The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1874-05-19
PRISON REFORM
THE CONGRESS AT WORK.

AL HWOhh.
oRGANIzATIoN-REPoR OF THE EXECUTIVE
COMMITTEES.
ST.. LOUIS, May lathe prison reform
congress met foriregular business this MORN
ing Eighty delegates were present. The
committee on permanent Organization re-
ported the following officers: President, the
Hon. Richard Vaux, of PENNSYLVANIA: vice
presidents, S. Hiram Foster, of Connecticut,
j. f.. Carpenter, of North Carolina. Theodore
Canisries, of Illinois, Hamilton Smith, of
Indiana, A. w. Gray, Of Iowa, Henry Hop
kins, of Kansas, Samuel r. Wilson of Ken
lucky, w. w. Rice, of Maine. NJ. s. Griffith,
of Maryland, ID. Marcus Ames, of Massachu-
sets, K. C. Seaman, of Michigan, Arnold
Krekel, of Missouri, William Wood Hurst,
Of Nebraska. William Clark, of New
Hampshire, John +. Hugeman, of New
Jersey, Leonard Fulton, of New York,
e. Have, of Ohio; Henry Cordier, of Penn
sylvania; Is. Carpenter, of Rhode Island !;
William NJ. Wright, of Tennessee; the Rev.
Mr.. Rogers, of Texas; A. @. lockwood, of
Utah. Secretaries, General j. M. Minor, OF
Missouri; Mrs. M. M. Bane, of Illinois; X.
L. Mulligan, of Pennsylvania. Treasurer,
7. III. Nevin. of Pennsylvania. Official re-
porter, the Rev. s. s. ellison, of Pennsyl-
vania. Mr.. Vaux, on taking the chair, said
he regarded his election AS an honor to him.
self and the state he represented. He had
reform and the prevention and repression of
crime. 1t was one of the greatest sciences Of
the day. and reached to the heart and under
standing and was worthy of the highest eff
fort of man. DIR. Z. G Wines then read
lengthy report of the executive committee.
Quite an animated discussion arose over
the report OF the committee on organization,
in consequence of the omission ofladies from
the list Of officers. The matter was finally
settled by placing Mrs. ii. III. Bane on the
list of secretaries, and Mrs. Coffin, of Indi-
ana, Mrs. De Gee, of Illinois, and Mrs. Hen
presidents, Mrs. Myra Bradwell, of Chicago,
declining. The report of the committee was
then adopted. The report of the committee
read by DR. L. G. Hines was very long and
exhaustive, and cannot be reduced to the
limit of a telegraph report. The following,
however, is a statement of the object and
work of the Prison Reform Association, and
will be interesting to
GENERAL READERS.
In general it is to study and solve all
problems, many Of them profound, complex.
obscure and difficult to the last degree, con-
nected with the prevention and repression,
or in one word, the intimidation of crime
and then to bring the solutions to the test
of experience, or in other words, to reduce
them to practical application. More par
penal codes as will make the
administration of criminal justice more
prompt, humane and efficacious, and such
improvements in our police system will
make the commission of crime most diff
cult, the detection made certain and its
punishment more speedy, to give stability
and permanence to the administration of our
prisons by eliminating partisan politics, as a
controlling force, from their government, to
impress a reformatory character on the
prison discipline OF the whole country, to
organize in such manner as to render
convicts, to multiply preventive agencies
in the form both of industrial and reform
atory schools, to visit, inspect and examine
penal, reformatory and preventive institu-
lions in all parts of the country, and to
afford all possible aid in founding and I'M
keep up in this and other ways a
perpetual study of the condition
of American prisoners, and to spread before
the public both their excellences and de-
fects, to arouse, by public meetings and
through the the press s.s..;ong general in.
ucate and strengthen public opinion SO that
it shall act efficiently in the direction of
needed reforms, and to collect, arrange, pub
lish and circulate the most complete peni
Tertiary and reformatory statictics and
other Information relating to the PEN
tanned from all parts of the country |
and the world. Another purpose of the asso-
citation is to do for prison reform the same
work that is done for educational reform by |
the national bureau of education established
by the general government. One means |
to accomplish this is the organization of
efficient branch associations in every state
OF the Union. The secretary then discusses
the ways and means to carry on the work /
and reforms at length to all the main 4
which the association has in view.
A committee on business and finance was
appointed. Atthe evening session an elab-
crate paper on prison discipline, by f. B.
Sanborn was read, after which there was a
discussion on criminal law reform, in which
Judge Walker, of Detroit, took prominent
part.