The times., 1899-06-11
reform schools and Crime.

II there is any one thing which is badly
needed almost everywhere 1t is some re-
formatory institution for young criminals
and toughs, which will really reform. The
punitive system has been in use for a con-
siderable time, for all kinds of criminals,
and where it is most severe it is generally
most Intellectual. There are exceptions to
this rule, of course and there is no sense
in going to the other extreme, so that
punishment has no terrors for the vicious.
For instance. there are places in which the
crime Of assault upon women is punish
able only by short term in the peniten-
tiary, and there should be q radical reform
in this direction. 1t is TO be feared that the
District of Columbia is one of those places.
recent police court item is apropos in
this connection. One James Carr, white
man who was convicted of this crime some
two years ago was sent TO the penitentiary
for it. His victim was a little girl. His
sentence has now expired and he was ar
rested day or two ago on a charge of
housebreaking. There is no common sense
in that sort of leniency.
But there are street urchins of ten or
twelve who are arrested for some sort
of petty larceny. especially in our smaller
cities, and thrust into jail in company with
the most abandoned criminals. Now, petty
larceny, bad as it is when a chronic sin.
is not a crime which ought to be treated
in such way as to ruin young boys
character. Most country boys have at one
time or another hooked apples or wat
ermelons, or something of that sort; and
if every youth engaged in that kind of
thing were put in the county Jail or sent
10 the reform school to stay until his ma
iority. the prisons would be, much fuller
than they are, and the general state of
public morals would not be improved. A
boy ought to be taught to be honest: bus
it is not good education in that direction
which the street boy of a city receives
He learns to regard the police as his nat
ural enemies. and thinks il fun to evade
their clutches. AS for morality, he is as
immoral as a little savage The reform
school is better than the jail, in that it
does not leave the boys education in the
hands of degraded criminals.
But at best, most of these institutions
are only negative in their influence. They
are managed by main force. The life is
not attractive to the inmates; it would
drive properly brought up child to the
verge of insanity and develop all sorts of
unsupported meannesses from its very mo-
notony and absence of incentive to effort
Why should one expect a bad boy 10 be
reformed by what would make good boy
bad? Such is the inherent recuperative
ability Of human nature that some of the
youngsters sent to the reform school turn
out fairly well; but where there are he
reditary instincts and tendencies 10 drive
them TO crime. they are rarely reformed
The crime of Berry, the youth who com
mitted revolving murder in Maryland not
long ago. is case in point. This boy was
sent to the reform school at the tender
nearly grown. Then he was sent, on pro-
baton. to work on farm. He regarded
his existence as prison life, and his i'm
mediate impulse was to get out of con-
finement. The only way his limited in
tellect and animal nature could find to
this end was by way of crime, and he be-
came murderer. That was a case in
which the reform school did not reform.
The proposed Junior Republic. to be es-
tablished by the joint efforts of the people
OF Washington and Baltimore. promises to
be an improvement on the old methods
The head of it is to be Rev. Lawrence
Hunt, who helped to establish the George
Junior Republic at Freeyille. N. Y, where
the success of the system has been MOTH
| ing less than marvellous. Under this sys-
TEN the boy is not only kept from vicious
associates in older men, but his advance
ment to honor among his mates depends
on whether he behaves himself or not, and
this matter is settled not by higher au-
thorities, but by the boys themselves; and
everyone knows that among children pub
lie opinion is the most powerful influence
either for good or evil.