The prison mirror. [volume] (Stillwater, Minn.) 1887-1894, 1890-01-09
The Crime Problem.


In his address to the National Prison Re-
form congress at Nashville, Tenn, Ex-
President Hayes commended that during the
century gratifying progress had been made
in prison management. He read from DR..
Wines to show that the period from IT'S
to 1927 was the dark age of prison life in
the United States. During this time
"Connecticut had an underground prison
in an old mining pit on the hills near Sims
bury. which equalled in horrors all that was
ever related of European prisons. Here
the prisoners were crowded together at
night. their feet fastened with heavy bars
of iron, and chains about their necks. at
tached to the beams above. These caves
reeked with filth. causing incessant cOnta-
giOuS fevers. The inmates We're self edu-
Gators i'm crime. Their midnight reves are
said to have resembled often the hOwlings
of pandemOnium. banishing sleep and
fOrbiddng all repose. In Philadelphia all
ages and sexes were mingled. the novice in
crime, the hardened veteran, the debtor,
the wretch streaming with blood from the
whipping post, the vagrant, the drunkard.
and the convict. Intoxicating liquors were
bought and sold at the bar kept by one of
the prison officials; acquitted prisoners were
kept for Jail fees; the custom of garnish
prevailed. No instruction. religious or
otherwise, was known there. When the
first sermon was preached man stood by
with a loaded cannon and a fuse during the
preaching. In the Boston JAIL in one year,
thousand debtors were confined in the
same crowded night-roOmS with a thousand
criminals. Men. women. boys, idiots, luna
tics, drunkards, innocent and guilty were
mingled pell nell together. No restraint
was put upon gambling, foul converse
ton. or quarreling. The penalties were
often barbarously severe. During the early
history of New York negroes were burned
alive-sometimes with greenwood to pro-
long their agony; at other times they were
hanged in iron frames to die of starvation
their bodies being devoured by birds of
prey. In almost every village in the coun-
try the stocks. pillOry and whipping post
were to be seen throughout the eighteenth
century,"
All this is changed. While strict disci-
pline is maintained in penal institutions.
torture is unknown, and cruelty is the ex-
cept!On and not the rule. Penal labor has
been superseded by industrial or at least
productive labor. and the reformation of
the culprit is rapidly coming to be regarded
as Of more importance TO society than his
punishment Prison government is con-
stantly progressing along more enlightened
and humane lines, and by careful classified.
ton and separation of offenders places of
incarceration are ceasing to be nurseries of
crime. They no longer encourage to the
extent they formerly did the very thing they
were established to discourage.
Naturally and sellsibly Mr.. Hayes re-
CARDS prevention better than cure. His
preventive is industrial education. He
would incorporate industrial education in
the curriculum of the public schools. with
this better education added to the present
common school and higher education" he
says, 1.-THE ranks of crime will not be largely
recruited from our schools and colleges"
This is undoubtedly true. 1t is practicable
to teach the young how to work and to like
work, and the industrious never have the
time nor the fondness for mischief which
they would have if idle. But of course a
necessary supplement to Mr.. Hayes plan
is that the ndustriously inclined shall be
provided with work. Unless they can get
this to do. and receive more than a mere
subsistence compensation for it. their in
dustral education will not serve as pre-
ventive of crime. In this event necessity
would precipitate what the instruction was
expressly impaired to avert. 1t follows that
a satisfactory solution of the problem with
which MIR. Hayes and his fellow members
of the congress are endeavOring to deal re-
quires that the masses shall be kept busy at
profitable employment. Unless the indus.
trial conditions are such as to insure this,
industrial education cannot accomplish the
result predicated of it. In the final analy-
sis. then, crime increases with the growth
of the conditions that create poverty, and
vice versa; and as it is feasible for congress
and the state legislatures to remedy the con-
ditions that are creating poverty, the in
crease or dminution of crime is more
largely contingent upon economic than
upon punitivs islation.-Dubuque Tele-
graph.
When Moses YaIlerby Was Rejected.