Los Angeles herald., 1909-07-04
Los ANGELES HERALD: SUNDAY MORNING. JULY 4 1909

score. shooting and stabbing ARRAYS
by the hundred assaults, burglaries
and robberies by the thousand-such
is the crime record each year for thls
fostering place of evil which lies q
scant mile from the heart of Chicago.
The judge tells us that when ne tooN
charge he found that an immense pro-
portion of those brought before MN
were ''repeaters"- persons who had
been sentenced again and again. lie
says that of 5000 imprisoned during tne
previous year, having been unable 10
raw the fines imposed, nearly one-halt
had been there all the way from twice
to two hundred and one times. lie
whom had served 100 terms AFTER
dwelling on the awful poverty that
was the marked characteristic of the
district. and the fact that its lnhapl-
tants universally regarded the law as
q iuggernaut, he makes the following
comment: "In substantially ever case
that | investigated l found that, not
Iuithsfanding the efficient management
Of orr workhouse, the offender had
come out a less desirable member OF
society than when he went in; his en-
nlovment was gone, his reputation was
injured, his will weakened, ms knoWl-
edge of crime and criminal practices
greatly increased. AS one young glrl
EXPRESSED 1t, 1t is not house of cor
rartion. hut a house of corruption.
Illinois has no probation law, there
are no paid probation officers ana the
iudge had to devise his own methous
and provide his own machinery. He at
once made an innovation by holding
night sessions and adopted the tolloW-
ing plan. On the prisoner pleading
guilty. he was given the maximum sem
pended on the accused pledging himself
10 90 to work and to refrain from the
special vice that was admitted as the
chief cause of his trouble. Reports
were made at regular intervals, the re-
leased prisoner bringing with him ms
wife or other witness to testify to his
good conduct.
Unprecedented Record
During the thirteen months in which
Judge Cleland presided in Maxwell
street he tried more than 5000 cases, in
1881 of which the prisoner was placed
on probation, and he records that "
per cent were faithful to their pledges
Summing up his experience the judge
saws; "That many, perhaps majority,
of criminals can be wholly reformed
without imprisonment through the
means of suspended sentence, with lit
tie or no expense to the state, am
satisfied beyond a doubt; and TINS VIII
he done when we can eliminate from
the treatment of criminals the desire
for revenge and look only to the good
of the Individual and of society"
II should be added that, as the num-
bers of those released on probation IN
creased. it became impossible for
Judge Cleland to keep personal track
of them, and it was necessary to cali
for volunteer probation officers. one
hundred business and professional men
responded and took on themselves the
duty of visiting the released men
monthly, reporting on regular blanks.
This number was subsequently in
creased to about 400. 1t may be further
remarked that when he entered on his
duties Judge Cleland had to face the
opposition of the 400 liquor dealers OF
the district who were much preJudlced
against him on account of his record
as a total abstainer, but that these
subsequently became his warmest sup
porters and pladged him their unanl-
nous support.
One demonstration so complete IS
worth a ton of abstract argument, but
the experience testified to by Judge
Cleland could be duplicated from many
other points. For example, Judge
Sager of St. Louis, previously referred
to. states emphatically that if the
courts grant probation without bias or
prejudice "they will work more for
good and humanity than all the peni-
tentiaries that blot the land He
cites numerous instance from his own
experience where the offense was of an
aggravated kind, yet the eventual out
come fully justified the merciful course
pursued On one of these, In which
the charge was embezzlement, he makes
this comment: II might add that this
case is unique in the fact that the de-
tective department, which usually pur-
sues this class unrelentingly, was in
sympathy with the defendant The
comment viii be found applicable to
many cities besides st. Louis.
Only Two Schools
As a general summing up we submit
the following remarks by Warren +.
Spalding, secretary of the Massachu-
setts Prison association as being pro
foundly Just: In the competition be-
tween punishment and probation, pro
baton has been subjected to tests
which have never been applied to i'm
prisonment 1t has been demanded
that probation shall prove that it pro
notes reformation. It has never been
asked that punishment, as a means Of
reformation, shall support its claims
by results Has probation succeeded ?
is a common question. Why not ask:
Has punishment succeeded? The an
swer would be found in multitudes of
prison records showing dozens, scores
sometimes a hundred commitments Of
the same person. But though it has
failed in thousands of cases, imprison-
ment is still in favor. Though it has
failed ninety-nine times in a single
case, there is no hesitation in impos-
ing the hundredth sentence. No other
method of dealing with human beings
has such a record of failures, such
lack of records of success; yet there
are many who are reluctant to even
partially abandon it-such is the at
tachment to old ways"
On the one side stands the Old
school, guided solely by the philosophy
that it is the business of the authori-
ties to see to it that society is properly
revenged. On the other side stands
the new school, with the conception
that it is the duty OF the authorities to
Danish all thought of revenge and to
look exclusively to the good of the in
dividual and of society. The teachings
of this latter school are those which
the Prison Reform league is endeaVor-
ing to nationalize. There are only
these two schools.
cALIFORNlANs VISITING THE