Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-01-07

1t is not enough to have police admin
istration at the State Prison. 1t is neces-
sary that there should be scientific penal
system Hitherto our convicts have been
treated as if they were wild beasts instead
of men, and the consequence is that the
State Prison has been a University of Vice,
the graduates from which have constantly
swelled the ranks of our criminal classes,
and have learned more evil during impris-.
onment than they ever thought of before.
The State has been made to pay heavily
for its shameful neglect of duty in this con-
nection. We have had fully double the
number of convicts we ought to have had.
There has been no possibility of reform in
the State Prison. Young offenders who
might easily have been reclaimed by
proper treatment have been converted
into hardened and hopeless criminals.
Nothing, in short, could have been
worse or more depraving than the course
pursued. To imagine that we can now in
augurate reform by putting a company of
amateur theorists in charge of the prison is
preposterous. The means are utterly mad
equate to the end. There must be at the
head of the business an experienced and
specially trained penologist, or we shall
merely have number of fantastic and &C.
centric experiments, marred constantly by
differences of opinion, and in the end col
lapse and failure. Commissions and Boards
appointed as such bodies usually are, sell
dom effect anything important, and in
matter Of this kind it is extremely difficult
for such body to succeed. When it is
proposed to institute an Insane Asylum
the sense of the public is keen enough to
perceive that it is necessary to intrust
its management to a skilled alien
ist. A few years ago this State
sent DR.. Wilkins as a Commissioner
to Europe and the Eastern States, to le-
port upon the best methods of treating the
insane, and on his return somewhat rare
Judgment was exercised in appointing that
gentleman to take charge of the Napa In
sane Asylum. This was wise procedure
By it the State secured the services of
specially qualified man, and insured the
best treatment of its insane. Prison man
agement is quite as much speciality as
however, and it would be not
merely prudent, but eminently sound
policy to fellow the precedent set ia this
case, with regard to the State Prison.
For it must be recognized that no referm
can be effected in that institution unless
the education Of the convict is made the
first consideration. Everything must be
to that. Men can Gully be /
reclaimed by educating them. Incarcera- \
ton never yet changed criminal into a
law-abiding citizen. The time during
which criminal is is prison must there
fore be employed in breaking down the
habits of thought which led him to crime,
aud in creating in him hsbits of thought
which will keep him from crime when he
regains his liberty. The man must in fact
be regenerated, not in the religious sense
Of the word, but mentally. To do this it |
S evident that mere police discipline is
inadequate. There must be scientifically |
devised pressure brought to bear upon the
convict. He must be taught to develop
hose parts of his character the weakness
If which has caused his criminality. He
must be encouraged and gradually ac-
to hope for better things
or himself. Self-esteem, self-respect.
must be fostered in
lin. He must be made to realize that
lis condition depends upon his own be-
lavior; that he can ameliorate it by doing
veil that he can work ont partial re-
mission of his sentence by determined and
ontinuous good conduct. All this be-
ongs of necessity to carefully elaborated
cheme of graduated rewards and punish
nents. The method of reclamation sug.
ested has received its fullest exposition in
THAT is called the Irish Prison System.
hat system has now been in operation for
like quarter of century, and
therefore, its results can no longer be re.
arded as problematical. 1t is the most
omplete and the most successful scheme :
hitch human ingenuity has yet devised,
nd u Is the one which ought to