Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-06-19
COUNTY JAIL SYSTEMS.

No infamy attaches to the imprisonment
of person in the County Jail. What
ever there is of reproach in his being
placed there depends upon the crime for
which he is committed. SO it comes about,
as the San Francisco Alta suggests, that in
our County Jails may be found, in close
association, murderers, thieves, garroters,
burglars, old convicts, graduates in crime
bruisers, debauches, women of the town.
lads for light misdemeanors, youths for in
temperance, men for indulgence in strong
drink, witnesses unable to give bail, limo
cent men held for examination, citizens
sent below for contempt of Court, and
men, women and children generally locked
up for minor offenses, violation of city or
dinances, standing off the Poundmaster,
dumping ashes in the street, making IN
usual and loud noises to the disturbance of
the peace, and other comparatively trivial
offenses not involving moral turpitude, or
at least not involving crime that indicates
depraved natures. In the County Jail all
these vicious, depraved and minor classes
are mingled. Of necessity they cannot be
separated. The limitations of the Jail
bounds forbid it. The results of such a
system cannot be otherwise than bad If,
as all prison-keepers in the world now de-
mand, the hardened offenders and the
neophytes in crime should be kept apart
in State Prison, how much more necessary
it is that such isolation of the classes
should prevail in the minor prisons, since
than sixty in the fifty-two counties. In
New York the State takes concern in the
County Jails, and by her agents visits and
controls them. The laws for the violation
of which county prisoners are confined are
State laws largely, and the State should
therefore have oversight of the methods
of punishment. Under county rule there
is but little hardship in being compelled
to serve a term in jail. There is little
discipline, less labor and no right separa-
ton of prisoners. The Jail, therefore, be-
comes school for crime and idleness, no
matter how much the jailer may strive to
prevent it.
The Alta insists that this subject is one
Of living Importance to California and so
it is-in some respects it overshadows the
questions involved in the matter of State
Prison reform There is no reason, how
ever, why the two reforms may not pro-
coed hand in hand, The Prison Directory
might well be given supervisory power
over the county iails, to determine the
policy of conduct in each. Then, as rec
commended in New York, there should be
instruction to that Board to establish sys-
TENS of hard labor by day and seclusion
by night in iails. The food should be very
simple, and Jail life made as bare and I'M
inviting as it possibly can be within the
limits of humanity. Jails should not be-
come winter resorts for Migrants, nor sum-
mer retreats for loafers. They should be
places of hard work, severe fare and unde
sirable lodging. For the class confined
without charge of crime, there should be
separate provision made, and none of the
discipline of punishment applied. Indeed,
we believe that even as it is, iiailers as
rule do their utmost to tighten the impris-
onment of those who are locked up without
any infamy attaching. Such reforms as
these will aid the general work of pre-
venting crime lessening taxation and aug
menting the guards of society against the
assaults of the vicious.