The Jasper weekly courier. [volume] (Jasper, Ind.) 1858-1922, 1903-10-16
PRISONS
SCHOOLS OF CRIME
Hardened Criminals Are Chained to
Petty Offenders.
CONVICT LEASING SYSTEM
DIR. ThIrL ieId Says Prison Camps ~
the south Are schools of DcpraN-
ity From " hich Crimi mails
Are Graduated.

Cincinnati. o. Oct. l3-br. w. r.
Thirkield. corresponding secretary Of
the Methodist Frcedmen's Aid and
Southern Educational society. Monday.
In delivering the opening address Of
the Evangelical alliance. charged that
the crimes Of negroes in the south are
due TO the chain gang prison system.
lie said in part:
Far be il from me To utter one word
in extenuation of the unspeakable
crime OF which some black men are
guilty. Let us keep in mind. however.
that only about 20 per cent Of the
black men who are lynched have even
been charged with the unspeakable
crime against the sacredness of wom-
anhood.
Let the black men bring in every
influence to bear 10 make such crimes
impossible. Let there be prompt ex-
ecution of the law against this and all
crimes Of all men.
Lynch law. however. is anarchy II
brings in the reign of barbarism II
brutalizes members of the mobs: II UNI
dermines government; it does not stop
crime
In estimating criminality among the
black people We should keep in mind
that since Appomattox nearly every
southern state has maintained a school
Of crime, an organized institution for
the training OF criminals. This
charge against the convict-lease sys-
tenn of the south This system, with
its thousands OF victims, has been the
cause of much of the u,brcaking of
crime among the black people through
its brutalizing and dehumanizing in
tluence on thousands OF negroes
Under this system both prison and
prisoners are farmed out under the
control OF private corporations-sold to
the highest bidder.
Ito the lessees the body and soul
Of conyicts are assigned.
The motive of both state and les
sees is not morals. but money; not
reformation. but exploitation OF Grim
mails for gain. II is crime turned into
source O: revenue; the Drawn and
blood OF criminals battered for gain.
Criminals are generally scattered in
branch prisons-Quartered in rude
stockades without proper sanitation.
food or clothing The average life
of these convicts is less than ten years
Old and young are promiscuously
chained and herded together Even men
and women are in some camps. not
separated.
Hardened criminals and the boy
convicted of his first crime; the COM
paratively good and the most depraved,
vile and abandoned are chained to-
tary protests in his report that under
the present law and custom the psni-
tertiary Is the school Of crime. instead
of being a reformatory institution OF
50 boys under Is. nine-tenths OF them
leave prison much worse than when
they came in.
There is in these convict camps no
organized refcrmatory effort Reform
does not enter into the system. II is
matter of barter and sale OF con-
vict men and women to the highest
bidder The aim Of the state is not
the moral reformation of her criminal
classes. but the care of them without
cost and even the reduction OF taxes
through the sale of criminals
I'm period of two years over LOO
Of those convcts escaped from southern
prisons. Think OF 100 thieves. muir
derers, thugs, az large. lawless men
roaming about in defiance OF all law
and order. Think Of system that has
no reformatory element: no system TO
cure men Of crime, but that educates
young criminals in crime, and that
by its barbarity bruitalizes and de-
humanizes men. and sends out those
that do not die under the horrors Of
the system 10 debauch and degrade So
ciety. From G'ich criminals what won
der If there come forth hundreds Of
moral monsters?
THE south should reform its present
system. and thus stop The education
Of criminals. The present system is a
sowing TO the wind, and Is bound to
reap the whirlwind"