Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1911-12-26

it. The following communication is
at hand:
II is to be hoped that the people OF
Maine will not forget how much they
need an institution where delinquent
girls and women can be sent for care
and correction. Social observers are
all agreed that these women ought not
to remain on the street; but they are
also agreed that our jails and prisons
are not the place TO send them. Ihese
institutions designed for different
class of offenders do not provide for
these women the care that they need.
Hence many judges rather than send
them there, permit them TO go free.
But their freedom is not blessing
either to themselves or to others.
The great need is for a reformatory
where these young women can be sent
and taught q useful occupation, ana
the deeper lessons of self respect ana
self control. In this connection the
following extract from an article by
the late Hon. Levi Turner is of inter-
est and Importance:
my impression is that one of the first
institutions which the State should es-
tablish is a reformatory Tor women
There is no place to which q Slrl or Wo-
man more than is years OF age, con-
victed of an offence, can be sent except
to Jail or to the State prison. Without
waiting for the building of a reformatory,
there should be provisions made in few
of our jails for such convicts, by having
a matron in constant attendance to take
charge and to control them, and all such
eonviets sent to some one OF these Jails
Such provisions, however, should only
be temporary as it would be in no sense
ADEQUATE In all of the cities of this
State. girls from 16 upward are repeated
ly before the courts for intoxication and
offences growing out of leading dissolute
lives Owing to their sex. they are nat
urally given short sentences to Jail
Their detention in Jail simply has the ef-
and when they are discharged
they forthwith return to repetition of
their former practices and so go on until
arrested and sentenced again. Many of
these cases, Seasonably taken in hand
and nationally treated in reformatory
would result in saving and restoring 10
society decent and useful women Moth
ing short of a reformatory treatment
will accomplish this
The following letter, written by q
lady of apparent thought and intell-
gence to a State official, puts the mat
ter foreefully:
81 wish to call your attention to the
fact that in our county the women serv-
ing sentence in the Jail have no oppor-
tunity whatever for exercise out of
1oors, or for getting fresh air
II have visited the Jail twice this sum-
mer and was greatly surprised to learn
this fact. The woman, in whom ] had
special interest las she had been in my
employ, serving a years sentence for a
theft in the mill. is a delicate
and when | saw her. in the ex-
treme heat of summer, close up under
the roof of a Jail, | thought she could
never live to serve her sentence. She has
been much under the doctors care and
now seems likely to come out alive when
she viii again come to me. Had there
been a yard, where she could have had
exercise and breathe pure
air. ] doubt not her health would have
oeen much. very much better.
INK. Surely no women, in our day,
should be shut out of Gods sunshine and
pure air, or from stepping foot on
mother Earth for whole year."
Funds were lacking to inaugurate
his needed institution at the last
session of the Legislature. VIII you
not use your influence that the work
may be undertaken when the Legisla-
tuIe meets again?
Maine Prison Association.