Various

“ THE FARM TREATMENT OF MISDEMEANANTS JAMES F. JACKSON
Superintendent of Charities and Correction, Cleveland, Ohio
The old type institution for misdemeanants failed to accomplish satisfactory results, mental, moral and physical. It seemed incapable of developing industry; it was unhygienic, without classification and with no adequate facilities for developing a man’s will or increasing his capacity to do right. There was no individualism. The old workhouse was typical of the most intensified institutionalism, and institutionalism for an adult is an assured failure. ”

“ We have learned that men are sent to the House of Correction for a purpose. These men have faults to be corrected. These defects in the human mind are to be corrected and no ordinary workhouse sentence will effect a cure of such defects as are hereditary or fully acquired. There is some concealed materialism abroad under the guise of environment, but the rankest exponent of environment should not expect to cure twenty years of bad surroundings accompanied by indifferent or bad actions even by a ninety day period on a farm. ”

“ Each is efficient but all together are not sufficient. It is urged that if a convict be sent out under the blue sky to breathe God’s pure air, behold green fields and hear the birds sing from the swaying [Pg 3] boughs he will become as one of the best citizens, especially if he digs in the dirt. But unfortunately the country does not afford the alchemy which converts men into angels. This is amply attested by the record of most diabolical crimes committed by country-bred men who would not know an elevator from a subway. The farm prison is no panacea, but it is tremendously worth while. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As a part of their teaching the misdemeanants need discipline. It is necessary to keep the men on the farm for some time if they are to receive the needed development, especially the men who are sent for intoxication. Discipline is essential to instruction whether in the day school, the home or any other form of education. Many of these men are committed because of their lack of self-control and time is required for its development. We have learned that the men need to be taught the habit of industry and how to do some particular thing well. ”

“ The prison did seem to be the last place to make real the fact that “a man’s a man for a’ that.” But when the plowshare and the pruning hook began to supplant the stripes and the dungeon, people were certain that at last the dignity of manhood would be realized and that life and immortality were come to light. ”

“ We plan, as soon as possible, that the correction farm shall produce the meat, milk, vegetables and fruit, both fresh and canned, for the entire workhouse and the public hospitals, while the adjoining infirmary farm will render similar service for its own use and that of the growing tuberculosis sanatorium.
From the standpoint of the prisoner, the farm policy is to give to each man the largest degree of liberty consistent with the well-being of others. ”

“ 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 [Pg 8] men and women offenders can be reclaimed to useful lives without imprisonment, by correct probationary treatment. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ The hope is that the farming and the making of its equipment, and incidentally the care of the prisoners and their quarters, will profitably occupy practically all the available labor in such manner as to make a man not only fit but anxious to work. It is hoped that a large majority will be improved and many rehabilitated in an environment which favors giving every man all the chance he will use to reform. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Moreover, it will thereby be apparent that the government is not only strong, but so merciful and so genuine in its fatherly desire to help each man that in turn he will cease to be “agin” the government; that he will turn from being a consumer to become a producer of taxes, turn from being his own and other’s enemy to become a friend to men. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The ultimate purpose is to employ as many without the walls as possibly can be trusted, and to employ out-of-doors within the walls all the remainder except those whose conduct imperatively demands closest supervision.
For years there will be work for all workers, no “idle-house” in any sort of weather or trade conditions. Every working day from twelve to twenty men are sent to work on the adjoining infirmary farm. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Americans seem in constant search for a cure-all. There is a great demand for some hobby for the alert philanthropist to ride. In their order institutionalism, organized charity, juvenile courts, medical charities and country life have had their turn in the spot light. ”

“ From the experience of the Cleveland correction farm several rather obvious deductions may be made; we are dealing with men, free moral agents, and a good physical environment does not guarantee their reform any more than does instruction in good rules for living. ”

“ At other times men do concreting, making artificial stone, fertilize and drain the land, which is not fertile, make roads on the farm and later they will construct the wall and buildings, plant trees and perform every sort of labor that will develop the land, and cause it to be highly productive and attractive in appearance. ”

“ During the past winter it occurred to me that the city needed an inspector of the unemployed, a policeman without a club, who should go every day among the homeless men in the lodging houses, saloons and on the street and talk with them, directing them to pay jobs if possible, or if not, directing them to the municipal quarries in the parks, which were operated to provide work to the unemployed, for 150 to 340 men a day earning meal and lodging tickets there at the usual rate paid for rock cracking. ”

“ Indeed the whole tramp problem she believes could be well-nigh solved if vagrants of all ages could be kept off railway trains. It has been estimated by several authorities, working independently, that there are in the United States at least half a million tramps. In her book Mrs. Solenberger studies the genesis, character, and previous environment of 220, and comes to the conclusion that in the huge army of which these are typical examples the variations of character and of inducing causes are so great that they call for much variety in methods of treatment. ”

“ There is no minimum term of commitment, nor shall any person under the age of 22 be committed to said colony. A significant clause in the act provides that it is the intent and meaning of this act that reputable workmen, temporarily out of work and seeking employment, shall not be deemed tramps or vagrants, nor be admitted to the said colony. Persons committed as vagrants to the farm shall be local charges, and those committed as tramps shall be maintained at the expense of the state. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But the plan works to the detriment of the correction farm which for years and perhaps always can use to advantage the labor of all men committed to its care. No key is turned on these men during the day. The night guard and the locked door are more to remove temptation than to prevent escape. You realize this when you know that all these men, instead of sleeping in stuffy cells, sleep in large dormitories, giving them every facility for overpowering the night watch and making their escape. Prisoners arrive a typical bridewell company, drunken, dirty, diseased and discouraged. ”

“ The men do not wear stripes in either prison. Consideration is combined with firmness in all our dealings, for it is the purpose that every requirement shall appeal to the fair-minded prisoner to be in his interest and for his benefit. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.”
The New York Times recently published the following book review:
Tramps in the Making.—“The laboratory method in philanthropic work has never had more signal demonstration than in Alice Willard Solenberger’s “One Thousand Homeless Men,” (New York: Charities Publication Committee, $1.25) a study of original methods in the true scientific manner and spirit. ”

“ The present system of working prisoners under sentinels conveys a false impression as to the character of the prisoners, gives the public the erroneous idea that the army is full of bad characters requiring forcible handling, is injurious to the self-respect of the prisoners, discourages enlistments, and lowers the military service in public opinion. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The endorsement of the Charities Bureau, or rather the lack of its endorsement, is eliminating the unwise free soup charities and the soliciting frauds—these are of course among the very harmful offenders because of the shiftlessness which they promote. ”