The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-04-19
PRISON REFORM

To the Editor of tine Age-Herald
 Under the caption "The Next Step in
 Prison Reform there appears in the
 March number of the Century Magazine
 an article written by MT Richard Barry
 author of New Hope for the Convict"
 The article begins with the following
 strong and very suggestive statement:
 The United States contains the best and the worst prisons in the world. The | best, though excelently managed and
 with admirable physical equipment are
 handicapped by our collective social ig-
 norance of the criminal. which is mired
 in fear The worst are horrible in equip
 ment, brutal in management and exist
 in a morass of social terror. We are 1 only at the dawn of the new era: noon, l though inevitable, is yet to come" l MT. Barry then refers to the days of | the dark cell" the bat Cor flogging whip and other methods of punishment, | all of which may have served in some
 measure, to keep the criminal in subjec-
 tion but more insubordinate in spirit. He l adds:
 l Meanwhile the fundamental causes that
 produce the mental attitude in a convict which makes necessary either a dark cell l or bat are ignored. From them (the | prisonsl the old revolting forms of brutal l ity have been stripped, but nothing has
 been devised to take their places | MT. Barry, referring to the usual meth 1 ods that have been used to control the i criminal, says:
 | These methods of treatment. after all simmer down to 0 personal equation: "A | penitentiary is only the frightened shadow I of the warden. He has in many ways | a curiously despotic power over the in- 1 mates. He can make life hideous for the ! unfortunates under him, or he can im- measurably tighten their burdens. Many of the new reforms are the in- spiration of individual wardens. Wonder | full in it's way is each of these improve ments.
 ''Yet beyond the honor system and the 1 golden rule and free speech for convicts {! lies the necessity for certain basic and l fundamental changes in our convict sys- tenn"
 '.Doubtless," says MT. Barry, .the worst element in our convict system today is contract labor. A tremendous change has occurred in that. also in the last decade l yet at the beginning of 1914 there are still 24 states that sell the labor of their convicts to contractors who have no ] moral or human interest in their sorry 1 slaves.
 MT. Barry states that "only seven l years ago he spent three months in | the turpentine convict camps of Flor l ida and Alabama and there secured definite proof the fact that men were being hired in lots like slaves at an average cost of II cents when free | labor brought Sl to $1.25 day. l In the intervening seven years the force of public opinion has largely changed the condition in those two states, although the laws providing for contract labor have still to be abol- ished. The whip, however, has been abolished and the price of contract la : Dor has advanced from Il to 30 cents l a day"
 l l wish to mention one more step
 taken in advance. This is in the Min nesota state prison at Saltwater. They l have built a new cell block at a cost
 of over $3,00O,000 and satisfies every | advanced idea of prison construction. No more than one prisoner is permitted
 in a cell" This prison was established
 for the confinement and reforma tion
 of convicts
 1 Recently the German government sent four commissioners to this country
 to study our psychological institutions,
 and at Saltwater they found. so they said, the best prison either in Europe
 or America
 "The manufacture of binder twine in
 the Minnesota prison is so we'll man aged that it entirely supports the prison and earns enough more to give | every convict a small daily wage, l though it is only 9 cents a day. | At this point the writer, MT. Barry
 remarks: Now then. we come to the
 very core of this matter of prison re- form-its economies" He adds: "No matter how correct. how humane the moral attitude of the prison manage ment toward the prisoner. noth- ing permanent can be accomplished un less his economical relation to his fel
 lows is founded on justice that is broader than the present legality"
 And from this platform we ascend to the
 future. for the prison reform of the com
 ing decade will be concerned very largely
 with economies.
 This new light. the light of the fu-
 ture, Is merely an economic recognition
 of the moral truth which has already
 been recognized: namely. that prisons
 exist for the reformation, not for the | punishment of criminals. Therefore though the state possesses an accurately definite right to limit, to confine, and tt | direct both the labor and the pay of a | convict, it has no right to deprive hin | absolutely of either. If he is not treat | ed as ar independent economic unit whil,
 in prison, how can the state expect hin
 to become an independent economic uni | when he leaves the prison?'
 Says MT. Barry: We have been charg ing head-on into this problem, and mak ing little progress. Perhaps a solution i: coming from an angle. Take such ar