The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1893-11-26
CRIME.


Massachusetts, has long taken the lead in
what has been called prison reform. It's
prisons are the most expensive, the convict
has been provided with the best food and
lodgings known to prisons, the opportunities
for Improvement are the largest-in short,
he has become the guest of the State. An
emotional humanitarianism has found ex-
preston in holiday ice cream and flowers,
and a portion Of the press has published the
unsigned complaints of prisoners against
officers. The result Of this sort of thing has
been that the average prisoner. and par
t~icularly the average prisoner who is serv-
ing his second or third term, acts upon the
assumption that he is a much abused per-
SON. Unfortunately, many weh-meaning
people are Of the same opinion, and their
influence as visitors and sympathizers has
done much to make proper prison discipline
impossible. The man who has charge of the
Charlestown prison. set apart for those who
are serving for desperate crimes or for the
second or third terms, is the most abused
official in the State. Just now there seems
to be a reaction against the fad of flowers,
ice cream and visitors whose compassion
for criminals is discriminate The prison
commissioners have declared against it.
The warden is disposed to curtail privileges
and to adopt a more rigid system of disci-
pline. All this goes to show that society is
in danger from a prison policy which, while
not intended. causes the convict and the
criminal to feel that crimes against it are
not grave offenses, and that there is no
disgrace connected with sentences to peni-
tentiaries. OF course, there is a wide differ
ence in the offenses and the characters of
the men who commit them, which require
very different treatment. Men who are con-
victed 4 first time for a misdemeanor are
widely different from professional crimi-
nails, and should be treated differently. The
policy of releasing convicts serving a first
term for a misdemeanor under penalty of
reimprisonment if they do not conduct them
selves properly is one Of the best of the
new features in the management of crimi-
nails. 1t gives the man a chance to regain
what he has lost and to rid himself of the
disgrace attending the punishment of crime.
But the man who has been convicted a sec
ond time should be kept in prison, as ex-
perience shows that he is, when outside of
prison walls, a menace to society. 1t is
often added to an account OF a serious
crime that the culprit has served a couple
of terms or has killed or undertaken to kill
once or twice before.
To the executive pardon, perhaps, as much
as any other cause is to be attributed the
feeling which prevails in a community that
it is not a great crime to violate the laws
for the security of property and life, and
not much of a disgrace to be sent to the
penitentiary. When a mar is tried by a
jury and sent to the penltentiary he should
be required to serve his term unless the
State has a system Of probation for first
offenses which do not involve attacks upon
human life. Under the system Of good
time" secured by good conduct in prison
1t is much better that the convict should
serve his term, not so much because of him.
self as to counterfeit the pernicious influence
of frequent pardons. No one thing so tends
to make crime and it's punishment re-
spectacle, so to speak, as the vindication
of the criminal by some act of the public
after he has been released. To vindicate
a convict by indications of popular SYM
patty popularizes crime and turns the peni-
tertiary into an institution which gradu-
ates it's inmates with honors.