The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-10-25
CRIME AND THE STATE
Prisoners Increasing in Greater
Ratio Than Population.
OUR JAlLs SCHOOLS OF EVIL.
The State Should Take Charge Of the
Criminal-How to Reform the
Convict.

reveal difference damaging TO Us, and
suggest that the government-the state
should give attention to the matter. Inc
penitentiary and reformatory prisoners OF
the United States have in the last decade
increased in a slightly larger ratio than
the increase in the general population,
while the county jail prisoners have in
creased in a ratio more than double.
During nearly similar period of years,
ending with 1889. the prison population OF
| England and Wales has decreased 20 per
cent, Notwithstanding the great increase
IN the general population.
Since 1877, ins England and Wales the
government has taken the control ana
management of all prisons, including the
county and borough jails-unifying, sys-
tematizing and greatly strengthening
prison administration. In the United
States the sheritfs manage the jails, which
are confessedly schools for crime; and the
control Of other prisons in the different
states is without the uniformity and unity
and thoroughness that enables any useful
repression of crime or convicts.
We have not, nor can We well have,
national police, the Estate Sovereignty"
doctrine destroys any hope of united, GEN.
trallzed prison government throughout
the country; yet there may be more
centralized and efficient prison manage
ment by the states themselves respectively,
and also through conference and agree
ment, more harmonious and uniform
prison management among the states.
The state, against whose laws all grades Of
criminals offend, should take charge
of the prisoners, not leaving
their treatment TO the within of local
authority Throughout the whole
field Of preventive agencies, such as the
charities, the churches and the schools, Il
seems meet that the benevolence of socie-
ties and of individuals should be given
full play; but when an act of crime is COM
mitted and the offender apprehended and
received into custody, it should be to the
states custody and the states treatment
without let or hindrance from any other
source whatever. The state must no
longer shirk this duty, nor inditferently
allow disqualified and meddiesome indi-
VldualS to assume il.
The criminal is one who is out of ad Just
ment with the requirements of the laws
and prophecies of the community. Soci-
ETY. or the criminal may be responsible for
the mal-adj matters not, the
right and duty of the state is to adjust
the difference by compelling the criminal
to conform himself; and here should ter
inmate the states interference.
Prison science today recognizes but one
purpose In the punlshments for crime,
namely, protection. All other benefits
possible to be derived are best promoted
when protection is the sole purpose of
Imprisonment. Satisfying Of the instinc-
tive popular demand for retributive JUS
tlce, or the bending OF penalties so as to
satisfy sentimentaiists are consider
atoms less and less influencing the impo-
sitlon of criminal penalties, and ought to
be entirely excluded therefrom. The in
telllgent popular demand in the treatment
OF the criminal is not for punishment, not
for pity, but for wrotection. The people
have given over retribution, and the pris-
ons OF today are scarcely places of punish
ment: No doubt the prisoners would
greatly prefer freedom for their disslpa-
punished when by force deprived
OF these induIgences. The public
esteem them as deprived of liberty,
but their deprivation is scarcely Of
that liberty honorable men desire; it
is rather restriction of the license which
leads to crime-they are restrained from
that which IS harmful both to themselves
and to society. The prisoners in our
modern prisons have not less but rather
more of common comforts and opportun-
lty for improvement than have the class
In society from which they mostly do come:
yet their condition may properly excite
something Of sympathy, for they are so
constituted that they cannot enjoy liberty,
but left 10 themselves they destroy their
happiness and necessitate their imprison-
ment. Verify, they know not what they
do.
The prisoners of my observation have
not generally fallen into crime. but have
grown up to crime by the influence of cir
cumstances of birth and environment.
which they did not, and probably could
not, control; which they did not, and
possibly could not, desire to change; nav.
which they never so much as thought to
be wrong, or desirable TO change II thus
becomes the duty of the state, the organ
lied government, for protection and
preservation to interpose preventiyes of
crime, but specially to undertake the
reformation OF criminals. And the state
may, indeed must, demand of convicted
criminals that they supply good evidence
OF reformation as the essential condition
OF their release. ''No man, whatever his
Ofense. ought ever 10 be discharged from
restraint except upon REASONABLE evidence
that be is morally, intellectually and
physically capable of earning liveli-
hood" nor until he is honestly DESTROYS
and determined so 10 do.
There are with criminals on their adj
mission TO prison physical conditions of |
disease and degeneration not to be ig- |
nored IN the search for crime cause, con-
ditlons which might be prevented by a !
proper material and moral sanitation of |
cities, There Is ignorance with inability
10 earn ones subsistence. which might be
remedled by better education and indus
trial training in the public schools.
The poverty Of families out of
which criminals come is source
OF crime; poverty sometimes |
produced by the fault of society permit |
ting monopoly of profitable industries. |
and by burdensome tariffs and taxation in /
one form and another. The speculative
spirit abroad among the youth Of the land. /
stimulated by the legalized gambling of /
stoc k-Ioobers and spOrlsmen. has largely !
replaced the economic industrial instinct j
and leads to crime The beastliness of pub-
lie places permitted by society through her |
hnes and licenses; the strife and /
corruption OF the political hustings; the /
retrlDutIYe spirit OF the criminal laws and |
administration; and possibly the too com |
mon sentiment that Justification before the
highest moral tribunal can be had by be- |
nevlnS ana protesting, rather than by do |
ing and becoming; may contribute 10 /
crimes, in which case the duty of the state !
10 the criminal, and also the duty of the |
honest men and good citizens, suggests /
Itself ana needs not here to be mentioned |
In the treatment OF imprisoned Grim !
lnais Tor their reformation, which is the /
only sure protection from their further |
crimes, the state should greatly extend /
the wise and liberal policy intended To no !
lnaugurated by the act Of Is~g in NV
ORR, and which has been here and tbera i
IN several ot the states partially adopted. |
II IS based on reiormatiye instead of