Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-07-19
THE COUNTRY HOME
BY MRS. w. H. FELTON,

throughout the state" This is the
case that is printed in a report COW
er1ng sixteen pages-and which paid
the public printer handsome sum
without doubt. The reform school
established in Milledgeville is in
working order, and prepared, accord
ing to its charter, for juvenile Of
tenders, and while the sheriff and
the reluctant ordinary might have
sent the twelve-year-old thief to
Milledgeville for as little expense as
to pay his feed in jail-the fact re-
mains that the state had already
prepared location and supposed to
be in working order. God forbid that
any person with the instincts of
human, should refuse to give needful
attention to youthful degenerate
at the age of twelve! Manifestly he
will not go at large. Here was a
plain case of rigid discipline needed
or no reform school can find its
proper inmates-in a Georgia COM
munity. The reform school should
give needful attention to just such
cases-or our reform school is mani
testify no good.
If this welfare board is to take
over the degenartion of $50 counties,
every one of which counties has a
court, sheriff, ordinary and grand
jury, and each county has access to
the Reform school in Milledgeville,
pray tell us, how are we to bear the
additional expense of the welfare
board in the state of Georgia? Four
incumbents, during nine months Of
the year, soaked up $4,000 in sal
aries alone. Dear readers of the
Country Home column, it is not ap-
parent that. such legislation needs
prompt revision. This poor, little
boy is to be pitied, but also blamed,
and he needs correction, not petting,
in his evil life. His one chance in
life is to be confined to penal in
stitution and made to obey the rules
Of the same, to remind him every
day that he cannot commit crime and
go unpublished. The Reform school
is already established. 1t is likely
imperfect. Make it what it ought to
be or abolish it and substitute some
thing better.
we have the state penitentiary for
adult and veteran criminals. Many
| of them are life termers. These
| hardened criminals will live out their
| lives without any hope of reform.
| They must be kept apart for obvious
| reasons.
The Reform school was established
to care for juvenile offenders, as we
! all know, and it was a merc1tul ef-
fort, or was so intended to be. 1t
is fully equipped as to managers
| teachers, attendants, guards ana doc
| tors. 1t should be managed by eapa-
| Bile and humane officials. There
should be every opportunity for the
| education Of these small criminals,
and I am assured there is no stint
Of funds and no real opposition to
the states humane effort to reform
these unhappy children. When a
minor is convicted of a crime he
should be handled in this Reform
school, and if it does not do its full
duty. try again for better managers.
The apparent impossibility to at
tempt to set up a separate welfare
criminal board, with no authority to
administer, and which can only ad-
wise in the last extremity, should in
dictate new methods, within the exist
ing Reform school.
The women of Georgia are justly
indignant that so little attention is
given to the care of young criminals
by the courts and sheriffS. The 1u-
dietary is equally authoritative, with
the legislative and executive.
When a supposed criminal is ar,
rested, young or old, prompt trlal
should be called for and every county
should have some part of its common
Jail set apart, where the innocent
can be protected, until proven guilty.
and where young offenders can be
safely and humanely cared for until
they are sent to the Reform school
already established and supported by
the taxpayers, at enormous expense
The la VITO examine into all such
reform schools, private prisons, etc,
IS a good one. 1t IS likewise a neces-
sity in free government. If the
courts and the reform schools would
do their sworn duty they would in
thems be the best welfare
boards that any state could control.