New Britain herald., 1915-02-20
WHAT OTHERS SAY
Views on all sides of timely questions as discussed in ex- changes that come to Herald office.
Untried Suspects in Our Jaiis,
(New London Day.)

(NeW London Day.)
 There is q country wide agitation
 for the abandonment of the jail for the reformatory farm and industrial colony-oftener by far the farm than the colony It would scarcely seem as if much argument were necessary to establish the superiority of q gen uine reformative system for m!sGe- meanants over a system of punatiye imprisonment. The herding of al sorts of infractors within the confined spaces of a jail, forcing the compan- 1onship of the degenerate and vicious upon the merely occasionally weak or
 unduly eXuberant and that of the old offender upon questionable youth-theSe are evils so patent, in- justices so obvious. that it will prob ably be no great length of time, rela- lively speaking, before the state, of Connecticut awakens to the necessity of adopting a more scientific, a more common sense, method Of treating its minor offenders. The grim county
 jail, which has existed with compara- lively little improvements in it's in- cidentals and none at all in it's prin-
 ciple ever since we were d state, is one of the outworn things that is on
 it's way to the scrap heap.
 But since Connecticut is given by
 confirmed habit to feeling her way slowly toward any reform whatsoever, to waiting for other states to do the experim enting, it will probably be considerable number of years still be- fore county farms shall have replaced
 county jails. And in the meantime
 the conduct of the jails will be, as 1t has always been, worth observing.
 Perhaps it would be a good idea if we paid a little more attention to sec ing that they are run, for the rest or the period of their duration, approM- mately according to the ethics of the twentieth century and less according
 to the ignorance of the fifteenth. ConspicuousIy are Connecticut jails, some of them at least medieval in their systems for the treatment of suspected persons held for trial There is a total failure to recognize the fact that the innocence of such detained person is presumed until he has been convicted by a trial court; l that a prisoner held for trial is not | at all in the position of a prisoner l incarcerated for punishment. In the 1 vast majority of cases he is in jail
 not actually for any offense, but sim 1 ply because be is unable to provide 1 bail bond. He is held merely to in- l sure his presence in court on the day 1 of trial
 | Tn view of this underlying principle l of the detention of unconvicted per l sons it would be interesting to know, 1 authoritatively, from the New Lon- 1 don county commissioners whether it
 is true that prisoners, pending trial i closely confined to cells; that they are 1 denied reading matter and writing | material; that they are not permitted 1 the use of tobacco, though constitu-
 tional habitues; that for six days out l of seven they are held incommuni- l cado, even the members of their fam I fly not being permitted to visit them oftener than once week; that they 1 are treated, as a matter of fact, con-
 siderably worse than convicts in a ! penitentiary, who at least have oc-
 cupation and are allowed lights in
 their cells and the privileges of read l ing and writing. It may be that such reports as
 have come to us of the system for de-
 tained suspects are exaggerated. It
 is to be hoped so. But unless these i reports arc enormously overstated,
 the whole attitude of New London 1 county toward unconvicted jail pris- l oners is utterly mstaking and predi-
 cated on complete failure to differ
 entiate between one who has been 1 tried and found guilty and one who | has not yet been tried at all.