The star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1908-1909, 1908-12-09
JERSEY MAY USE
SCALPEL To CURE
CRIME INSTINCT
Nutley Priest Tells Of Plan
Evolved at American
Prison Congress.
LEGISLATION SHOULD
ALLOW OPERATIONS
Mental Infirmities Are Due to
Physical Ills, Is Theory
of RefOrmers.

The Rev. Francis A. Foy. of st.
Mary's Church, Nutley, who was sec
rotary Of the New Jersey delegation
to the American Prison Congress,
which met at Richmond, Va, Novem-
Der 10 to 10, forwarded his report today
to Governor Fort.
The other members of the commits
sion were Decatur NJ. Sawyer, of Mont
clair; Mrs. Emily e. Williamson. of
Elizabeth; Edward D. Dufield, South
Orange; George o. Osborne, warden
of the State Prison at Trenton, and
the Rev. Aloysius M. Fish, chaplain
of the State Prison.
Besides reviewing the work of the
Congress Father Foy's report strongly
recommends several reforms. New
criminology' found high favor in the
congress, and it is probable that more
than one State will authorize prison
/ physicians to operate on prisoners in
certain cases. These cases are those
where. mental infirmities are due. TO
physical causes. The removal of
adel.ojds, for instance. may relieve
pressure on the brain-pan and thus
entirely alter the mental character Of
the prisoner.
Warden ON Committee.
Warden Osborne, of New Jersey, was
made a member of a committee to in
vestigate and report at the next CON
gress on the question of industrial work
in prisons.
The congress placed a strong EN-
phasis on the necessity of separate re-
formatories for women and went on
record as strongly recommending
women's ~rcformatories In every State.
ut was for the physicians section to
strike an essentially new note in the
work of the congress-" says Father
Foy's report; land it was DR.. Cook, OF
the Maryland ~penitentiary, who, after
referring to a number of youthful de-
generates and other physical and mental
wrecks who had been sentenced to MS
penitentiary, recommended that before
a person be tried for a serious offense
his mental and physical condition be
examined into by a committee consist
ing of tho Jail physician, the prosecuting
attorney and an alienist. This plan
would bring into reduisition the data OF
criminal anthropology, which are ad-
united now to. have considerable value
in determining the physical and psychic
fuses of crime. the degree OF moral re-
sponsibility. f
Judicial Aspe
Such data would .,e of the
greatest service to judges in i'm
posing sentences, and to those in
charge of institutions dealing with de-
liIquents and detectives who come be-
fore the courts on criminal. charges. We
suggest, however, that this inquisition
should be made after determining the
fact that the criminal law had been
violated by the person on trial, n not
before the trial. as above indicated, but
before the sentence of the judge. 1t
would seem that serious consideration
should be given the proposition to in
corporate into judicial procedure some
such provision as the above, through
which the degree and the type of crirni-
nality involved in every conviction
under tho criminal law should be scien-
ILLEGALLY and legally established before
committing the convicted person to a
probation officer or to a correctional in
stitutiop. The adoption of this feature
into criminal procedure would call for
many notifications in II present legal
system and would lead to many de-
veiopments in. reformatory treatment,
IA revision Of sentence from time to
time under a flexible indeternlinate-sen
tence law might De required. An en-
tirely new iystem of evidence suitable
to the new set of facts brought into
issue would become necessary in seek
ing to ascertain not only the commits
sion of the act designated as criminal,
but also the kind and type OF man who
had committed the act. A proposal SC
radical may: at present appear as ideal,
rather than practical, but must surely
be reckoned with as representing the
trend of the new criminology."