Evening star., 1897-06-08
MORE FACILITIES REQUIRED
Judge Kimball's Views on the Girls Reform
School.
Two Family Buildings Needed-YOunR
Should BE Separated From the
Older-Tickets of Leave.

Senator Mcmillan, chairman Of the joint
select committee on charities, which has
been recently investigating the girls re-
form school, together with other institu-
lions in the District, has received the fol-
lowing letter from Judge Kimban of the
Police Court.
Dear Sir: have received your letter of
the Sd instant, asking me to make a state
ment of my experience of the workings of
the reform school for girls, together with
any suggestions 1 might see fit to make as
to the manner In which the school can be
made an efficient institution.
Shortly after my appointment as judge
of the Police Court I saw the great need
of a reform school for girls. and did all in
my power to secure an appropriation to
erect the necessary buildings. The money
appropriated by Congress waA in my
Judgment, not wisely expended, and in
place of two family buildings. each capable
of caring for fifty girls, but one was built
which could accommodate only about thir-
ty inmates. and no increase has been made
since the first appropriation. That build
ing was speedily filled. There is great
need of the erection at once of at least two
family buildings one for young white girls
and one for young colored girls. AS it is
now, the one building is occupied by col
ored girls exclusively, and there is no
place to send white girls. There should be
an entire separation Of the younger girls
from the older.
No Place for Many.
THE judges of the Police Court are fire.
quently very much puzzled to know what
to do with girls sent to them for trial. To
send them to jail or the workhouse keeps
them confined but a short time, and allows
them to associate with older women, who
speedily teach them lower depths of in!-
guilty, SO that when they are discharged
they are worse than before. If, on the
other hand, the court let's them go with a
warning they get the idea that they can
commit offenses without being punished
and are speedily again in the tolls. The
class of girls of which l am speaking can
not be turned over to the board of chill
dren's guardians. as 1t is difficult, if not
almost Impossible, to find homes for such
girls The two institutions are intended to
provide for different classes of cases.
There are in the District large number
of girls just entering downward paths who
could be saved by properly conducted re-
form school, but with the present insti-
tuition alone there is no possibility of help.
therefore most earnestly urge ap-
preparation sufficient to build at once two
family buildings. and that a third building
be provided for in one year thereafter.
Tickets of Leave.
There is great need of changing the law
10 apply both tc the girls and boys re-
fern schools by which the trustees may be
authorized to grant tickets of leave. re-
vokable by the board, so that should a boy
or girl show that he or she is not reformed
the ticket could be revoked and the person
recommitted. The boys, as the regulations
are now in force can, for good conduct, be
discharged in a little more than two years
after commitment. They are committed
when under sixteen, until they arrive at
the age of twenty-one years. A boy COM
mitted at fifteen would be seventeen when
discharged for good conduct and beyond
the age of recommitment, and no matter
what he does thereafter he cannot be again
sent to the reform school.
This, in my Judgment is entirely
wrong. l believe in a revokable ticket of
leave for good conduct where it is shown
that there is proper home to go to, or
one can be found him by the trustees, or
the board of children's guardians with
the necessary supervision of his conduct
thereafter Without such power of recon-
mitment up to the age of twenty-one years
the discharge at the end of two years. in
my judgment, acquired by my experience
as police court judge, is in most cases a
mistake They go back into the old life,
and many of them are speedily in the Pc
lice court again and cannot be returned to
the reform school,
Il thoroughly believe that the girls re-
form school should be continued, and by
the erection of sufficient and suitable build
ings would become of great benefit to the
class intended to be reached by it,