The Greeley tribune., 1910-09-08
PRISON REFORM AND OTHER
JAIL PROBLEMS

People who have the real interest
of the prisoners in the various penal
institutions of the country at heart.
and men who have spent any num-
Der of years in close association with
criminal classes and jail conditions.
cannot but remark "amen" to the
ideas to which John T. Jacobs gave
expression the other night at meet
ing called at the home of Rev. Mr.
Forward for the purpose OF consid-
ering county and municipal prisons
in the United States.
Mr.. Jacobs suggested that sani-
elsewhere. He brought out the all
important point that the majority
of men in jails are innocent men. in
as much as they have not been
brought to trial and proved guilty,
and that this being true. they should
not be treated as brute animals SIM
ply because they happen to fall into
the clutches of the law.
Again he suggested that religious
talks were desirable with those pris-
oners who wish to listen but that it
Is far from doing the Lords work
to corner a man and force him, with
jail bars on all four sides. to hear
your harangue on a subject about
which he cares nothing despite the
fact that he is perhaps endowed
with intelligence and light fully as
keen as yours.
And the objections which are rails
ed by Sheriff Florance to allowing
religionists inside the Jail are not
without foundation. There have
been cases known where instru-
ments for release have been snug
gled to prisoners by men posing as
devout members of one sect or an
other with the result that all religi-
GUS sects have to be kept from the
Jail.
For If one be allowed. no matter
how irreproachable his character, to
visit prisoners which the ordinary
layman cannot see, then another
must be permitted for it is impossi-
BILE to draw the line.
In some jails such as those in
Denver and Kansas City. religious
services are held every Sunday in
the bull pens by a party of devout
men and women, affiliated with no
sect and forcing their belief on no
prisoner. Those who wish attend
the meeting. those who do not retire
to another end of the bull pen.
: That sanitary conditions of 1ails
generally are foul there can be no
doubt and regardless of the condi-
tions prevailing in this county they
are far superior to those which exist
in certain Kansas City prisons and
in the Denver city jail until few
months ago when the latter prison
was remodeled. There was time
in the Denver Jail when conditions
we're most undesirable.
The bull pen in that city's Jail
can accommodate about thirty pris-
oners. On certain Saturday nights
when crap" games and other
amusements against the law were
INDUCED in by negroes in the negro
quarter of town the Jail was filed
to overfiowing. The bull pen often
packed as many as 100 negroes and
whites. Part of them took turns
sleeping while the remainder stood
up, there not being room sufficient
on the asphalt floor for all Of them
to lie down at the same time.
Mr.. Jacobs affirmed that men hav-
ing charge of prisoners often become
cynics and "unconsciously believe
all men charged with crime to be
guilty" There can be no doubt con-
cerning this statement. This is in
evitable. apparently, in all men who
are brought into continuous contact
with criminals. Often times the re-
suits are most deplorable.
And even police surgeons are not
exempt from this feeling, proving
that neither profession, nor any
thing else can alter the condition Of
mind which comes through this as
sociation with crooks.
Here is a case In point. Not so
many years ago call came to police
headquarters in Denver that q man
had fallen in faint in hotel lobby
Of that town. 1t was after midnight
and the police surgeon who was sent
on the case was = little peevish at
being awakened out of a sleep to at