The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1911-06-08
NOW METHODS FOR
PETTY OFFENDERS
Are Advocated by DR.. Wines
Before National Chari-
ties Convention.

Boston. June s.-A complete revolu-
ton in the treatment of misdemean-
ants and petty offenders throughout
the United States was proposed by DR..
Frederick Howard Wines, statistician
of the board of administration of state
institutions of Illinois at the session
of the national conference of charities
and correction here.
DR.. Wines characterized the average
county or municipal Jail in this coun-
try as school for crime, cesspool
of moral contagion, a propagatinng
house of criminality, feeder for the
penitentiary, a public nuisance and
disgrace of modern civilization. The
public Indifference to the situation he
attributed TO ignorance. THE county
officials" he said, do not know what
Jail should be and the people do
not know what their jails really are.
In plain Anglo-Saxon, the truth is that
wherever there exists local graft and
political dishonesty the county prison
is it's center and it's stronghold. The
sheriff or the jailer makes a personal
profit from the crime by charging
per diem for board for prisoners and
by the receipt of fees for locking and
unlocking the Jail doors. That profit
is live wire No local politician, pos
sibly no member of the legislature or
even of the state administration dares
monkey with it.
Have Won tne Fight.
I'VE have substantially won the
fight for the reformatory state prison
and the indeterminare sentence be-
cause we concentrated our fire upon
vulnerable point and made every shot
tell. In attacking the county Jail sys-
tenn we have pursued the opposite pol
! icy. We have addressed our argu-
ments and remonstrances to the coun-
ty authorities, of whom there are in
round numbers, $50 sets, instead of
TO the legislative bodies, of which
there are less than so. We have plead
ed for new jails, better jails, when we
should have demanded their replace
ment by prisons owned and controlled
by the state and their emancipation
from local political control with it's
petty and selfish interests.
There was a time when local con-
troll was necessary and proper but
THAT was long ago. Today the county
prison is an anachronism. We i'm
ported with other institutions from
England, but conservative England
has outgrown it and dates the dawn of
| it's regenerate prison system from the
year of it's abolition.
10 No Good Reason.
There is no good and sufficient rea.
son why the state which enacts a
criminal code with it's definition of
crime. its prohibitions and its penal
ties should assume the custody and
care of the man committed to prison
and refuse to recognize it's RESPONSE
bility for the man sentenced for three
months, abandoning him to the hap
hazard mercies of the inferior juris-
diction which is certainly ignorant,
often brutal and sometimes dishonest
1t is not the majesty of the county
but that of the state which calls for
vindication. The supervision Of
crime. let it take what form it may, is
the business of the state. The state
should name, and it should have exclu-
sive authority over the executive
agents to whom it entrusts the dis
charge of this supreme governmental
function.
THE one hope of enlightened pro-
gress in dealing with the problem of
crime is the overthrow of the county
Jail system. To this end we must d.
rect our energy. With the state once
in command, there can be no ques-
ton but it will And way to right the
wrong and remedy the evils which in.
here in the present organization and
management of minor prisons"