisoners has become the most frequent +single item of news. All over the +country prisoners are working, or are +“being worked.” We cite this month a +number of items, taken at random, and +showing the wide scope of the movement +to use prisoners for out-door occupations +that will benefit the community and the +men also).</p> + +<p>The first gang of convicts from Sing +Sing prison are working on Catskill +roads, and are camping. Most of them +are short-term men.... In Pennsylvania, +at Bellefonte, it is expected that the +State will raise 10,000 bushels of wheat +and 5,000 tons of hay on the State prison +farm.... A bill providing that +Federal prisoners kept in State penitentiaries +or jails may be used for improving +the public roads of any State has +been introduced into the House of Representatives....<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span> +20 prisoners have +been at work in Franklin county, N. Y., +and are netting $20. a day to the taxpayers, +putting in stone roads.... The +State prison of Wisconsin is running +two prison camps. The preliminary +work in constructing the new industrial +home for women is being done by the +prisoners, making the roadbed, building +a railroad spur, laying the sewer system, +digging the tunnels and otherwise excavating. +The workers wear khaki trousers, +work shirts, overalls and straw hats. +The road the other camp is working on +is the regulation road with a fifteen-foot +macadam driveway.... At Ames, +Iowa, the convicts have had a “raise” in +wages, as a result of their first week’s +showing. They were receiving twenty +cents an hour; now they get twenty-five. +They have been working for the Iowa +State College, first doing “odd jobs” +around the institution, then oiling and +cutting roads. “Adams, the guard with +the men, is virtually losing his job as +guard and becoming merely time-keeper +for the bunch.” ... There are now +three road camps in New Jersey, with +40, 60, and 60 men respectively. The +State Road Department has a large appropriation +for hiring prisoners to improve +the roads of the State.... At +the farm of the New York City Reformatory +for Misdemeanants, now under +construction in Orange county, the results +are as follows: “Two hundred tons +of hay and two thousand bushels of potatoes +already. A promise of ten thousand +tons of fresh vegetables each season.” +This farm was started only last +spring, and less than fifty young fellows +have been at work on it. The produce +is shipped to the Department of Correction +in New York City.... Sussex +county, N. J., requires its prisoners to +work on the roads.... Warden Sanders, +of Iowa State Prison, has 175 prisoners +at work on farms near Fort Madison. +With a big auto truck he can take +gangs of laborers thirty or forty miles +from the Penitentiary where help is +needed.... At Auburn Prison, N. +Y., a road camp of long-term men has +been established, and the prisoners to be +sent out in this camp have been chosen +by the Mutual Welfare League, who +stand sponsor for their good work while +outside. Several men of the gang had +never seen an automobile.... In +Mesa county, Colo., prisoners in the +county jail will next summer be allowed +to choose whether they will make hay, +build or repair roads. This summer it +was hay or the rockpile.... Dr. O. +F. Lewis, general secretary of the Prison +Association of New York, has issued a +public statement supporting the plan of +Commissioner Davis to establish a municipal +farm of 500 acres on land reclaimed +from the sea in Long Island +Sound, to be worked by prisoners of the +Department.... Only one desertion +from the Ames, Ia., prison camp had +been reported up to July 22.... Residents +of Tybee, Ga., have petitioned the +county commissioners to use convicts in +building roads.... Governor Major +of Missouri will ask the next legislature +to purchase a farm of at least 1,000 acres +across the river from the State penitentiary, +for the production of vegetables +and meats. He estimates that 400 convicts +could be employed. Contracts under +the contract system expire at the end +of this year.... Provisions of a +bill before the Georgia legislature are +that the county chain gang shall work +four months of each year within the city +limits of Macon, under the direction of +the mayor and council.... A survey +of the proposed prison farm of Ohio +has been made by students of the engineering +department of Ohio State University. +The farm consists of 1,455 +acres.... Jefferson county, N. Y., +is contemplating purchasing a county jail +farm.... The sheriff of Washington +county, N. Y., is using a garden for +prisoners’ labor, partly because “weeding +an onion bed is about the most tiresome +work you can put a tramp to, and +you won’t see the fellow again after his +term expires.”... The North Carolina +Good Roads Association resolved in +July that all State convicts who are suitable +for road work should be used in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span> +construction of public roads.... Prisoners +from Great Meadow Prison, N. +Y., are building a State road in the Adirondacks.... +The Lancaster, Pa., +Automobile Club asks convict labor for +public roads.... Fifty more prisoners +have been sent to the State Prison +Farm of New Jersey. Ultimately about +300 prisoners will be busy there. There +will be about 2,000 acres of land to cultivate.... +Governor Stuart of Virginia +has pointed out that there are 1,056 +men in the jails of Virginia of whom no +work is required, and he has urged the +several State departments interested in +the matter to consider ways and means +to get these prisoners out on the roads.... +It has been estimated that the +State of Ohio has realized 88.8 per cent. +profit in raising cattle on the penitentiary +farm. 278 head of cattle were bought +for 8 cents a pound in Chicago. It is estimated +that the total gain of the cattle, +which will be sold to State institutions, +will be about $4,500. A large dairy will +be established on the farm.... From +the District of Columbia Workhouse +Farm, which received a maintenance appropriation +this last year of $130,000, +$60,000 will be returned in revenue, +coming from the sale of brick manufactured +on the farm.... The city of +Washington has purchased 1,800 more +acres on which to build a reformatory +farm.... Superintendent Peyton, of +the Indiana State Reformatory, wants +to teach his inmates scientific farming, +after the foundry contracts expire in +November, 1915.... Thomas Mott +Osborne has been spending several +weeks, working with the prisoners, at +several of the Auburn Prison camps.... +City prisoners in Burlington, Ia., will +again work on the streets. Sometime +ago the prisoners were removed, but it +was found that the city was the loser +thereby, and that the prisoners wanted +to work on the streets.... West +Virginia is working State prisoners on +roads.... The Sheriff of Suffolk +county, N. Y., says that a prison farm is +a necessity, and he has started to get one.... +A life convict has run away +from the honor camp at Auburn prison.... +It is claimed that at least a +dozen prisoners have escaped in the last +few months from the New Jersey State +prison farm.... Motion pictures +showing convict road builders from the +State penitentiary of Colorado at work +will be taken in a few days on the Boulder +Canon road....</p> + +<p>(And the list might be continued almost +indefinitely. The above notes are +from clippings received during the first +two weeks of August).</p> + +<hr> + +<p><i>Important Resignations Announced</i>—A +number of important changes are taking +place in executive positions in well-known +prisons and reformatories. Warden +Wolfer is shortly to leave the Minnesota +State Prison. Warden Bridges +has resigned from his long service at the +Massachusetts State Prison, Warden +Brown has been succeeded in West Virginia +by State Senator M. Z. White. +Chairman Frank L. Randall of the Massachusetts +Prison Commission is said to +be resigning on September 1st, Superintendent +Reid of the Minnesota State Reformatory +is to take Warden Wolfer’s +place, and Henry K. W. Scott, formerly +warden of the New Hampshire State +Prison, is to go to the position left vacant +by Superintendent Reid.</p> + +<p>Henry Wolfer has been in prison work +43 years. He began, says the Minneapolis +Tribune, in a day when filth, vermin, +brutality and torture were prominent +features of prison life. He ends it as +warden of a prison declared by many +authorities to be one of the finest in the +world. Warden Wolfer began as guard +at Joliet Prison as a boy of 18. A recent +number of the Delinquent (       ) +contained an article about the Warden’s +remarkable work as an administrator +and as a business man.</p> + +<p>Warden Bridges has been 21 years at +the Massachusetts State Prison. The +Boston Herald says that when he took +hold, conditions were chaotic. The Warden +has made a specialty of inmate education. +The correspondence courses, +run entirely within the prison, are noteworthy.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span> +The prison paper, the Mentor, +is written entirely by hand, and facsimiled. +The prison is a congregate, old, +cramped structure. Recently, sports +have been developed in the limited prison +yard.</p> + +<p>Warden Brown of the West Virginia +Penitentiary seems to be making a place +for another appointee. The Wheeling, +W. Va., Intelligencer, says that the prison +is losing the best and ablest executive +it ever had. He had in three and a +half years renovated the sanitary system, +improved discipline, abolished corporal +punishment, elevated the standard of the +prison school, turned over to the State +(by contract labor) $120,000 above expenses, +instituted a prison savings bank, +with $35,000 in prisoners’ earnings for +the overtime work, and has developed a +prisoners’ aid society for helping the +families of convicts. He has also developed +two camps.</p> + +<p>Whether Chairman Randall of the +Massachusetts Prison Commission is to +leave Massachusetts is at the time of +writing unsettled. Rumor has it that he +has been seriously disappointed at the +practically absolute failure of his extensive +prison reform program to pass the +Legislature, and also at the failure of +the Legislature to appropriate an increase +in salary which he was given to +understand would occur this year, in +view of the fact that he left Minnesota +last year at considerable financial sacrifice. +There is no question that Massachusetts +will be a serious loser, if Mr. Randall +goes. There seems also a certain +amount of hostility toward an “imported” +penologist. This is a sad attitude +of mind, but not confined solely to Massachusetts.</p> + +<hr> + +<p><i>Extension Courses of California University +in Folsom Prison.</i>—The report +of the university extension director, in +charge of the work at Folsom Prison, is +interesting:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“We began in January, and the official enrollment +is now 324 students. As I soon found +that many of the men had brains no better +developed than those of a child of 8 years, +classes were formed in elementary English, +German and arithmetic.</p> + +<p>“The teaching is done by convicts who have +proved themselves fitted for the positions, 15 +being on the staff. Aside from financial reasons, +this was done because the prisoners need +teachers who are in sympathy with them.</p> + +<p>“All are not permitted to take the school +work; some because of conduct, others because +they are unable to keep up to the required +standard; still others do not wish to +take it. Any man who is unprepared twice in +succession is dropped from the class. Many +failed on this account when the work was +first began as they were using it merely as an +excuse to get out of their prison duties.</p> + +<p>“A man often wants to follow a profession +or trade to which he is unsuited. Whenever +one comes to me asking help in learning a +trade, I find out what trade or profession he +is best suited for.”</p> + +<p>When asked if the convicts appreciated the +work, Mr. Jacobs’ face lighted up. “They do +now,” he said. “My hand is still sore from +the greetings they gave me when I returned +from a trip East, but they tried all sorts of +tricks to get men when the work was first +started.”</p> +</div> + +<hr> + +<p><i>Funds for Deserted Wives.</i>—According +to the Pittsburg Times, Pennsylvania’s +law which went into effect a year +ago, providing payment to wives of men +committed to the workhouse for non-support +and desertion during the time +the husband is serving his sentence, is +proving a wonderful aid to women of +Allegheny county, as proved by a record +of the first year’s results. About $5,200 +has been paid to 107 women since July, +1913, when the law went into effect, the +average having been $12.50 for each woman.</p> + +<p>Lawrence M. Fagan, probation officer +in Allegheny county, through whose +hands these funds went, is enthusiastic. +“It’s been an excellent thing,” he said, +“an arrangement which has solved a problem +that has confronted probation officers +ever since the first man was sent to +prison for non-support. Previously the +wives were no better off while a man was +in jail than they had been before and often +were much worse off. They had nothing +at all coming in in most cases. Seldom +did they receive more than their +earnings which in no case were large.”</p> + +<p>These women now can expect help +each month. Every man is credited 65 +cents a day for every day he works and +the money is given his wife. This has<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span> +amounted to $17.45 a month in some cases, +although often it has only been a +few dollars, but in every case it has been +received with great welcome.</p> + +<p>Mr. Fagan explained that men are sent +to the workhouse only as a last resort. +They are generally given a chance to +support their families after being arrested +for the first time and then if they +fail they are committed to prison. The +payments have averaged $400 from this +source alone.</p> + +<p>The general funds that pass through +the hands of the probation officer from +husbands who are supporting their families +on order of the court, with the probation +office as an intermediary, and +from the workhouse to wives, reached +$55,500 during the past six months. +During June alone the total was $10,600.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="NOTES">NOTES.</h2> +</div> + +<p>An autobus has been installed to carry +prisoners from New York City to Sing +Sing prison. This will do away with the +necessity of marching prisoners from +the station at Ossining to the prison, a +distance of about half mile. The prison +is thirty miles from New York.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>A hospital for tubercular convicts is +to be established at the Maryland State +Penitentiary, an appropriation of $35,000 +having been made by the legislature. +A prison school is also having excellent +success.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Prison contracts are to be continued +“indefinitely” in the New Jersey State +prison, according to the Bayonne, N. J., +Review of July 2d, because there are not +sufficient funds for the installation of +the State-use system. About 1,500 convicts +are employed at the prison. Were +the contracts permitted to lapse, the prisoners +would be idle.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The county commissioners of Beaufort +county, N. C., have voted that convicts +on the county roads may be whipped. +“The superintendent shall keep in +his possession a lash 18 inches long, attached +to a stick 18 inches long and not +more than two inches in diameter, and +said lash may split three times half-way +from the end,” according to the resolution. +No convict may be whipped more +than once during two consecutive days, +shall not receive more than 25 lashes at +one whipping, and must not be beaten on +the neck or head. (We append these details, +because relics of barbarism should +also be recorded in the Delinquent. Ed).</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Out of a total of 1,478 prisoners confined +in the Eastern Penitentiary of +Pennsylvania 1,008 have signed a petition +which will be submitted to the next +legislature asking Statewide prohibition.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The old State prison at Stillwater, +Minn, was practically abandoned on +July 31st, when the last shoe contract +expired. Hereafter all work at the Stillwater +(new) prison will be done for the +State.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>During July some riots of considerable +seriousness occurred on Blackwell’s +Island, New York City. Indictments +for assault in the second degree have +now been returned against the five ringleaders +in the riots at the Penitentiary +on July 8th. A maximum sentence of +five years is attached to conviction.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<hr class="full"> + +<p>STATEMENT OF THE OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, ETC. of THE DELINQUENT,</p> +</div> + +<p>Published monthly at New York, N. Y., required by the Act of August 24th, 1912.</p> + +<table class="autotable"> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"> NAME OF</td> +<td class="tdc" colspan="7"> POST OFFICE ADDRESS</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Editor, O. F. Lewis,</td> +<td class="tdc">135</td> +<td class="tdc">East</td> +<td class="tdc">15th</td> +<td class="tdc">St., </td> +<td class="tdc">New</td> +<td class="tdc">York</td> +<td class="tdc">City</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Managing Editor, O. F. Lewis,</td> +<td class="tdc">”</td> +<td class="tdc">”</td> +<td class="tdc">”</td> +<td class="tdc">”</td> +<td class="tdc">”</td> +<td class="tdc">”</td> +<td class="tdc">”</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Business Manager, O. F. Lewis,</td> +<td class="tdc">”</td> +<td class="tdc">”</td> +<td class="tdc">”</td> +<td class="tdc">”</td> +<td class="tdc">”</td> +<td class="tdc">”</td> +<td class="tdc">”</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Publisher, The National Prisoners’ Aid Association,</td> +<td class="tdc">”</td> +<td class="tdc">”</td> +<td class="tdc">”</td> +<td class="tdc">”</td> +<td class="tdc">”</td> +<td class="tdc">”</td> +<td class="tdc">”</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Owners, The National Prisoners’ Aid Association,</td> +<td class="tdc">”</td> +<td class="tdc">”</td> +<td class="tdc">”</td> +<td class="tdc">”</td> +<td class="tdc">”</td> +<td class="tdc">”</td> +<td class="tdc">”</td> +</tr> +</table> + +<p>There are no bondholders, mortgages, or other security holders.</p> +<p class="right">O. F. LEWIS, Editor and Business Manager.</p> + +<p> +Sworn to and subscribed before me this 27th day of March, 1914.</p> + +<p class="right"> +H. L. McCORMICK, Notary Public No. 6, Kings County.<br> +My Commission expires March 31, 1914.<br> +</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter transnote"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_Notes"> +Transcriber’s Notes +</h2> + +<p>A number of typographical errors were corrected silently.</p> + +<p>Issue number corrected from 7 to 8.</p> + +<p>New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.</p> + +</div> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75368 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/75368-h/images/cover.png b/75368-h/images/cover.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e2a2af2 --- /dev/null +++ b/75368-h/images/cover.png diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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