The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1913-10-17
Our Antique Prison System.

1t is to be hoped that the big prison confer
ence, held this week at Indianapolis, will sue
coed in getting the attention of the public to the
urgent need of revolutOnizing whole system
for dealing with sO-called criminals. If there Is
an antique, outgrown, widowed relic of the Dark
Ages in our midst it is surely the method we
use in treating law-breakers. Our entire penal
system is gigantic failure and a mOnstrOus
fraud.
And the real failure of penitentiarles is not
that they are cruel to their inmates. Cruelty
is, in ITSELF neither good bad. den
fist will make his best friend suffer, and so
will surgeon, but neither shocks humanitarian
sentiments Merely to give prisoners an easy
berth would work no marvels in reform.
Penitentiaries fail for two reasons, one of
which is that they are grossly maladministered
The average prison guard is himself usually next
door to a crook, and as little fitted for his work
as he would be for teaching school. When we
have shoe to repair, want suit OF clothes
made, we employ specialists; when have a
COW i'll or horse to break hunt for man
train and qualified. But when have thous
and moral crpples to care for, human beings
sick in mind or unbrohen in character, we pick
up the first man who comes along, don't demand
that he have any particular training, fitness, or
ability, put him in charge lock him up with them
and leave them all together
But the chief reason, the one all sufficient
reason for condemning present penal sys-
tenn hopelessly wrong, is that penitentiaries
fail to accomplish their purpose. Surely
ciety can have no interest in merely eXacting its
pound of flesh, in giving black eye for one
received in administering the lex talionis,
eye for an eye and tooth for tooth, it can
have only end in view in placing criminals
in jails and that is to cure them of their crimi-
nality.
To take the crime lust out Of mems souls is
the reason for any penal system. That is its
great purpose. For that citizens pay taxes,
erect great buildings, employ hundreds of war
dens, guards, ETC., etc. They engage army of
employees to criminals of their appetite for
crime. And with what results?
In almost every case, failure. Penitentiaries
do not cure men of crime; they make criminals
They do not lift the law-breaking lust from
mans heart they increase it. They do moth
ing to make him respect laws more or love his
land more, control himself better, or in any
way fit him to return to society able to take his
place among others. When he leaves the barred
cells it is with hatred in his soul, weakened
body, dulled mind. and dumb blind resent
ment against humanity, the futility and the
stupidity of his treatment
The young man who goes to Jail discovers it
a school for crime. Seasoned villains give him
long in the arts of the business, and
he leaves the institution more of criminal than
when he entered.
All of which is to say that after the public
has engaged set of men to cure criminals these
turn the criminals back to the public more
criminal than before That is the nub of the
whole matter and the reason for the widespread
popular demand for prison reform.
prison should be an institution in which a
should be trained educated and disciplined
for citizenship. 1t should make him respect
himself and his race. lift it will demonstrate to
him the beneficence of his country's laws, he will
leave respecting them. If it will make man of
him, society will be proud of what it has done for
him, and he will be proud of what he has been
able to do for himself, and the pride of the man
who has conquered himself will replace the
shame and disgrace of the jail-bird foredoomed
to failure