Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-01-11
The District Penal system.

1t is to be sincerely hoped that the
present turmoil at the Capitol will not
prevent full and prompt consideration OF
the report laid before the houses today
by the President. embodying the result
of the investigation into the District
penal system conducted by the commits
sion named under authority of an enact
ment of last session. Judge Stafford, Mr..
Edison ard Mr.. La Dow have produced
document of exceptional value. bearing
not alone upon the immediate question
of the jail in its deplorable lack of space
and decent equipment, but upon the whole
process of administering punishment for
mira ctions of the. law.
For many years the people of Washing
ton have been aware that the Jail was
disSracefully unequal to the demands
upon it, and, as this report clearly states,
they have been appealing to Congress for
remedy for this evil. The commission
unhesitatingly ascribes to Congress the
responsibility for the conditions, which it
thus epitomizes:
That men and women should be sent
to these narrow and crowded cells, the
innocent with the guilty, the first offender
with the hardened criminal, in one pro-
nliscuous assembly to corrupt and be cor
rupted by each other. the lazy to be hui
mored and fostered in their laziness, the
Industrious to be deprived of every form
of employment. to be fed like beasts and
maintained at the public charge not only
with no prospect of improvement in their
condition, but with the moral certainty
that they will come out far worse than
then went in. is fact that has become
stencil in the nostrils of the whole COM
munity and ought to be felt as shame
and disgrace to the whole nation whose
representatives are responsible for its
existence"
the commission properly assumes that
this state of affairs must and will be
corrected The question, it says, is not
whether" but what Nor is this a
matter that admits of delay. Immediate
action is Imperative, with the moral
health of the community endangered. 1t
Is as urgent an emergency as though a
pestllence were threatening the capital.
This is more than a duty to be at once
discharged; 1T is an opportunity to be
srasped. The overcrowded Jail, with it's
demoralizing mixture of untried and con-
victed persons. with its shameful lack of
decent provisions for the health of the
inmates, with its hopeless inadequacy of
facilities for reviving the spark of man
hood which smolders within the breast of
even the most callous offender, is merely
ful processes of punishment which pre-
vail here, at the seat of government of
an enlightened people.
The report carries conviction by its elo-
duent plea for the establishment not
merely of humane measures of detention
but of truly corrective system of DUN
ishment. By probation and parole IT Is
proposed to lessen the number of those
hn H.
under close restraint and to offer to those
who have offended a chance to redeem
themselves. some of them immediately
after conviction, others when they have
In prison, reformatory or workhouse
shown sincere repentance and a dispo-
sltlon to acknowledge and conform to the
law Under the system outlined by the
commission there will be wide range of
penalties and warning, enabling tho
courts in dispensing Justice to protect
society both by visiting its enemies with
condign punishment and by leaving omen
the door of reform for those who NAV
be rescued from the ways of evil living
This is not simply local matter Tb.
DISTRICT of Columbia is, as the commission
says. as city set upon a hill. IT sbould
IN all particulars serve as a model for the
entire country. indeed for the world at
large Its prison system should he the
highest possible expression of the protec-
tive and corrective efforts of society.
Therefore, in its contemplation of this
report, with its distinctly enunciated pro-
posals. every one of which appeals to the
reason as worthy of adoption Congress
VIII be considering virtually the penal
problem as 1t affects the United States
IT could not be more effectively stated
than it is set forth in this able paper,
which discloses a depth of research and a
clarity of thought rarely to be found in
public documents.
No consideration OF cost should deter
Congress from quickly enacting the laws
necessary to carry into effect the recon-
Inendations of the commission, to whom it
Entrusted the task of ascertaining the
capitals needs in respect to the treatment
of its iawbreakers.