Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1904-08-30
DOES PRISON REFORM
OR DEBASE THE INNATE
TIMELY DISCUSSION SUBJECT IN PUBLIC
MANIFEST A DEEPER

Chicago Americana

/
! BY arousing public sentiment Charles
| Dickens did more than any other
agency toward doing away with i'm
prisonment for debt. He touched upon
only one little spot of the great dis
eased system of prison management.
But what public opinion did TO pre-
vent the outrageous Imprisonment of
debtors, public opinion can still do to
| change the outrageous treatment OF
today's criminals.
If you who read this will each con-
slider the subject first, and. after form
ing your opinion. use your influence,
start may at least be made toward
sane conduct in dealing. with our great
problem, the cure and prevention OF
crime.
Society must be protected against
lcriminais''-yes but society need not
make itself a criminal by duplicating
| in the criminals treatment his own
most criminal acts.
THE criminal must realize that he
will be punished, that crime is unsafe
and punishment swift"-yes, but So
ciety will not be benefited by making
the criminal hate it more bitterly than
ever, by adding to his criminal lInowl-
edge and filling him with a desire for
revenge against those that have i'll
treated him.
The prison of today, in its evil eff
feet on criminals-always made worse
by prison life-corresponds to the in
lsane asylum of olden times.
When Jack Shepherd went to see
his crazy mother in the madhouse of
Old London, he found her chained to
the floor, lying on filthy straw in
damp dungeon. Only few years ago
the so-called refractory maniac was
tortured with streams of water poured
on him for hours. with beatings, chains,
straight jackets and all manner of bru-
tally.
Society felt toward the maniac as it
now feels toward the criminal. that he
must be punished and the evil beaten
out of him. The maniac was beaten.
and as a result when he entered the
insane asylum mildly demented. he
left it a raving. hopeless lunatic-if he
let it alive Usually he found himself
in the grave after passing through all
the phases of dangerous insanity,
brought on by brutality.
| What the old insane asylums did to
the maniac. the public prisons now do
to the criminal. He is treated as one
hated. one to be punished. and reform
ed by brutality-as though any man
were ever made better by brutality!
The insane asylums today-thanks
to the efforts of enlightened men-are
| ioh
occasional deplorable exceptions, the
insane inmate is treated with kind
ness, and even when most violent it is
realized that the fault lies not with
him. but with a disordered mind. He
is treated as an engineer would treat
la locomotive with a broken piston rod
not hammered out of shape, but
mended scientifically.
| AS a result, thousands are cured of in
sanity that in olden times would have
remained long at the public expense
as dangerous maniacs and treated as
such.
| When will civilization awake to the
fact that the criminal is diseased, just
as the maniac or the cOnSumptive is
diseased? When will society pride
itself upon diminishing crime. not by
means of Eevenge or cruelty, but
| through kindness, consideration, the
holding out of hope and of opportunity?
| There is no more admirable institu-
| ton today than the great hospital, no
other in which men of benevolence and
scientific power work with so great en-
| thusiasm.
The hospital gathers within its walls
all those most in need of sciences help.
! The men of science delight in the OPP
portunity to relieve distress, to dimin
| ish disease in the world by combating
| it intelligently in hospitals. where it is
gathered for inspection and cure. Ev-
cry one of our great prisons ought to
be moral hospital.
1t ought to be the delight of earnest,
scientific men to deal kindly, intelli-
gently and patiently with the criminals
| The prison, which is now a dreadful
place of punishment and humiliation,
ought to be a home of regeneration, in
which intelligent efforts should be
made to wipe out that most dreadful of
human diseases. the criminal impulse
| 1t is perfectly safe to say that nine
ont of 10 criminals-999 out of 1000
ARE criminals either through acct
dent. through poverty. or through in
herited malformed brains.
| Society seizes upon them as brutally
as they seize upon their victims. 1t
locks them in a prison of which Cru
city. Revenge and Humiliation are the
guardians. and above which floats the
spirit of the confirmed criminal.
The prisoner is shamed, dressed in
n suit of clothes to which the greatest
stigma of disgrace attaches. He is
treated like a brute. and the brute in
him is thus emphasized. He is for
hidden to speak to any man, and all
are forbidden to speak to him, except
for a few brief minutes each day or
each week. Thus the refining influ-