The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1894-08-23
PHYSICAL FORCE IN PRISON
REFORM

prison ro1Ornl-CndU is, Cno llJolll-
gent treatment of criminalS-is him
dered by two causes. These are political
influence and sentimentality. OF these
interferences, says Charles Dudley
Warner, in Harpers Monthly, one arises
from greed for place and for power with
voters, and the other from good i'm
pulses; but it is difficult to say which is
the more demoralizing, or more likely
to defeat the objects of the reform
movement. These objects are the safety
of society, reduction of the taxation
made necessary by crime, and the re-
formation of the criminal. If the lead
ing object of incarceration were punish
ment-that is, injury to the individual
-[many] Of our prisons are admirably
adapted to their end. For the worst
punishment that can be inflicted upon
a person is to confirm him in evil ways,
and to make him worse than he is. 1t
is rare that the Jail and penitentiary in
fluences are such as to improve him in
any way, except occasionally in his
physical condition. The advantage to
a criminal of confinement is that alb
stinence and regular life may improve
his health; but better moral habits will
not be found in him unless the authority
to which he is subjected is concerned in
the effort to educate him into better
life. Sometimes our prisons are hon.
estly managed, and sometimes they are
corruptly managed by politicians, but
never when politics lnterferes are they
conducted either with regard to economy
for the taxpayers or in the moral in
terests of the condemned.
But when we come to methods of re-
form, they are hindered as much by
misconception of the work to be done
and by sentimentality as by political in
reference. The problem that presents
itself in it's simplest form is to reduce
the number of professional criminals
who live lawlessly upon the community.
This can only be done by combining
them, taking them away from the field
of their activity, and bringing to bear
upon them influences that will change
their habits if not their characters.
These influences must be educational
and disciplinary in high degree, as
we'll as humane. There can be mo re-
form of degraded natures without dis
cipline, and there can be no discipline
without force behind it, There is no
sort of governmental a State or an
institution worth rush that is not
founded on adequate force. This is
fundamental, and it is as true of the
State as it is of the family. Parental
authority implies the right to use force,
and power of punishment of the refrac-
tory child lies back of the disregarded
rules. In no case must the punishment
be vindictive or cruel, or for the sake
of punishment, but always educational,
disciplinary, for the sake of reform.
With every manager of a prison or a
reformatory land all prisons should be
reformatories) must reside physical
power to enforce his rules; and this is
still more necessary where there is an
intention of benefting the man than
where there is only the idea of carrying
out, without escape, a sentence of con-
fnement by way of punishment for a
crime. Let any one consider for a
moment the material of which [some Of
our great prisons are made up. In one
aspect they are dens of characterization
of brutality, of all tendencies. In an
other aspect their inmates are human
beings, separated from the mass of
mankind often by narrow lines, and
capable of being trained into orderly