New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-08-09
Prison Commission Sees
Success for Osborne

DR.. +. Stage Within, chairman of the
executive committee of the National
Commission on Prisons and Prison
Labor, last night issued the following:
At the present crisis in the affairs
of Sing Sing prison it seems worth
while TO point out the larger imper-
sonal issues which give this contro-
versy nationwide interest.
Society has adopted an elaborate sys
tenn of police, courts and correctional
and penal institutions. designed to So
cure protection against lawless ele-
ments. This system is each year turn
ing out many thousands of men who
return to the free life of the com
munity This whole system is effec
tive in the protection of society only
in that measure that the graduates of
the system return to the free life with
an incentive, determination and oppor-
tunity TO become useful citizens.
The work Of Warden Thomas Mott
Osborne in Sing Sing is no isolated eX
pertinent and no one-man product II
is wholly in line with the most ad
vanced authoritative educational prac-
tice. At the same time. Frederick
Hoffman, former president of the
American Statistical Association, has
pointed out that the unique contrbu
tion of recent years in prison reform Is
that accurate knowledge of the work
ings OF the mind of the man behind
bars which has been secured through
the personal relationship established
with prisoners by Warden Osborne.
We know and we have long krogn
that the result OF the prevailing prison
system is to break the health and
spirits of prisoners and TO destroy ir-
rctrievably their decent relationships
with their fellow men. Even more,
prisoners who have been subjected to
the traditional methods often 20 back
10 freedom with a positive enmity tow
ard the community. This failure of
the old system is admitted 1t should
make welcome any honest attempt to
frd something better.
But the Importance Of the present
experiment in Sing Sing is not a mat
ter Of general presumption. The work
has progressed for eight months in
Sing Sing and was begun in Auburn
eighteen months ago. At the end of
this reasonably long period there is
much positive evidence Of success and
there are no charges of failure which
would really discount the experiment
even if they were proved. The change
both physical and mental in the pr.s-
On population is marked by every Wis
itor and most marked by those who
thoroughly knew the conditions which
prevailed in Sing Sing before Janu-
airy /.
The number of escapes is actually
less than the average for similar
period during the last ten years, and
the attitude of the mass of the p,is-
cners toward escape has been abso-
lutely reversed. The output of work
has positively increased, although as
yet the prison management is not able
to offer any Of those incentives which
normal men are accustomed 10 in their
work Of every day. Insanity has fallen
on about 30 per cent. These facts are
mere surface indications of a change
IN the methods Of discipline and in the
attitude of the men toward the pri ION
and toward the society which holds
them prisoners. The undertaking in
government las made radically for
improved discipline in every particular,
from the smuggling of drugs to assault
and battery by prisoner upon prisoner.
While the descriptions of the results
IN sing Sing have been more or less
Picturesque, it is literally true that
warden Osborne is merely CARRYING
INTO effect with remarkable patience,
courage and insight into human nature
the measures which are regarded as
obvious IN long established institu-
uons, such as the School Community
Centro and School City, the George
Junior Republic, the Organic School
and. in fact, the schools of Gary, Ind.
through carrying over these accepted
principles of education into the field of
prison reform Warden Osborne is per-
forming a momentous service TO prison
reform IN America and throughout the
world
Obviously the Sing Sing experiment
IS not complete and cannot have been
perfect. There have been failures in
detail. The dominant ideal of the new
experiment has been reversed in some
minor particulars. Second and third
term prisoners. life prisoners, habitues
OF drugs. could not have been expected
to thoroughly adjust themselves TO so
radical change of discipline and Of
lie. except gradually and with occa-
Slonal individual rolapses. But 1t is
wrong and absurd TO judge momen-
tous experiment, so fraught with i'm
portance to society. solely in terms of
minor failures. alleged or real.
Signed Henry De Forest Baldwin.
George Gordon Battle, Walston Hill
brown, William Hamlin Childs, John
Collier, John Dewey. James C.. Egbert.
Robert Erskine Ely. Jerome D. Greene,
Frederick 4. Goetze. Adolph Lewisohn,
samuel McCune Lindsay, Ben Lindsey,
Coils Lovely. John j. Manning. Joseph
VI. Price. Edward J Wheeler, +. Stage