Charles Dudley Warner

“ That is to say, if a man once violates the law and is caught, he is put into a machine from which it is very difficult for him to escape without further deterioration. It is not simply that the State puts a brand on him in the eyes of the community, but it takes away his self-respect without giving him an opportunity to recover it. Once recognized as in the criminal class, he has no further concern about the State than that of evading its penalties so far as is consistent with pursuing his occupation of crime. ”

“ It is not necessary at this time to argue that no human discretion is adequate to mete out just punishment for crimes; and it has come to be admitted generally, by men enlightened on this subject, that the real basis for dealing with the criminal rests, firstly, upon the right of society to secure itself against the attacks of the vicious, and secondly, upon the duty imposed upon society, to reform the criminal if that is possible. ”

“ Even those who cling to the antiquated notion that the business of society is to punish the offender must confess that in this game society is getting the worst of it. Society suffers all the time, and the professional criminal goes on with his occupation, interrupted only by periods of seclusion, during which he is comfortably housed and fed. The punishment he most fears is being compelled to relinquish his criminal career. The object of punishment for violation of statute law is not vengeance, it is not to inflict injury for injury. ”

“ In short, the ordinary criminal is unsound and diseased in mind and body.
To deal with this sort of human decadent is, therefore, the most interesting problem that can be offered to the psychologist, to the physiologist, to the educator, to the believer in the immortality of the soul. He is still a man, not altogether a mere animal, and there is always a possibility that he may be made a decent man, and a law-abiding, productive member of society. ”

“ We have still to take care of the exposed children, of those with parentage and surroundings inclining to crime, of the degenerate and the unfortunate. We have to keep up the warfare all along the line against the demoralization of society. But we have hereto deal with a specific manifestation; we have to capture a stronghold, the possession of which will put us in much better position to treat in detail the general evil.
Why should we tolerate any longer a professional criminal class? It is not large. It is contemptibly small compared with our seventy millions of people. ”

“ A necessary corollary of the indeterminate sentence is that every State prison and penitentiary should be a reformatory, in the modern meaning of that term. It would be against the interest of society, all its instincts of justice, and the height of cruelty to an individual criminal to put him in prison without limit unless all the opportunities were afforded him for changing his habits radically. It may be said in passing that the indeterminate sentence would be in itself to any man a great stimulus to reform, because his reformation would be the only means of his terminating that sentence. ”

“ When I say that every State prison is to be a reformatory, I except, of course, from its operation, those sentenced for life for murder, or other capital offenses, and those who have proved themselves incorrigible by repeated violations of their parole. ”

“ It is patent to the most superficial observation that our present method does not protect society, and does not lessen the number of the criminal class, either by deterrent methods or by reformatory processes, except in a very limited way. ”

“ We fear robbery night and day; we live behind bolts and bars (which should be reserved for the criminal) and we are in hourly peril of life and property in our homes and on the highways. But the evil does not stop here. By our conduct we are encouraging the growth of the criminal class, and we are inviting disregard of law, and diffusing a spirit of demoralization throughout the country. ”

“ And science is ready to take up this problem when the public is tired and ashamed of being any longer harried and bullied and terrorized over by the criminal class.
The note of this reform is discipline, and its success rests upon the law of habit. We are all creatures of habit, physical and mental. Habit is formed by repetition of any action. Many of our physical habits have become automatic. Without entering into a physiological argument, we know that repetition produces habit, and that, if this is long continued, the habit becomes inveterate. ”

“ As a matter of fact, we see in the State prisons that the men most likely to shorten their time by good behavior, and to get released on parole before the expiration of their sentence, are the men who make crime their career. They accept this discipline as a part of their lot in life, and it does not interfere with their business any more than the occasional bankruptcy of a merchant interferes with his pursuits. ”

“ Our present method is neither economic nor scientific nor philanthropic. If we consider the well-defined criminal class alone, it can be said that our taxes and expenses for police and the whole criminal court machinery, for dealing with those who are apprehended, and watching those who are preying upon society, yearly increase, while all private citizens in their own houses or in the streets live inconstant terror of the depredations of this class. ”

“ The system of reform under the indeterminate sentence, which for convenience may be called the Elmira system, is scientific, and it must be administered entirely by trained men and by specialists; the same sort of training for the educational and industrial work as is required in a college or an industrial school, and the special fitness required for an alienist in an insane asylum. The discipline of the establishment must be equal to that of a military school. ”

“ It follows, therefore, that society is not likely to get security for itself, and the criminal class is not likely to be reduced essentially or reformed, without such a radical measure as the indeterminate sentence, which, accompanied, of course, by scientific treatment, would compel the convict to change his course of life, or to stay perpetually in confinement. ”

“ It is only in the ordinary prison where the parole is in use with no adequate discipline, and without the indefinite sentence, that deception can be practiced. But suppose a man does play the hypocrite so as to deceive the officers, who know him as well as any employer knows his workmen or any teacher knows his scholars, and deceives the independent board so as to get a parole. If he violates that parole, he can be remanded to the reformatory, and it will be exceedingly difficult for him to get another parole. ”

“ The convict goes into it for the term of a year at least (since the criminal law, according to ancient precedent, might require that, and because the discipline of the reformatory would require it as a practical rule) , and he stays there until, in the judgment of competent authority, he is fit to be trusted at large.
If he is incapable of reform, he must stay there for his natural life. He is a free agent. He can decide to lead an honest life and have his liberty, or he can elect to work for the State all his life in criminal confinement. ”

“ The whole discipline is to put a man in possession of his faculties, to give him self-respect, to get him in the way of leading a normal and natural life. But it is true that what he acquires by the discipline of study and the discipline of work will be available in his earning an honest living. Keep a man long enough in this three-ply discipline, and he will form permanent habits of well-doing. If he cannot and will not form such habits, his place is in confinement, where he cannot prey upon society. ”

“ If objection is made to the indeterminate sentence on the ground that it is an unusual or cruel punishment, it may be admitted that it is unusual, but that commitment to detention cannot be called cruel when the convict is given the key to the house in which he is confined. ”

“ To take a decadent human being, a wreck physically and morally, and try to make a man of him, that is an attempt worthy of a people who claim to be civilized. An illustration of what can be done in this direction is furnished by the Elmira Reformatory, where the experiment is being made with most encouraging results, which, of course, would be still better if the indeterminate sentence were brought to its aid. ”

“ One is that in the congregate system men necessarily learn evil from each other. This is, of course, an evil. It is here, however, partially overcome by the fact that the inmates are kept so busy in the variety of discipline applied to them that they have little or no time for anything else. They study hard, and are under constant supervision as to conduct. And then their prospect of parole depends entirely upon the daily record they make, and upon their radical change of intention. At night they are separated in their cells. ”

“ It happens, therefore, that there is great sympathy with the career of the lawbreakers, many people are hanging on them for support, and among them the so-called criminal lawyers. Any legislation likely to interfere seriously with the occupation of the criminal class or with its increase is certain to meet with the opposition of a large body of voters. ”

“ We have so far advanced in civilization that we no longer think of turning the insane, the sick, the feebleminded, over to the care of men without training chosen by the chance of politics. They are put under specialists for treatment. It is as necessary that convicts should be under the care of specialists, for they are the most difficult and interesting subjects for scientific treatment. If not criminals by heredity, they are largely made so by environment ”

“ No specific time can be predicted in which a man by discipline can be expected to lay aside his bad habits and put on good habits, because no two human beings are alike, and it is therefore necessary that an indefinite time in each case should be allowed for the experiment of reformation. ”

“ Fear is expressed that men will deceive their keepers and the board which is to pass upon them, and obtain parole when they do not deserve it. As a matter of fact, men under this discipline cannot successfully play the hypocrite to the experts who watch them. ”

“ But it is the same problem that we have in all our education, be it the training of the mind, the development of the body, or the use of both to good ends. And it goes without saying that its successful solution, in a reformatory for criminals, depends upon the character of the man who administers the institution. ”

“ Within the present century considerable advance has been made in regard to prison reform, especially with reference to the sanitary condition of places of confinement. And besides this, efforts of various kinds have been made with regard to the treatment of convicts, which show that the idea was gaining ground that criminals should be treated as individuals. ”

“ There must be at the head of it a man of character, of intellectual force, of administrative ability, and all his subordinate officers must be fitted for their special task, exactly as they should be for a hospital, or a military establishment, for a college, or for a school of practical industries. ”

“ During the day they are associated in class, in the workshop, and in drill, and this association is absolutely necessary to their training. In separation from their fellows, they could not be trained. ”

“ It is in this respect, and not in the erection of model prisons, that the great advance in penology has been made in the last twenty years. Men of scientific attainment are more and more giving their attention to this problem as the most important in our civilization. ”

“ And when such men are demanded, they will be forthcoming, just as they are in any department in life, when a business is to be developed, a great engineering project to be undertaken, or an army to be organized and disciplined. ”

“ The school and the workshop are both primarily for discipline and the formation of new habits. Only incidentally are the school and the workshop intended to fit a man for an occupation outside of the prison. ”