Various

“ Wide experience may discover not only one but many motives that will prompt the transformation of different sorts of men. Nevertheless it gives a renewed courage to feel that when there has been apparent failure all along the line, and when all the resources of church and state have been ineffective in preventing men from reaching the lowest dregs of humanity, there remains the unusual and striking method of the Salvation Army in its appeal to the deep-seated and imperishable instinct of religion. ”

“ They had refused a lot of good books we had put in our library which I had thought were fine, much to my disappointment. Perhaps you would like to know the kind of book they so much enjoyed; and, with your permission, I will just read you the first page of the first chapter.
“Man has two Creators: his God, and himself. The first creator furnishes him the raw material of his life and the laws of conformity with which he can make that life what he will. His second creator, himself, has marvelous powers he rarely realizes. It is what a man makes of himself that counts. ”

“ In my opinion what has been done for the youth can also be accomplished in a large measure with the adult, especially in a corrective institution such as this. The discipline in a corrective institution must necessarily be exacting but at the same time it should be permeated with that degree of kindness that would inspire the prisoner to his best efforts with the feeling that not only the right but the beneficial thing is being done for him. The law commits to our keeping the undisciplined, the unsocialized and the lawless, who have perhaps never realized the importance of self-control. ”

“ The Home Secretary is to be at its head and, while its scope has not yet been and possibly never will be definitely delimited, it will make possible the abolition of police supervision which has been one of the almost insuperable obstacles in the path of every ex-prisoner who tried to live down his past in Great Britain. Police officers, as a rule, are too actively engaged in the militant work of fighting crime to be able to share in the task of rehabilitating the vanquished. ”

“ If a man fails in life he usually says, I am as God made me. When he succeeds in life, he proudly proclaims himself a self-made man. Man is placed into this world not as a finality, but as a possibility. Man’s greatest enemy is himself. ”

“ Does any one imagine that the abuses at which I have barely hinted could long survive, if all convicted offenders, major and minor, misdemeanants as well as felons, were in the custody of state instead of county officials? The initial result would be a diminution in the number of prisons. There are many times too many local prisons. Some of them stand empty from year to year; some are overcrowded, at least during the weeks immediately preceding a term of the criminal court. The needless multiplication of jails entails a heavy pecuniary burden upon the people. ”

“ There is an indefinable something in God’s out-of-doors that has a beneficial effect upon humanity. I can not tell you what it is. “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but thou canst not tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth. So is every man that is born of the spirit.” ”

“ In addition to that, we have a number of single rooms and a number of cells; but in a prison which is destined to accommodate 600, we are only putting in 40 cells. The men who behave and who demonstrate that they can appreciate that dormitory life and maintain the condition of it, we hope to give ultimately a single room; and the men who fail to appreciate this dormitory life and don’t behave as we wish them to will then be demoted into a cell; but we are going to try, as I say, to get those boys through life, if possible, without the cell. Will we succeed? ”

“ We have our critics; but this world will never be saved by the critics; it will be saved by the dreamers. The history of humanity is the history of indomitable hope. Emerson says that “Every thing is free to the man that can grasp it;” that “He who despairs is wrong.”
In dealing with delinquents, it is the personal touch that tells. Human nature craves for sympathy. ”

“ If a prisoner can be taught the lesson of self-control he is better prepared to adapt himself to the outside world and to good citizenship. If all inmates are not susceptible to this form of discipline, a sufficiently large percent respond, and when the great number of first offenders in an institution of this kind is considered, it is well worth an extra effort to maintain a discipline that will appeal to them with beneficial results to the community. ”

“ He is there at night, on Sundays, on holidays, at noon hours; and he is going from cell to cell—he becomes thoroughly acquainted with every inmate. That gives that man an immense advantage in dealing with those men when their terms expire. The prison worker that expects to meet the discharged prisoner at the prison gate the morning he comes out, is much more apt to be worked by the prisoner than he is to work the prisoner. In three cases out of five he is clay in the hands of a designing man. ”

“ It is the intention of the management of this institution to prevail upon the city authorities to grant an appropriation for a series of cell houses built on the center corridor plan to take the place of the old-style ones.
Society nowadays expects more of the management of penal institutions than merely to keep its inmates safely. Some inmates may be lacking only in moral or religious training; with others it may be of the utmost importance that they receive medical or surgical attention; and again, educational advantages often prove to be just the needed inspiration to the unfortunate. ”

“ The consideration of these facts will tend to inspire the inmates with at least a wholesome respect for the law, and I believe that a more helpful discipline can be maintained among the inmates when they can be satisfied that something is being done for their benefit and enlightenment. This has been proved to be true in the handling of the delinquent youth in our modern institutions who are no longer looked upon as or called criminals, but young men who can be developed into good citizenship, by first determining their needs and then finding ways and means of supplying them. ”

“ At present minor offenders are confined in about 20 county jails and houses of correction, in only one of which is there a population sufficient to operate an industry. In nine of the jails idleness is the rule. In the remaining institutions the prisoners are dependent upon work about the buildings and upon the farm, and when this work is slackest the prisons are fullest. It is hoped that the study of the commission will result in recommendations whose execution by the next legislature will in New Hampshire do away with the evils of the locally administered jail and house of correction. ”

“ In dealing with the wives and children, as well as with the prison inmates, over in our place, we find an immense help from the Salvation Army. We have a prisoner’s aid association and they work harmoniously together; but the Army has one or two advantages in this work that no other organization possesses. In the first place, they are not sentimentalists. They detail one man to give his time to it. He is as free to go into our prison as I am ”

“ In our large cities, there are many persons guilty of disorderly conduct, or charged with the violation of some police regulation, or some trivial or purely technical offence, who would face trial, without being held in custody, but are unable to procure bondsmen. In both civic and rural communities, there are also many whose family and business relations are such, that there is no reason to apprehend that they will seek to avoid trial by running away. The fact that such persons can not furnish bail is no sufficient reason for their imprisonment. ”

“ Man in his weakness is the creature of circumstances; man in his strength is the creator of circumstances. Whether he be victim or victor depends largely on himself. Man is never truly great, merely for what he is, but ever for what he may become.”
Now, that is pretty good meat. And that afternoon I was the one who learned the great lesson; for I learned that if we approach this subject in the right way we can waken, even in dormant minds, a desire for good literature. And my little experience of the afternoon revolutionized my method of dealing with the boys in this respect. ”

“ If some of the American methods were grafted on to the English prison administration, the effect would work remarkably for good. I found that their probation system was worked much more effectively and thoroughly than it is in England. Their probation officers are fitted absolutely for the work. On this side there are no paid probation officers as such; they are either voluntary workers or servants of some charitable society, not state officials. At present we are only playing with the probation idea in England. ”

“ The entertainment of wholesome thoughts is much more apt to be an inspiration to better citizenship than can be suggested by dismal surroundings.
The experience we have had in this cell house has shown that the objections raised by some to a style of construction that would permit the prisoners sitting in cells facing each other across a center corridor is not justified. We have had no difficulty whatever because of this. The discipline maintained has been of a higher order than in the old-style cell houses and has been obtained with comparative ease. ”

“ For violation of certain sections of the statutes an additional fine may be imposed, which, if not paid, may be worked out at the rate of $1.50 per day after sentence has been served. The law providing for the allowance of three days per month for good conduct also covers these cases if confinement is for six months or more.
All inmates over 18 years of age who are not incapacitated from work by sickness or old age, are furnished with healthful employment; the principal industries being those that furnish products needed and to be used by the City. ”

“ Possibly there are jails which might be remodelled, so as to serve reasonably well as houses of detention only; and there may be counties in which the present jails should be condemned as nuisances, and houses of detention, properly planned for that exclusive use, might there be built. These are details which may be left to take care of themselves. Why put off doing what we can do, because there are other things that we can not do? The time may come when we can do more. Why advocate reforms which are sure to provoke such a united opposition as to insure their defeat in advance? ”

“ It is an easy matter for a man of means to write his check, or give his cash; but it is an entirely different thing to carry that gift to some poor fellow who is down and out and sweeten it with the fragrance of personal kindness. ”

“ This little episode I relate to show you that society has two obligations: one to the man shut up within the prison, and perhaps an even greater obligation to the poor woman and children dependent upon the man shut up within the prison. It is necessary to lock up a certain class of men that society may be protected, and that these men may be improved ”

“ The discipline maintained among this class by creating only a fear of punishment will in most cases fail to bring about results that are beneficial; such discipline does not prove to be correctional, but on the contrary has the tendency to encourage the practice of deception, for often they have no other incentive when violating the rules than to show that they can avoid detection. ”

“ We are going to try to give that large class of boys and young men that come to prison for the first time one more opportunity of going through life without being immured in a prison cell. In the construction of our buildings, our domicile accommodation will be largely of the dormitory type;—small dormitories, accommodating 14 beds, with a large, semi-circular bay window on one side which will serve as a sitting room ”

“ The Army, learning the condition of the families dependent on the man within the prison, writes to the corps, the Salvation Army corps in the town or the city where the man came from, and they are able, by their very extensive and highly perfected organization, to make a study of each family, in addition to having arrangements made there for the employment of that man when his term has expired. ”

“ We have a medical department well equipped with all the facilities of a first-class hospital. The regular staff of that department consists of four physicians and two trained nurses who live on the grounds, besides specialists who visit the institution at regular intervals. In addition to this we have a staff of consulting surgeons and physicians, each of whom visit the department at least once a week. No better attention is given patients in any hospital than our inmates receive. ”

“ The Iowa legislature is considering a bill which provides that while the inmates of the state prison and reformatory are at hard labor and on good behavior, their wives and children under sixteen years of age shall be paid fifty cents a day by the state. ”

“ The bedding and cells more particularly should be especially cleansed whenever not occupied and ready for the next comer. The great difficulty is the fact that prisoners wear their own old clothing into the jail and thus introduce dirt and vermin which require a continual fight from those in charge. A limited number of suits could be provided by the county and the men required to bathe and put these on while their own are fumigated. There is no excuse for the filth in some of our jails. ”