The Portland daily press., 1873-03-10
NJ More Encouragement of Crime by the

The Jail reform system is about to be tried.
The Legislature left it optional with the coun-
ties to adopt it, or not, as they pleased. But
the Kennebec County County Commission
ers are, we understand, unanimously in favor
of testing the industrial and reformatory sys-
ten in the Augusta Jail. The Lewiston
Journal, speaking in terms of high common
dation of the movement, expresses the hope
that its practcability may be at once tested
in the Auburn Jail. Of course Cumberland
County will not be backward in so commend
able a work. We may expect, therefore, to
see workshops and other reformatory appli-
ances III operation in three of our Maine
counties as soon as the requisite changes can
be made for that purpose There will be at
least three jails in Maine no longer for the
purpose of encouraging crime. But if it
should happen that only one OF the three
jails actually provides for reforming its
criminals at this time, an indirect pressure
will be exerted by that one on all the rest, in
flueneing them to follow its example. For
s1pposng that Cumberland at once opens
worsiiop and school in its Jail, while the
other counties neglect to do so for a number
of years. the effect would ue under the pres
ent law to bring the whole Jail population of
the State 70 Portland. In the first place
Judges in any county are authorized to sem
tence criminals TO the jails of such counties
as adopt the new system. Furthermore the
prison inspectors are empowered to transfer
the inmates Of any Jail in the State, where no
proper classification and means of refolma-
ton exist, to any other Jail where the reform
atory plan has been adopted Counties will
thus be obliged to conform to the low system
ar accept the alternative of becoming respon-
sble for the support of their criminals in
another county. if they slpuld not be SELF
sustaining. .4.yai,i..T slYib
In initiating here that system which, in
some form, has redeemed as high as 95 per
cent. of the convicts of other countries, par
ticular care should be exercised in the selec-
ton of the men to whose immediate care the
carrying out of the details will be committed.
The keeper of the Jail should be man who
believes thoroughly in the practicability of re-
! forming persons of criminal habits and ten
denotes, is of a humane but not sentimental
turn of mind, and has an acquaintance with
the theory and practice of prison reform in
other States and countries. ALI necessary in
formation can be obtained from the reports Of
the New York Prison Association and from
the reports of the national and international
Prison Reform Congresses held within the
Q last few wears. These books contain the
d whole body of modern prison reform litera-
ture, and persons in this State having to do
with prisons, jails and refoi matories cannot
do better than use them for daily reading for
the next six months. County commissioners,
sheriffs, county attorneys, jaiiors and all their
subordinates could be furnished with them at
trifing expense. IF the State had ap .'ropria-
ted $50 for that purpose the sum would have
been ample, and would have done more good
than tens of thousands expended in GER
tain other directions we could name 1t oc'
ours to us that the Governor and Council
, might very properly make an appropriation
for that purpose out of their contingent fund.
This may seem at first thought thrilling mat
ter, but it is really of the utmost consequence.
There are keepers of jais in this State who,
out of pure ignorance of the possibilities OF
curing moral diseases, openly revile the new
plan, and announce that the people under
their charge are mere brutes whom society
can only shut up and feed. Such men are nc
more likely to succeed as reformers Of cripai-
nails than ex-senator Patterson is in the pro-
H fes sorship of moral philosophy 60 winch ne
has been elected ~ an Ohio college. In some
oo,,,.-4os 1t has bsen customary to have a
opened for the special purpose Of
training the people to be placed in charge Of
resormatories. Such schools are not to be
looked for here in the present condition of
the public mind, but the A. b. c. Of re-
formatory science ought at least to be under
stood ..- f-