The Cincinnati daily star. [volume] ([Cincinnati, Ohio]) 1875-1880, 1880-02-27
PRISON REFORM.

The people of the State of Pennsyl.
vania are earnestly discussing the sub
ject of providing a separate prison for
the confinement of such convicts SEN
fenced to terms in their State Prisons as
are least hardened or who seem most sus-
ceptible of being reformed, if possible to
separate them from contact with
desperate criminals. Those persons
who are interested in prison re-
forms in that State are giving the
matter very earnest consideration. Of
course it would be difficult sometimes 10
know where to draw the line, but in
thousands of cases, when persons of
previous good regulations and habits
have given way to temptation, that
rendered. them amenable to the stern
requirements of justice, it docs seem
heartIess to turn them loose among a lot
of burglars, murderers and desperate
characters, to have what moral senti-
ments they naturally possess destroyed
by contact with men who are not only
past reform but glory in their crimes
and degradation. The more humane
theory of prison treatment is that GRIM
inals should undergo the discipline of
corporal confinement in penitentiaries
as much for reforming them as for their
punishment; that the community is
more benefited by their reform than by
their being made to feel a sense of the
stern weight of justice that Furnishes (or
should) the violations of law.
But there is one fatal defect in all Pen
itentiary systems that we have scruti-
nized, and that is the turning prisoners
loose at the end of their sentences with
the disgrace that attaches to the convict
necessarily, and with at BEST few dol
lars of means that at the end of few
days leaves him almost no resource ex-
cept to renew his criminal COURSES.
So. long as men must be employed in
State Penitentiaries there is no reason
why they should not be made to earn
something like the wages men earn at
similar employment outside, and as an
incentive to good conduct certain per
centage Of this ought to be given to the
convict, or rather set aside for his use at
the end of his term, so that when turned
loose again he would have little capi-
tai laid up wherewith to enable him, if
well disposed, to keep out of vicious
courses.
1t is manifestlv unjust to working
men. to have their labor and wages
brought into direct competition with
prison labor, that is paid almost nothing
at all, and hence. if convicts were paid
current wages for ordinary labor, their
work would come far less in competition
with the same work done outside than
under the present contractor system.
But whether paid little or much, they
ought to be permitted to look forward to
having some portion of it for their own
use at the end of their prison terms, and
the percentage might be 80 graduated as
to afford a higher or lower rate or proper
ton Of their earnings, as their conduct
was meritorious or otherwise. As inter
est is after all, about as strong an incen-
tive to moral courses, we see no reason
why convicts might not, by suitable
system of awards and punishments, be
made through desire for pecuniary
gain to outgrow their vicious inclinations
and become respectable, moral, law-abid-
ing citizens.