Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1909-06-11
PROBATION
WE are in receipt of 1.-THE Newer
w Justice" published by the Ma

ME are in receipt of "The Newer
w Justice" published by the Ma
tional Probation league, recent
ly formed in Chicago, largely under
the inspiration of the remarkable re-
suits achieved by Judge Mckenzie
Cleland during his comparatively brief
tenure of office as Judge Of the Max
we'll street criminal branch Of the mu-
nicipal court of Chicago. The growing
tendency exhibited of late on the part
of Los Angeles judges to substitute
probation for imprisonment justifies
more than passing notice of the ex-
perience of Chicago.
In an article that Appeared in Nc
Clure's Magazine the Maxwell street
district to which Judge Cleland was
assigned, was thus described: I'm this
territory murderers, robbers and
thieves of the worst kind are born,
reared and grow to maturity in num-
bers which exceed the record of any
similar district anywhere on the face
of the globe; murders by the score,
shooting and stabbing ARRAYS by the
hundred, assaults, burglaries and rob
berries by the thousand-such is the
crime record each year for this Tester
ing place of evil which lies scant
mile from the heart of Chicago"
To cope with these conditions was
the task set before Judge Cleland, and
he states that he found that of 5000
persons sent to prison during the pre-
ceding twelve months because they
were unable to pay the fines imposed
nearly half had been in prison before,
the number of their incarcerations
ranging all the way from two to POI.
He notes specially that among them
were eighteen women, each of whom
had served 100 terms. The judge con-
cluded that the system of Imprisonment
was failure and that. although, as he
expressly declares, the management of
the workhouse was efficient, it was
mot house of correction, but a
house of corruption"
Thereupon the judge decided to try
a new tack and he himself reports
that during the thirteen months in
which he presided in this terrible Max
well street district he tried upward of
5000 cases and placed 1881 on probation,
exacting from each a pledge of good
conduct on the suspension of sentence.
He states that go per cent faithfully
kept their word. Surely a most as
founding showing.
Commenting on his experience, Judge
Cleland says: THAT many, perhaps a
majority, Of criminals can be wholly
reformed without imprisonment
through the means of a suspended
sentence, with little or no expense to
the state, 1 am satisfied beyond a
doubt; and this will be 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"
We note that this insistence on the
elimination of the spirit of revenge
from our entire treatment OF crime and
criminals is the sentiment that Colonel
Griffith has been reiterating in his adj
dresses, and it marks all the literature
issued by the Prison Reform league. 1t
is the modern scientific note, and now
receives strong Endorsement from the
testimony of so tried an expert as
Judge Cleland. He at least has shown
that the scheme of probation is sue
cess and that in the toughest district
in the world, which appears to be more
than the upholders of punishment can
show for their methods.