Various

“ They love the world and wish it well. The average prisoner—even the “old timer” serving a third or fourth sentence—will advise against a life of crime with all the earnestness and logic he is capable of commanding. But the prisoner, with his good qualities, has his faults—many of them. He is always looking for the best of it, and, from his standpoint, why shouldn’t he get it? He is a convict (the word is not pleasant to hear) . It carries a stigma of shame and disgrace. It is lasting. He is declared unfit to live among his people ”

“ From this condition of affairs comes that great antagonism between the prisoner and the officials which exists in all prisons. The warden to do good must bridge the gulf which separates the prisoner and himself. He must be the example and precept of right. He will not delay action until all difficulties are removed, but is prompt to seize every opportunity as it offers itself. He walks where others creep, and sees the end where others grope. ”

“ It might be expedient to give judges a wider discretion in disposing of persons convicted of crime, and then require them to make sufficient investigation of every public institution to enable them to use their discretion wisely.
“The average judge is a man of keen perception, and if he has been long on the bench, he has acquired in his experience an accurate conception of the criminal mind, and an idea of how it may be most effectively influenced. ”

“ Louis Republic observes that, “to make the better ways of prison discipline effective a man is needed in whom are combined enthusiasm, sympathy, firmness and knowledge. It happens that the Oklahoma penitentiary at this time is the storm center of a political quarrel, and the real lesson of the riot and murders is not one of reaction, but merely that partisan politics does not lead to the discovery of such men.” ”

“ The child community is a nuisance. The adult community is a tyrant. Neither is to blame. Our laws, our court procedure and our probation system, imperfect though they be, are not to blame. The blame rests with the city which has not provided play space and which does not intelligently use even the little play space that is provided. Juvenile crime is a play problem not only in the sense that play is an alternative to crime—a cure for crime: but in a more specific sense, namely, in the streets of New York, under present conditions, play is crime and crime is play. ”

“ The prison authorities are often quite well convinced that a prisoner is far from “healed,” but there is no recourse. The authorities of a hospital would receive just condemnation if they allowed a patient to be discharged who was uncured of his typhoid fever or of his small pox, but the officers of a penitentiary often turn loose a scoundrel to prey upon the community simply because the time of confinement deemed right by the lawmakers and by the court has expired.
The men who make application for the privilege of parole are carefully studied. ”

“ The law treats crap shooting as being identical in terms both of punishment and of why the punishment is given, with chalk games, or ring-around-the-rosy, or kick-the-can. The arrests for gambling and for chalk games alike are treated as cases of street obstruction.
But strangely enough, one offense is particularly singled out in law to be prohibited on the streets. This offense is baseball. Baseball is no sin and the children know it. ”

“ It is logical that if the body authorized to grant a pardon is so zealous in the interest of the prisoner and the community alike, the judicial authority who fixes the penalty and indicates the institution of punishment in specific instances should be equally well informed of the possible consequences of the sentence to the prisoner. ”

“ It is significant of the liberalizing sentiment which is the outgrowth of the sixty years or more of campaigning which the suffragists have carried on in New York State and all over the country, not for the vote alone, but for the recognition of women as co-workers with men in the affairs of the world, that a woman is for the first time in history a member of the cabinet of the Mayor of New York City, and is at the head of one of the most important departments of municipal administration. ”

“ There are, fortunately, good reasons for thinking that in many respects the standard of conduct prevalent nowadays is very probably higher than it was even in the memory of the present generation, and we may perhaps in an indirect way find support for this view in the falling numbers of the prison population, in the sense that this phenomena is doubtless evidence of a humaner tendency in society, of a more careful discrimination in its way of dealing with those who fail to conform to its laws. ”

“ If we should take up all the items purchased by our institutions that could be produced on their own farms, it would total a very large sum.
I believe that a great prison like Auburn should have its own farm, and it [10] should be conveniently located. The quality of food would be greatly improved, and I feel perfectly sure that out of that great body of 1,500 prisoners I could select enough men who could be trusted to do the work on this farm under reasonable supervision. The farm would be an ornament to that part of the country, a profit to the State and of great benefit to the prisoners. ”

“ Gambling is a case in point. Public opinion classes gambling as a vice and a crime ranking with theft and sexual immorality. Yet the tenement streets of New York are infested with adult and juvenile gamblers, who gamble usually through shooting crap or pitching pennies. Street gambling is hardly less common than baseball or any of the other street games. The unwritten law of the streets has sanctioned gambling for many child-generations, until gambling has lost all moral significance to the children of New York. ”

“ The fight to extirpate the old system is steadily going on, and will eventually succeed. The evils of the contract-labor system are already becoming known, and it will be blotted out of existence, and when that system has become a thing of the past, an immense step in all other features of jail amelioration will have been taken. The next step will involve the entire principle of prison punishments as a deterrent of crime and a means of making better men of prisoners. ”

“ They merely know that they will be arrested if they play baseball. They know that if they are going to play ball they must send out pickets to announce the coming of the policeman.
So much for the innocent group of child offenses. The vicious group includes the many organized games which have been developed by street conditions. They involve acts which the children know to be immoral, but which gang standards allow.
An example of this type of child crime is the widely popular sport of gang stealing. Gang stealing is recognized as a sport and game by unknown thousands of children in New York. ”

“ A child is arrested for burglary and is tried on the specific charge of “entering an inhabited dwelling in the night season with intent to commit a felony.” Yet this may have been simply an unguided expression of the child’s dramatic play instinct. The boys may have organized into a gang of robbers and may, for the game of the thing only, have committed the burglary. Thus there was no criminal intent on the part of the marauders.
Gang fighting, another common and serious offense, is a product of the complex gang organization which is the basis of all boy life in the streets of New York. ”

“ With the objection to competition between prison-made goods and the products of free labor in mind, he is weighing the possibilities of providing occupation not subject to such objection. The necessity of finding some employment to fill in the life of the man in prison he appears thoroughly to subscribe to. ”

“ To a greater extent even than is the case with other statistics of criminality, the oscillations in the numbers of the prison population are affected by fluctuations in economic conditions; for the rise or fall in general prosperity influences not merely the number of offenses committed, but also the proportion of these offenses which will be compensated by the payment of fines. ”

“ Child crime begins with the attempt to play on streets in violation of law, and in forbidden places under conditions of trespassing. The first arrest is normally a punishment for the attempt to play, and to play in ways which are intrinsically good.
This condition presses on the child life of all the tenement districts of New York City. It is a uniformly operating cause which results in a fairly uniform method of resistance on the part of the children. ”

“ The existence of contract labor is not the most serious fault, according to Dr. Ellwood. In the Missouri penitentiary, first offenders and hardened criminals intermingle. No school exists in the prison. Punishment, not reformation, is its dominant note. Several of the cell-houses are antiquated in their arrangements.
A warden once said he never knew a man who was benefited by his confinement there. A penitentiary physician told Dr. Ellwood there was as much dissipation within as outside the walls. The only separation of prisoners is for punishment. ”

“ For the past year Edward Barrows, special investigator for the People’s Institute, has been making a study of the evolution of the crime of children from a purely legal fact to a moral evil, and his report on the year’s work represents not only general conclusions but an intensive study of 193 individual cases of juvenile arrest.
Mr. Barrows has lived for about three years in the middle west side of Manhattan, which is popularly called the Hell’s Kitchen district. He was not known as a social worker or an investigator, but as a free lance newspaper man and a good fellow generally. ”

“ New York City has long been the dumping ground for convict-made goods, and once it is possible to enforce the New York branding laws the profits to be derived from prison contracts will be reduced to a minimum. ”

“ So great is the contractor’s fear of the effect of such legislation as the Booher-Hughes bill that many contracts contain the proviso that on its passage they shall immediately become null and void.
“The destruction of the contract system would necessitate the building up of other systems for the employment of convicts. In the constructive programme which will be worked out in each of the States, road work, endorsed as it is by the national committee on prison labor and other agencies for prison reform, would play a large part. ”

“ The Executive Council, when passing on the question of pardon, goes carefully into the prisoner’s past, the circumstances of the crime for which he was sentenced, his conduct in prison, and then weighs the chances of his becoming a law-abiding and industrious member of the community if liberated. Few men so released have again offended. ”

“ The relation of play to juvenile crime is coming to be more and more recognized by the student of juvenile delinquency and the discerning social worker. But the problem has not been studied intensively. The facts which show how the most celebrated gangster in New York City can get his start playing kick-the-can or baseball in the city streets have only but been regarded in a general way. ”

“ The problems to be solved are difficult, and a gigantic task confronts the warden of any penitentiary. While the power of most wardens is as nearly absolute as mortal power can be, it is necessary, if he is expected to accomplish anything. ”

“ This is not more human than expedient; for most of the men are quick to perceive the proper means to deserve good treatment, and, instead of sinking into lethargy and indifference, are aroused to do what in them lies to meet the warden half-way. Frequently, though, regardless of the work of such officials, in this great human body, there are developed ideas unfair, and we will find prisoners who will resist all efforts of the officials in this direction. They do not mean to, but the world has treated them badly, and they cannot help it. ”

“ The greatest rate of profit made by any form increased from 23.2 per cent. to 37.5 per cent. during this period.
The State has 30 profitable farms and 2 farms that are losing money. It should be noted that the 2 farms which were losing money two years ago are now making a profit. One of the farms that lost money last year is a new place, which is not yet under good headway; the other farm is considering moving to a new location.
These figures are certainly very gratifying and they prove that farming at our institutions is very profitable to the State of New York. ”

“ A band of boys, from three to six or seven in number, will go from tenement to tenement on Saturday evenings, taking orders from the housewives for fruits, vegetables, groceries, light hardware and clothing, just as though they were delivery clerks. When they think they have a sufficient number of orders they go out on the street and by a series of organized raids secure the goods which the housewives have ordered. ”