New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1911-05-14
Mr. Baldwin Says Many Petty Offenders Would Be I'm
proved by the First and Grosser Ones Would
Be Made Harmless by the Second.

than sending a boy TO the reform school.
II would leave plenty Of room for the pro-
baton officer. He could supplement the
whipping. but his work. believe snoulo
not displace II altogether.
Putting the wrongdoer in confinement
TO be supported at public expense, after
applying the fruits, so far as they may 60
Of his labor in Jail. is very costly kind OF
punishment for the state. II was much
cheaper TO dispose OF him as they did
hundred years ago. They generally fined
or hogged him and let him go. unless II was
a states prison offence Very few were
sentenced TO confinement in Jail. In 1880
we abolished the whipping post Before
that our courts had sent only about nifty
TO jail each year. The next year. 1881.
there were ninety-two commitments, and
five years later they had risen to 80.
Virginia q few years ago Qss0 reverted
TO the old-fashoned plan by statute,
authorizing whipping 10 be substituted
for fine and Imprisonment. at discretion OF
, the court, as the sentence upon conviction
for crime Of any boy under sixteen years
OF age. provided tho consent OF his parent
or guardian be first given.
'It has been with Americans a national
habit for sixty years TO punish all or
binary crimes by imprisonment and i'm
prisonnent only. II has come TO seem to
ia the natural way Of treating convicts
Is II. indeed, thus? Or may this national
belief be a bit Of provinciallsm. due to an
,naaeouate consideration Of tho lessons to
be learned IN other lands or from other
times2
I'm all other previous centuries the
criminal played q temporary and insight
Acant part IN the ADMINISTRATOR OF
criminal Justice. In nine cases out or ten'
in ninety-nine ca .es out Of hundred. the
man convicted Of any OF the common
crimes was dismissed. after paying mo
or being subtected 10 some form or BODILY
suffering or social degradation. The suo-
stitution Of imprisonment FOR al other
forms OF corporal punishment mas IN
volved the modern state In two great eVhH'
1t has added enormously TO It's annual out
goes and IL has taken thousands OF peopio
from their natural surroundings ana OPP
portunties for profitable industry and smut
them I'D in an artificial and unnatural en-
vironment. where they are almost always
in q moral atmosphere that is foul ana
COMMUNICATING.
lone OF the persons most closely con-
nected with the State Reform School OF
Connecticut stated year or two ago mat
of the boys kept in the principal building
of the institution not one. as far as they
could discover, led an honest life after his
release. A better showing is made by tho
statistics put forward by the Elmira Re-
formstory but | do not hesitate 10 avow
my conviction that whipping would often
furnish a mode OF punishment far more
appropriate than fine or imprisonment for
Young offenders and for some minor Of
fences by full grown men. IL might also
he as useful a substitute for or addition to
imprisonment for certain graver crimes.
.eWhile holding criminal terms of the Su-
nerior Court have more than once had
occasion to sentence culprits to confinement