The Morris County chronicle., 1903-02-27
ABOUT PENAL
INSTITUTIONS
Mr. Lewis, a Noted Penologist,
Delivers Able Address at
State Conference
RESULTS OF A CAREFUL STUDY

Mr.. Charleton I. Lewis delivered the
following address at the Conference of
Charities and Correction held in Trenton
last week:
This is burning question here, and in
many states of the Union | do not as
sumo TO present definite solution of i5.
All earnest students of it will, think,
bs ready to admit that i6 can be finally
solved only by profounder investigation
and after wider experience than any TO
which we can as yet appeal. l6 would be
easy to offer a plausible and lively argu.
ment for one or another view, but it seems
to me more becoming in us, who have
come together for inquiry and conference.
to try to understand she actual conditions
of the problem, to define it's exact nature
and the considerations which must de
termiue the decision. Perhaps ia the end
this course will be also more usefui;
with these clearly before US, the way will
be prepared for discussion and for definite
conclusions.
The need for State supervision of all
penal and charitable in sJi6utions will
impress itself strongly on us if we look
at the present situation in New Jersey.
Indeed, the experience of generations has
shown t1a5 no satisfactory administration
in these departments can be permanently
secured without constant, watchful and
even jealous supervision. Even without
experience this would seem TO be obvious
1t lies in the nature of mankind. These
institutions hold mulitudes of dependents,
children of tender age. invalids in body
invalids in mind offenders under re-
straiDt,-all helpless to protect them
selves and in need of confinement, guar
dianship, protection, various forms of
service. They must be in charge of men
and women whose business 1t Is TO care
for, control, restrain them; to regulate
their food and work, their occupations
their leisure, their sleep. They are in the
power of these guardians, and without
the critical supervision of impartial
minds and sympathizing hearts are Who'll
ly at their mercy. Human nature Is so
constituted that IL cannot safely be put
in charge of helpless dependents where
interest or inclination may perpetually
conflict with duty. The keeper who may
profit by giving his wards poor diet or by
making exactions from them or on their
account; the keeper who can only obtain
ease or leisure by neglecting his wards,
cannot be trusted with irresponsible
power over them the kee Der who Is "a
little lower than the angels must not be
trusted with authority to punish their
offenses, to show by favor his preference
for one over another. or even 20 keep ac
counts of their maintenance without
constant. rigorous and critical inspection
and audit. Where any such powers are
irresponsibly held, scandals will sooner or
later arise and enormous mischiefs,
cruelties and expressions, such as i5
would ourdle your blood to hear, have
multiplied under such systems Institu
tions managed without enlightened super
vision have always been the dark places
of earth, full of the habitations of cruel
ty.
Some three generations ago public in
stitutions for the helpless and needy
GLASSES were little known, but the state
housed offenders in jails, such as Newgae e
and the Fleet, where the keeper was
supreme and Irresponsible and the hor-
rors which prevailed in them are com
monplaces of our knowledge Why have
they ceased, to a large extent? Because
the voluntary labors of John Howard,
Elizabeth Frey and their peers let light
into the dungeons. Here was the begin.
ming of supervision. There was always
official power of visitation in the courts
and in grand juries, but not a word was
spoken not a step taken to clean out
these mouths of hell, until volunteer
visitors explored them and exposed the
truth These visitors were without auth
ority save that of love and courage, but it
proved potent: it opened at once the
doors of the jails and the hearts of men.
Gradually public opinion grew up which,
institutions impossible.
Administration by executive head
with concentrated power Is essential in
every such institution. From its nf-
ture this must be professional, official,
armed with force, and perpetually at
hand 1t must needs be vested in men
who live by the work, whose lives are
occupied in 1t, and who made their pro
fit in it. But there must also be close
supervision by minds with broader views,
in touch with the world of thought aud
practice, bent on the higher social aims
in view Interested not only in the direct
profits and economies of management,
but in the protection of the community
and its future welfare. Every step for
ward which has been made in hum red
years in penal law and prison discipline,
in the prevention of crime. in the rescue
and reformation of Offenders and thus in
the protection of society against its
enemies, has had its origin anG man
support, not In those who make bust
ness and a living by enforcing penal laws
and managing prisons, but in the repre-
sentatves of growing humanity, pro-
gressive spirit of reform, and public opin
ion G atually seizing upon broader and
higher principles of dealing with crime,
This line of progress in prison man
agement contrasts most strikiugly with
the line of progress in chart able work
4 uUllC CudrlhldS nave dttnOSb WuNly grown
up within the last century Tney have
largely been developed from private in
situations and foundations. The state
has gradually come to recognize its re
sponslbility for the defective and help.
less classes and has more and more as.
sumed the wardship of them. But this
field of activity has been treated in a
spirit widely different from that of penal
administration. Rarely have public
charities been kept like prisons. under
exclusively official administration, wheth-
er founded and supported wholly by
voluntary gif6s or simply aided by local
or state governments, or wholly created
aud sustained by public funds, they have
frqueeutly been under the management
to large extent of private citizens, of
unpaid and volunteer boards. Thus the
public charitable institutions have follow
ed and initiated the private ones. In
recent years reforma ories for first often
ders have been founded and have taken
the same course. The modern spirit is
thus TO be the reverse of the gOvernmen
tai and official spirit, which still generally
prevails in the control Of prisons and of
local jails
Thus today we find the administration
Of charities and reformatoIias largely in
private and volunteer hands, while that
of prisons has continuously been in those
of paid officials But the need of super
vision is as real, do not say as grear.
but as real in the one case as in the
other. If there is less danger of pecula.
tion, of violence. of tyranny, of cruelty,
with private control, there is perhaps
greater danger Of neglect and with less
business responsibility stronger tend
ency to extravagant expenditure. Indeed
these two difficulties are sometimes
thought inherent in volunteer boards.
Men who have their own engrossing af
fairs and whose leisure is limited cannot
easily give the great amount of time and
labor which such management requires.
Gnmatinaa the axaotiOna Of huaineas