Arizona republican., 1915-10-10
CRIME CAUSES ARE OUTSIDE
 OUR PRISONS
Joseph P. Byers Says Penal Institutions Are Hospitals for Those Who Have Shown Symptoms of Grim inal Character
ASSOCIATED PRESS DISPATCH

ASSOCIATED PRESS DISPATCH1 OAKLAND, Cal, Oct 9.-To pre- vent crime, stop the production of criminals and abolish prisons were
 given as the final objects of Prison
 Reform in an address which John B.
 Byers of Philadelphia, president of
 the American Prison Association, de-
 livered at the opening of the conven-
 tion of the organization here today.
 "The causes of crime lie outside our
 penal and correctional institutions"
 he said. Just as boils on the body
 are indications of disorders in the
 blood, so are these institutions symp-
 toms of disease in the body, polite.
 Our prisons and reformatories are, if
 you please, hospitals for the care and treatment of those who through crim
 inal conduct have shown symptoms
 of criminal character
 But symptoms are good only for dia gnosis If we stop here we shall never effect a cure We shall have to go on passing new laws and devis- ing new penalties as long as we shut our eyes to the causes that make laws and penalties and institutions necessary. The causes of crime exist, for the most part outside these insti- tutions and it is on the outside that we must apply the real remedies"
 President Byers discussed the ex- tent to which feeble mindedness com plicates the problem of crime pre- vention and stated that the strong hold of crime in the United States is defended by a standing army of not less than 4OOOOO This figure, he explained. was obtained by an analysis of United States census figures for 1910 and he reached the conclusion that F per cent of the total are sub-normal mentally. He argued that feeble minded criminals should never be sentenced to inn prisonment but committed to per manent custody in special institutions because the presence of such sub norma! persons in penitentiaries works harm both to them and to so- ciety
 ITO submit them to the test of the honor system or to apply to them the principle of self government tends inevitably to discredit the one and make ridiculous the other he added. and then pointed out that ac- cording to figures compiled in Massa chusetts 57.6 per cent of the criminals in that state were "repeaters" and that this class alone committed 91 per cent of ~the crimes for which pun ishments were inflicted.
 President Byers reviewed the his tory of prison reform movements, pointing out particulars in which he | thought progress had been recorded. Of the shortcomings of the present system he said in part:
 We are still experimenting with prison labor with some fair hope that in the State Use Plan we have found a rational substitute for Contract Labor. We have proven beyond any question that prisoners may be safe ly and profitably employed outside the prison walls. but that this is not true of all prisoners.
 We have not yet recognized the principle of indemnification by the state for wrongful imprisonment.
 'We have gone all too slow in re- quiring parents to pay for the whole i or partial support of their delinquent children.
 We are still guilty of the folly of | punishing chronic misdemea nants by | repeated short sentences"
 After enumera ting. social influences | working to prevent crime he suggest l ed that a further step be the aboli- 1 ton of county jails and the substitu- 1 ton therefor of houses of detention | in each county. but under state con- | trol. County jails he said had been | found guilty as unsanitary, immoral, l crime breeders" In con | clusion he said:
 We have been spending our eff l forts very largely to improve the phy- l sical and mental Let us hope t.-St l we shall finally reach up and into the l moral and spiritual. which is the l final step in all our work, to re-create l in man not only the image but the 1 attributes of his Maker"