Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1908-07-18
MAKE A|A ! | REFORMS
Management Of State lnstitu-
tions Under Control Board
Secures Results
NO MORE PADDED CELLS
!, MORE PADDED CELLS
Last vestise of Ancient Methods of
Handling Insane and Other Charges
Have Disappeared--Teachins Trades
and Music in Reformatories-Parole
System For Inmates.
to Times-Republican.

| Des Moines, July 1S.-Editortal
statements by some Of the newspapers
of Iowa would indicate that there Is
feeling at least with those few news
papers that the state board of control
| of state institutions should be abol-
ished, or at least should be greatly
curtailed. The state board had been
in existence just ten years on the first
Of this month and It is not believed
that among the great body of the peo-
| pie there is any sentiment for such an
action worth considering but at the
close Of the first decade under the
state board IDS considered proper to
take something OF an inventory and
consider just what changes have been
made by the state board.
With the completion of the new cell
house at Fort Madison which will be
done shortly, the last relic of the old
idea of management of state institu-
tons will have been removed Former
ly at the insane hospitals the windows
were all barred and there were padded
cells for the violent inmates. There is
mounting Of that left. A patient when
admitted to an insane hospital is
treated as SICK person. Every eff
fort is made to impress upon the mind
Of the patient that they are simply
sick and need rest and medicine. In
this way the mind Of the patient is
! he. time MT RlrS
| the windows led the inmates of old to
consider that they were prisoners. A
patient is no longer put in a padded
cell and allowed to completely exhaust
! himself trying to butt his brains out
against a wool mattress. If the pa
iltient becomes violent there are attend
ants ready to restrain 1T and keep the
patient in his bed.
At the penitentiaries the old idea
used to be incarcera ton and that only.
If the condition of the prison was en-
tirely unsanitary it was excused as
being good enough for prisoners. The
prison idea twenty years ago In Iowa
was an improvement over the old idea
of a dungeon entertained two or three
centuries ago only in degree. When
me new cell house at Fort Madison Is
completed it will be as sanitary as it
can be made and the prisoners while
restrained of their liberty will DIE
treated in way intended to keep their
health as good as when they enter.
The lock step which branded a man
Wherever he was; soon after with the
adelible stamp of prison service has
en abolished. But these are only a
Fft w of the Improvements The old idea
IF abuse of prisoners has been ex-
changed for one of merit. The prisoner
vao obeys the rules of the prison gets
eater liberties; than those who don't
md the result of this substitution of
Kindness for cruelty has worked Won
GERS in the prison discipline.
The board of parole law provides
that some one from the office at Des
Dimes shall visit each of the institu-
tons at least once a month and that
the entire board shall visit all the in
stitutions in body once every six
months. On these visits the inmates
of the institutions are all given an OPP
portunity to make any complaint they
wish against the management. They
are allowed a private audience with
N
tected in what they say to the board.
This rule while simple has worked
wonders in the management of the in
stitutions. Under the old system if an
insane person made a complaint it was
given no consideration because the
person was insane. It is recognized
now that even If a person is insane he
is capable Of telling the truth about
some things and his insanity may not
affect his knowledge Of institution
abuses. AS a result inmates are treat
ed better than ever before.
The varying kinds of institutions in
Iowa are such that innovations, new
ideas and reforms adopted in one in
stitution do not fit all. In the Indus
trial schools the old idea was that they
were bad girls and boys who should
be punished. The idea on which the
state board of control has worked so
successfully is that IL boys and girls
of IL and IA and younger are bad the
presumption may be strong that the
trouble has started with the parents
and that if the parents had properly
reared their children they would not
have come to the institution. In the
vast majority of the cases this is true.
AS result every child coming to the
industrial schools Is taught some trade.
The girls are taught how to cook and
are taught stenography and typewrt-
ing in addition to being given a good
general school education. They are
taught dressmaking and other useful
things. The boys are taught harness
making. printing stenography and
typewriting, bookkeeping, brick and
stone masonry, carpentery and such
things.
| 1t has been found that if boy or
girl has some trade at which she can
get fair wages she will be employed
regularly and that busy boys and girls
do not get into mischief so readily.
This has been found to be the case in
SO many instances that it is a rare
exception for a boy to go asrray after
graduating from the Industrial school.
Music has been found to be one of
1.-THE most civilizing Influences that there
His All the same time 1t is found to be
remarkably curative for certain kinds
of troubles. The policy on which the
penal institutions Of Iowa are governed
| is to make good citizens out of bad ones
whenever possible and music at the in
dustrial schools and the penitentiaries
has been found one Of the best means
to that end that there is. The boys
and girls at the Industrial schools and
the prisoners at the penitentiary are