Los Angeles herald., 1910-02-28
PRISON REFORM
CRUSADE FUTILE
SOCIOLOGIST MAKES REPLY
TO MRS. BOOTH
SEES NO HOPE IN WORK DONE
BY VOLUNTEERS
Crime Problem Far More Important
Than Question of Penal CrueIties
and Must Be Solved First,
Says Authority
BY WILLIAM c. OWEN

is properly described as an untiring
worker, urged on incessantly by lofty
moral aspirations, and she has been
in this particular field of activity f1f-
teen years. In the interview obtained
by The Herald Mrs. Booth expresses
herself as confident of results, and
points to the abolition in many peni-
tentiaries and on the convict planta-
tions of Louisiana of many atrocious
tortures formerly in use.
The inference that will be drawn
and is intended to be drawn, is that
homes for discharged convicts, re-
ligious and moral advice-charity, in
fact-will bring the desired result II
adhered to with sufficient persever-
ance.
Mrs. Booths views are those COM
mon to all the associations devoted
to this special subject, with the soli-
tary exception, believe. of the Prison
Reform league. Perhaps I ought not
to speak for the league, but for my
self alone. Speaking for myself,
desire to say, through the agency OF
The Herald, that I regard Mrs. Booth
and the associations alluded to as en-
gageds in the fruitless occupation OF
pouring water into a sieve.
The crime problem, as 1 shall show
is by far the most important one be-
fore the American public today. On
its correct solution may depend the
very existence of this nation as a
civilized power. 1t is obviously, there
fore, a problem that should be, ex-
amined with the utmost care and from
every point of view; on which all who
can give an intelligent opinion should
be heard attentively and without
prejudice.
At the very outset I take issue with
Mrs. Booth. She has been conscien-
tiously at work for fifteen years and
she feels confident Of results I say
bluntly that she is misinformed There
Is nothing to Justify her confidence.
Crime is increasing at a terrifying
ratio, and this itself is fatal to her
claims.
On this head I do not believe the
facts as set out in the first chapter of
Grimes and Criminals" can be con-
tradicted successfully, and they form
the basis on which the Prison Reform
league rests its conclusions and policy
II 1t Is necessary to add to those facts
l quote from the most reputable liter
ature appearing in the most recent
magazines. I quote Hugh C. Weir as
saying in 1.-THE World Today that
there are four and a half times as
many murders for every million of our
population today as there were twenty
years ago." and Charles Edward Rus
sell as saying in Success" for March
that the products of the slums tend
constantly to increase in numbers.
they are even now making the en-
forcement of the criminal law so diff
f1cult that the ablest police authorities
can see no remedy but a huge armed
despotism. In New York city, despite
an augmented police force and in
creased police expenditures, the mum
Der of burglaries reported is now about
10000 year, and all observers note
year after year a similar increase in
other cities of crimes of violence
Murderers at Large
Elsewhere in the same article Mr..
Russell says: "The best detective on
the New York police force assures me
that there are at large in the city now
not fewer than thousand men and
boys who have committed murder;
and to one who has studied the East
side gangs and know what they
really are and really do, the statement
VIII seem in no way improbable"
say that Mr.. Russell, who has a
long newspaper and magazine career
behind him, is an unimpeachable au-
thority, and that his conclusions will
not justify, for one single moment
the roseate views habitually present
ed by Mrs. Booth and the prison as
sociations to which I have referred
And If those views are 'erroneos thew
are doing immense harm, for the most
injurious thing in the universe is er-
ror. 1t delays progress incalculably
and raises false hopes that are doomed
to perish.
Furthermore, I do not credit Mrs,
Booths statements as to the preva-
lence of more humane regime in our
prisons and police stations. AS re-
CARDS the former all recent investiga-
tons, from Illinois to Texas. have
shown the existence of almost incon-
ceivable conditions, and as to the lat
ter there seems every reason to SUD-
pose that there have evolved among
the police traditions which are to them
a law superior to any of our codes.
and that it is an utterly ruthless law
which has increased in severity.
/ know well that an occasional chief
of police, such as Kohler at Cleveland,
and Vollmer at Berkeley, Cal, has in
stituted a most kindly regime. and 7,
for my part have great hopes of our
own new chief. But these are brilliant
exceptions, drop in the bucket On
the subject of the administration of the
third degree" for example, I believe
Weir says truthfully that "as a mat
ter of cold-b blooded fact-no matter
from what sources it may be denied
the system of the third degree is
followed generally by the American
police with a brutality that has sent
dozens of men with broken limbs and
bruised bodies and wrecked minds to
hospital or asylum! Yes. and women,
too"
Tortured by Electricity
You think that exaggeration Well,
then I will quote the following, from
the New York World of November 30,
1909: "The latest thing in accommo-
dations at the new building is what
the police term the roast or freeze
third degree rooms There are two
rooms in the basement to be devoted
entirely to this work. They are alb
solutely bare and forbidding, with
steel walls and pipes for quick changes
of temperature Above the grated
ceilings electric lights are so arranged
as to light the rooms instantly or else
throw them into complete darkness.
lowered or increased in few minutes,
which means a real sweating or a
freeze out for the unfortunates made
to submit to the process"
One of my New York friends in
formsfme that he kept careful tab on
the city's papers for several days to
see what their comment was-and none
was made! Yet these electric devices
are capable of being utilized in ways