The prison mirror. [volume] (Stillwater, Minn.) 1887-1894, 1890-05-15


think that too many men are arrested and
too many sent to prison; men are arrested
who ought not to be arrested, and are held
after arrest who ought to be released.
There is not the separation between the &C.
cuSed and the convicted which is demanded
by justice and by wise policy, and there
is too much freedom of intercourse between
persons awaiting trial. We believe that
the technical and frivolous delays of justice
which too often occur should be rendered
impossible, especially in cases of minor
importance. We doubt whether the rule
which requires unanimty on the part of the
jury in criminal cases does not inure more
to the benefit of the guilty than of the innO-
cent. We favor better classification of
prisoners. Many states would be better off
If, with the same number of prisoners, they
possessed more prisons and smaller ones;
and the creation of grades in prison, with
distinctions of dress and of privileges. is in
our judgment a decided step in advance.
We have devoted much attention to the in
equality of sentences and the practical i'm
possibility of estimating actual guilt and
apportiOning penalty to it. The Legislatures,
by abandoning fixed codes, substituting
minimum and maximum sentences for the
same offences, and comforting upon courts
large discretionary powers, have virtually
confessed their inability to frame just
retributive system; and the judges who
pronounce sentence admit that. in very
many cases, at least, they have small con-
fidence in their ability to make wise and
equitable use of the discretionary power in
trusted to them. Where the jury fixes the
term of Imprisonment, the case is naturally
still worse. Without entering into the
veXed question of the true or paramount
oy,d ira hn Of
gresSOrS. we tend more and more to the ac-
ceptance of the doctrine that the duration
of Imprisonment must be made to depend
partly on the conduct of the prisoner after
conviction, and not wholly upon the hei-
nOusness of his offence. We therefore find
every year larger number of prison officers
who are converts to the indeterminate SEN
tence and the parOling of prisoners, on
suitable conditions and under proper re-
strictions. We think that the criminal law
should, at least in it's administration, be
sufficiently elastic to admit of the easy and
quick discharge from custody of men who
have thOughtlessly, impulsvely. or under
stress of great and exceptional temptation,
violated its provisions, but who do not
truly belong to the crime class, so called.
On the other hand. it should be stern and
severe in its attitude toward habitual, pro-
fessional. incOrrigible offenders. whose
permanent incarceration, or at least their
detention for long term of years. would
be boon to society. The amendments to
be made to the criminal code should follow
this line.
The same is true of prison discipline,
which is forever confronted by the dilemma
how to make prison life means of ele-
waiting the convict and yet render it distaste-
full to him; how to preserve the balance be-
tween the refOrmatOry and the deterrent
influence of the prison upon those incarcer-
ated in it. We believe that, while the ref
OrmatiOn of the prisoner may not be the
primary purpose of the criminal code which
seeks rather the repression and suppression
OF crime. nevertheless, when the court has
pronounced its sentence, and the lock is
turned upon the convict, the prison which
does not supply to him, while in custody,
the opportunity. the motive, and the means
of reformation, is not administered in the
interest of good government. We shall
never have satisfactory prisons until a di-
vorce shall be effected between prison man
agement and practical politics. and until
the public shall accept the great truth that
it may cost money to make good men out
OF bad, but that men are worth more to a
nation than dollars, and must not be sacri
feed to them.
All men are agreed that the moral agen-
cies by which individuals and the cOmmu-
nifty are lifted to higher level of integrity
are three; namely, religion, education, and
labor. Neither of these three can safely be
omitted from the daily routine of prison
life. The form of religious instruction and
influence. the kind and degree of secular
education. the character and amount of la
Dor, must be made to depend not upon the
cost to the tax payer, and still less upon the
profits of the lessee or contractor. but upon
their observed effect upon the prisoner him.
self. His mind requires to be occupied,