Connecticut western news., 1909-01-21

I Samuel J. Barrows, of New 1ork, president of the International Prison 1 Commission, man known in two conti- nents, and n speaker of wide reputation, was the next speaker, and his addres was listened to with rapt attention. Defects of Our Prison System
 Mir. Barrows said it is only by poetic l licence or by legal fiction that we can call our confusion of laws, penalties, and institutions, penal system. It is anything but systematic. That is one of its defects. It is not regular, uni form, logical. or just.
 1. Our police system is defective. Police graft is practivally unknown Tn Berlin or London. There is an esprit 6e corps with reference to honesty There is a better educational system. In Berlin a certain number of police men are trained lawyers, whose busi- ness it is to extend legal advice and pro- tection to minor cases, such as is done by our legal aid societies.
 A defect of our police system is that too many professional criminals are al- lowed to go at large and too many acci- dental or minor offenders are arrested. Arrests in Boston were formerly stimu. lated by the fee system which has been wisely abolished. A new conception of the policoman's duty is that now held by chief Kohler of Cleveland. He calls it the Golden Rule Policy" He has tfained his policemen to use their human instincts and to use their discretion. 1 By an intelligent policy as applied to drunks, juvenile and minor offenders, the number of arrests has been reduced 6S per cent.
 9. What has been said of the police applies to the courts. There have been too many commitments. Take the cases of drunks. Judge Pollard of St. that city by putting first offenders m der a pledge. Massachusetts has dealt with these cases on probation for many years. In Massachusetts the courts have been greatly relieved by giving probation officers the power to release persons arrested for drunkenness who are found to be first offenders or occa- sional drinkers.
 Experience has shown that thousands of offenders of all classes can be cor rected without imprisonment. In the last eight years. Massachusetts has placed 57,000 offenders on probation and l 1O, ,000 year. The results from proba- tion are better than the results of inn prisonment. The advantage of proba- | ton is that it does not take the man out work nor his family of his support; it is cheaper for the State.
 8. Prisoners are held too long await l ing trial. This is because our legal machinery IS net so constructed in most places so as to try offenders promptly In Chicago, they have established a radically new system by creating a municipal court composed of 2S judges The result is that the docket is cleaned up every two or three days.
 1. A glaring defect of our system in the United States is that the punish ment of an accused person begins not when he IS convicted, but when he is arrested. In Russia a man may have daily exerclse in the open air and the right to work for his family, privileges which are seldom conceded in the United States.
 5. Our county jalls are for the most part relics of barbarism. Their physical structure is bad. They arc often devoid of sunlight and fresh air. They are breeding places for tuberculosis as well as for moral contamination.
 6. The fee system Ill connection with jails is scandaIous and iniquitous. When the sheriff IS paid so much a week for the board of prisoners, it is for his inter est to have as many men in prison as he can secure and to keep them as long as possible. Thus many of our jails are county boarding houses run for the bene- fit of sheriffs and not for the benefit of the State or the prisoner.
 '. Too many prisoners are released that ought to be retained. Many are out before they are fitted to return to society. Instead of the short sentence offenders should be placed on probation. When they fail they should be sent to correctional institutions until they are corrected.