New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1911-02-01
D delegates
Better Conditions

TO insure appearance 1T tue tclaI us Il
complaining witness the law compel
led the authorities to lock up such per-
sons in Jail Thousands Of cases oc-
Cured in which cOmplainants had to
spend a year or two years in prison.
Children's courts were not thought
Of. Alischievous boys who had COM
mitted some trivial breach of law
were associated with hardened crimi.
nails The consequence was obvious.
The contact turned into criminals
large numbers of boys who under
present methods are easily reclaimed
and converted into good. industrious
citizens. While in the jails and pris-
ons these boys quickly learned the
speech, tricks, ways and habits Of the
criminal inmates.
In New York fifteen years ago at
least $4,000 children were arrested
during the year and in Chicago about
the same number. Many Of the boys
passed through the corridors of the
Tombs and the Cook county Jail to
come out thieves.
Old Methods Supplanted.
Much of this has been radically
changed. especially in the last fifteen
years. Cruel methods and principles
of law have been largely abolished.
The old style prison, sepulchral and
deadly, has gone or is fast going. The
separation Of men offenders from wo-
men is not so recent an Improvement
as that of dissocihting the mentally
feeble from the mentally strong, the
same from the insane, the old from
the young. Those held for trial are
no longer confined with those con-
victed Of grave crimes. The acciden-
tai iawbreaker is not unfortunately
thrown in with the habitual criminal.
One Of the greatest changes in the
treatment of prisoners has taken place
in the last five years. In 1905 DR.. J.
B. Ransom, physician to Dannemora
prison, New York, showed that from 40
to GO per cent of all deaths among the
prison population in the United States
was due to tuberculosis.
Many prisons have been Of ancient
build; the jails have been particularly
unhealthy; the cells. DR.. Ransom re-
ported. in nearly all of the prisons
were damp and so constructed as to
be virtually impervious to sunlight.
These. together with other factors
have been tine chief causes.
But most of the states are either
now getting rid of these old pest
holes or are preparing to. Sing Sing
prison. breeding place for tubercu-
Iosis. will soon be memory. Its sue
cessor, built out in the country, will
contain when fully completed every
facility for sunshine. as pure air as Is
possible in prison. healthy work
shops and sanitary and disinfecting
apparatus.
The modern plan is to construct ppis
ons with numerous Outstretching
wings. so that every cell can be- i'ehe--
trated by sunshine. Illinois. Minneso.
ta Oklahoma and many other states
are adopting this plan. The federal
prisons also are now looked upon as
relics Many of them. such us Lcaven-
worth. where two prisoners often bunk
in single cell. are not now regarded
as anything more than makeshifts
pending the erection in the near fu
turc Of modern institutions.
Prisoners Given a Chance.
Fourteen years ago a few states be-
gan passing "indeterminate sentence"
laws. Indiana was one of the FIRST. and
the act passed by its Legislature may
be taken as an example Of the new
method. The effect of this law was
to take away from courts and juries
all power Of pronouncing arbitrary
sentences, except in cases of treason
and of murder in the first or second
degree; otherwise the authority of
courts was confined to giving the Fin
determinate sentence"
The indiscriminate mixing of prison
ers was abolished. The law provided
that those between the ages Of sixteen
and thirty upon whom the "indetermi-
nate sentence" was passed were to be
sentenced to the custody Of the trus-
tees Of the reformatory. Prisoners
over thirty years of age wer" to be
sentenced to the state prison.
In New York. Massachusetts, lndi
ana. Illinois. Michigan and many other
states a probation and parole system
has also been established Instead Of
being harsh punitive instruments. de-
void Of mercy or consideration. courts
and prisons now have largely become
corrective institutions
One of the greatest reforms has been
the establishment of children's courts
and the adoption Of Il basic principle
Of law that no child under sixteen
years of age shall be considered or
treated as criminal and that no
child under that age shall be arrested.
indicted. convicted, imprisoned or pun
isICd us Il criminal.
This is Il tremendous progression
over fifteen years ago. when it was
not IN un' ommOn occurrence to find
children of thirteen and fourtct years
serving sentences in prison.