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Perhaps I’ve spoken of many more varieties of law-breakers than Dr. Lewis had in mind when he asked me to speak a few moments on this subject, but it was hard not to go a little further and mention these different agencies which are making some degree of progress along this line in Kansas City.
ORGANIZATION OF SYSTEMS OF PROBATION AND PAROLE
CHARLES A. DE COWRCY
Judge of the Superior Court, Massachusetts
The two essentials of success in probation work are:--judges who have an intelligent and sympathetic interest in the problem, and probation officers fitted by temperament and training to secure the best possible results.
To further define these essentials, we need judges who will not discredit the system by extending probation to persons not likely to profit by it, and who will apply it wherever it can be done with due regard to the protection of the community, and where the past history and present disposition of the person investigated indicate that he may reasonably be expected to reform without punishment. And we need probation officers who possess not only sympathy and zeal, but knowledge of human nature, tact, firmness and patience.
How shall we secure such judges and officers? The active friends of probation can influence public opinion in the election or appointment of persons able and willing to consider probation on its merits. It is such a human problem that it is difficult to conceive of a man otherwise fitted for judicial position who will not apply probation with intelligent sympathy when its possibilities are called to his attention.
But much can be done to secure uniform standards and improved methods by conferences among the judges, and between them and the probation commission of the State. These conferences also enable those judges who have a whole-souled interest in the work to enkindle the enthusiasm of their associates. This is all the more important in the states where the judges appoint the probation officers.
How to secure suitable probation officers is the most important problem in the probation system. In states where judges are appointed for life, as in Massachusetts, the method of appointment by the judge under whom the officer acts has worked well. But even here are found some judges, happily few in number, who persist in retaining officers little adapted for the work. Where judges persist in such conduct, after being shown its blighting effect on probation work in their district, it is usually because the judge himself takes no interest in probation. To prevent such injustice, no appointment of a probation officer by a judge should be effective until the state probation commission, after proper examination, certifies that the candidate is qualified properly to perform the duties of the office.
The New York system of a civil service examination, specially adapted for probation duties, has much to recommend it. Whatever the method of selection, no person should be appointed who does not secure the approval of the state board; and the board might well be given power of removal, after a hearing, upon written charges.
In the organization of a system of probation an essential element is a central state board. As probation is a part of the judicial system, I favor the Massachusetts method of having the members of the board appointed by the chief justice of the superior or trial court. And if a majority of its members are judges, the efforts of the board are most likely to secure the co-operation of the judges throughout the state.
The state board should have power to prescribe forms of records and reports, to suggest uniform and efficient methods of work by the officers, and promote co-ordination among them; and, in general, it should have ample authority to supervise the probation work throughout the state. Where this central board has also authority in the matter of appointments and removals above mentioned, the organization of the probation system seems complete. In order to maintain a high standard of probation work, the executive officer of the state board should periodically investigate the work of every probation officer; and there should be frequent conferences of the judges and of the probation officers conducted by members of the state board.
As to the organization of a parole system--for the present the machinery of the probation system might well be utilized for this work. The vital point in parole work is the appointment of a suitable board to determine to whom and when parole shall be granted, and on what terms. This question is closely associated with the indeterminate sentence and state control of prisons. I have not had sufficient experience with parole problems to make specific recommendations.
We should agree upon the meaning of our terms. Probation and parole are often used synonymously, while, in fact, authorities and prison officials recognize a distinction. Probation applies to one conditionally released after conviction but before entering upon his sentence. Parole is understood to be the conditional release of a prisoner from an institution after the serving of sentence has been begun.
In Indiana the law authorizes the board of trustees acting as a parole board, or the Governor, to release on parole persons who have been confined under commitment in five institutions: the State Prison, the Reformatory, the Woman’s Prison, Girls’ School and Boys’ School; to all of these, sentences are in effect indeterminate except for murder or treason. Prisoners so released are under supervision and accurate records are kept.
The Indiana probation law applies in three different ways, respectively, to felons, to misdemeanors, to juvenile delinquents. A person who is convicted of a felony is sentenced to a state prison or a reformatory. Sentence may be suspended and he be released on probation. The committal is sent to the institution to which he is committed and he is placed under the supervision of the agents of that institution exactly the same as if he were paroled therefrom.
If the offense is a misdemeanor, the court may suspend judgment and release the offender upon such terms and conditions as in his judgment and discretion seem right and proper. The prisoner is placed under the supervision of the probation officer authorized in each county by the juvenile court law or under the oversight of some other probation officer designated by the court. In either case the law makes proper provision for such subsequent action by the court as the behavior of the convicted person merits.
The juvenile court law provides for a juvenile court in every county in the state. There is a special juvenile court in Marion County, containing the city of Indianapolis. In all other counties the judge of the circuit court is ex-officio the judge of the juvenile court. Provision is made for the appointment of at least one paid probation officer in every county and for such volunteer officers as will agree to perform the service without pay.
Juvenile delinquents may be released by the court upon probation and placed under the care of these officers. They make reports to the Board of State Charities. They should understand thoroughly that their work should properly be divided into three phases: (1) before the trial; (2) at the trial; (3) after the trial. The first contemplates a complete investigation of the child’s history. It should include everything that can be learned of it and its surroundings. The second involves presenting to the court all learned facts together with the conclusions and recommendations of the officer. The third contemplates complete supervision of the child after it is released upon probation. It is not necessary to state that in all this the best interests of the child alone should determine the action to be taken. What has been worked out in one place and another as to the best methods and practice in the case of children is being applied to adults who are subjects for probation. Our experience is now great enough to enable us to say that many men and women offenders can be reclaimed to useful lives without imprisonment, by correct probationary treatment.
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.]
_Immigration and Crime._--That lax immigration laws are to a great degree responsible for many of the criminal cases calling for the attention of the courts, is the opinion of Major Richard Sylvester, of Washington, D. C., president of the international association of police chiefs, which held its nineteenth annual convention in Rochester in June. Several years ago the association memorialized Congress to define anarchy and more carefully restrict undesirable immigration.
Referring to the large number of alien criminals, Major Sylvester said: “Many of these subjects come from climates where capital punishment does not prevail, where the least respect for law and life is had. If certificates of good character from the authorities at places of departure in foreign lands and a year’s means of support were made legal requirements for presentation at our doors by each individual, the disadvantages might not be so great or so many.”
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_Hospitals For Inebriates._--The special committee of the New York Board of Estimate and Apportionment has unanimously reported in favor of carrying into effect a law which provides for the establishment of a board of inebriety and a hospital and industrial colony for inebriates for New York City.
The committee made an exhaustive investigation of conditions before reaching a conclusion. It found that the 29,461 persons arrested in New York last year and arraigned in the magistrates’ courts on the charge of public intoxication constituted more than one-sixth of all the arrests made for all causes. The records disclose that, of the 20,291 held for trial, about 15,600 were committed to workhouses, either directly or in default of payment of fine. Commenting on these and other statistics the report says:
Inebriety, therefore, furnishes a very large percentage of those who keep the police officers busy, clog the magistrates’ courts, and fill the workhouses and jails. It furnishes also a very large number of cases for treatment in our public hospitals. Seven thousand male drunkards are treated annually in the alcoholic ward of Bellevue and allied hospitals. Carefully compiled records show that in the one year ended May 1, 1909, 498 men were treated for intoxication more than once in that ward, and over 100 from four to twelve times, and that in the course of a few years some individuals have been treated in the alcoholic ward over twenty times and have been committed to the workhouse over sixty times.
The committee does not overlook the moral effects of the treatment of inebriates under the plan which it has approved, but it especially points out the economic features. It finds that New York is spending annually on Blackwell’s Island the amount of $80,000 for cases committed for intoxication, and in addition there is the cost of two overflow wards at Bellevue, amounting to not less than $65,000 per annum. The proportion of expenses in maintaining magistrates’ courts chargeable to intoxication is at least $125,000 a year, and a large additional expense is incurred in maintaining police officers for the city prison and for the alcoholic wards in hospitals. To use the language of the report: “As a result of all these expenses under the present system there is a complete lack of accomplishment. There is no pretense even that the individual is helped; quite the contrary, he is rather confirmed in his habits of inebriety and is permanently fastened on the community as an expense and as a bad example.”
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_A Prison Farm Proposed for Iowa._--According to the Dubuque, Iowa, Telegraph-Herald, Warden Marquis Barr of the Iowa State Reformatory, is of the opinion that it would be a wise move for the state to purchase a large farm and work the prisoners upon it, turning the money which they make over to their respective families. He declares that this age must solve the great problem of justly punishing a man for his wrongs without at the same time taking from his family its only means of support.
The logical thing for a state to do is to purchase a farm of about a thousand acres, with barracks for the prisoners to eat and sleep in. Over one-third of the men in the prisons of Iowa could be set to work upon this farm, raising grains and garden truck. They could be paid a certain wage and board in the same manner as the farmer pays his hired help, but every cent of these earnings should be turned over to the wife and children of the man who earns it. Not a penny should be given to him.
Warden Barr also said that he believed that if men knew that they would be compelled to work and work hard at a fair wage without themselves getting a penny of it, that there would be less crime. Many men during the fall commit crimes solely for the purpose of getting a warm place to stay during the winter and three good meals per day. They allow their families to shift for themselves. For the state to encourage this sort of a thing Mr. Barr says is absolutely wrong.
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_Charting Juvenile Crime._--The juvenile court of Detroit is reported to be greatly assisted in its campaign of saving girls and boys, by a chart which shows how many children are under the watchful care of the judge and his probation and truant officers, and how crime recedes and advances among the young at different seasons of the year; also what effect a big convention has on the city’s morality, and how greatly parks and playgrounds help in the fight for decency.
The 600 boys and 170 girls are represented on the chart by cloth-headed tacks of different colors: red for bad boys, blue for bad girls, and white for children who are only truants or neglected. Each tack bears a bit of cardboard with a number which refers one to a filing cabinet where may be found the entire record of the boy or girl. Little groups of dots on the chart show where the gangs are, and indicate that bad boys are more gregarious than bad girls, who usually go alone or in couples. The chart also shows more plainly than any magazine article the evil results of congestion. The probation officers are not using this chart as an interesting sort of game, but as a valuable aid in their work for good citizenship.
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_London’s Beggar Army._--Walter Weyl, a well-known writer on social and economic subjects, has the following to say in the “National Post” on London’s army of the unemployed. It is of special significance to Americans who are facing the impending problems of vagrancy and mendicancy in urban centers.
“As I started to call a cab,” writes Walter Weyl, “suddenly there arose out of the darkness, as though evoked by some Aladdins lamp, four tattered, pale-faced men of the underworld. The four sprang forward to render me this slight service. One, quicker than his fellows, tore open the cab door and received his penny. Then the men vanished, slinking into the gray mist.
“Whence come these men? What manner of city was this that wasted able-bodied men on so paltry a task?
“Later that evening, when in the crossing currents of the streets, my cab came to a halt, I caught another fleeting glance at London misery. A naked, dirt-caked arm, thrust from a sleeveless coat, touched my shoulder; a haggard face peered into the cab window, and a voice harsh with anxiety asked, ‘Can I ’ave the luggage, sir?’ As the cab wound through the mazes of the London traffic, I saw this tattered man doggedly running behind us. Not once did he lose sight of the cab. At the hotel he was waiting, breathless.
“‘It’s mine, sir,’ he panted. ‘You promised me the luggage, sir.’
“For the chance of earning a shilling at work which did not need him, this wretched man had followed me through tortuous miles of London streets. What a city it was!
“I did not wish to see deeper into this abyss,” writes Mr. Weyl. “I had not come to England to view bottomless misery. But what is everywhere cannot be hid. On the following days I saw in street after street workless, homeless miserable men with broken shoes and dropping rags of clothes. I saw abject women, with trailing, bedraggled skirts, and with a flat sterile vacancy of expression, more tragic than despair. There were drunken men, too, and sodden women, and files of men--or of what had once been men--waiting outside bakers’ and butchers’ shops for crusts and refuse. The halt, the blind, the unemployed, the shifty beggars, and the wretches too timid to beg, passed in an unending procession. Long before sunset the lines had been formed for admission to the casual wards of the almshouses.
“‘It’s deplorable,’ commented my English friend (he was a doctor with a fashionable practice and aristocratic pro-possessions), ‘still every country has its poverty. Even in the States----’
“‘Yes,’ I admitted, ‘It is not for us to throw stones.’
“Later, however, as on our silent homeward walk I summed up all the dismal impressions of the day. I began to feel that after all there was a difference. American poverty was overwhelming, but it was not everywhere, and it was not so hopeless. Men did escape from American slums, and their children escaped.
“But the English slum was a prison, in which the fallen man and his children and grandchildren rotted. There was a droop, a sagging to these people; an inexpressible indifference to surroundings, an utter self-abandonment. You could seek out poverty anywhere, but in London it obtruded itself--stark, menacing, unescapable, like the naked, dirt-caked arm of the superfluous wretch who had followed my hansom.”
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_Prisoners to Build Roads._--It is an assured fact, according to the New Orleans Picayune, that a model road built by convict labor will be constructed connecting New Orleans with Kenner. This will take off four miles from the present railroad and other routes to this thriving section.
The state board of engineers will make the surveys as soon as possible and once started the work will be rapidly pushed.
Nothing but the best material will be used, and the drainage of the roadway will be given attention. It is expected either shells or some other substantial “topping” will be put on the thoroughfare.
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_New Jersey Adopts the State-Use Plan._--By the signing by Governor Wilson, the bill abolishing the present system of convict labor at the termination of the existing state prison contracts, all convict labor in the state and county prisons in New Jersey may be employed in the manufacture of articles for use in the institutions of the state and its subdivisions. The convicts are to be employed for nine hours, except on Sundays and public holidays. They may be employed in the construction or repair of prison institutions, and the labor of the convicts must be so directed as to produce “the greatest amount of actual product of articles and supplies” for all state and local institutions, the buildings and departments or offices of the state, “or in any public institution or department owned, managed and controlled by the state or public sub-division thereof.” Convicts may be employed in agriculture, horticulture and floriculture, and “all surplus product of this convict labor is to be disposed of at public sale to the highest bidder.” The new law extends the prison labor system from the state prison to all county prisons, and makes city and county departments, offices and institutions, as well as the state institutions, its beneficiaries. The sum of 50 cents a day is to be paid to the families of the convicts.