Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1922-12-04
PRISON BARBARISM

NV Lh1 le" ScdTe' ds TeGuibriy de 'hc
~ call Of general elections or reported
failures Of the peach crop, the country is
brought face 10 face with Jail scandal
and all its dreary and discouraging impli.
| cations. Tho disclosures Of organized in.
humanity in the administration Of the
County Prison at Holmesburg, directed by
this newspaper. ft properly into o long
series that reflects discredit not only on the
political system that Is the root of the
trouble, but upon the whole order Of con.
temporary society.
The men who manage jails are IN many
cases the favorites Of tenth or eleventh rate
political Job hunters, and therefore they
are not fitted BY temperament, training or
mental equipment to exercise boundless au-
thority in closed communities Of helpless and
inarticulate men and women. Society keeps
no adequate check upon them. Prison in
spectors are notorously lax and Grand
Juries are too often bored and in hurry,
since few men are so constituted as to be
able to feel genuine concern for individuals
marked as outcasts by the community.
For the moment, in contemplating the
repetition at Holmesburg OF horrors similar
TO those reported on previous occasions from
Sing Sing, Auburn and jails in New Jersey
and elsewhere, subter considerations Of Il
humanitarian trend may be set aside. The
brutal fact is that Philadelphia. like many
another American community, IS maintain
Ing at great expense an elaborate plant for
| the quantity production Of mental, moral
and physical invalids who must emerge in
thc course OF time to take vengeance Of one
| sort or another against rhe society whose
| neglect and ignorance and lack of humane
| foresight defeated whatever hopes they may
have had for the future. They will appear
as emblttered criminals To worry the police
II they do not become broken spirited and
| physically disabled charges on public charity.
The problem Of the man or woman in jail.
! though it has been elaborately discussed
under pseudo. scientific headings, has never
| approached solution within the bounds OF
| decent or toerable theory. Il IS approached
most frequently from the viewpoint OF peo-
| pie who insist that oil convicts ought to be
"ruthlessly punished" and who talk about
! the luxury Of modern jails. Such people
| talk rather wildly out Of the deeps Of mis-
| understanding. They seldom stop to remem.
| Der that no two convicts are ever alike. Nor
| do they trouble themselves 20 remember that
! eight crimes out Of every ton may be traced
| to original causes In poverty or ignorance
things which are in themselves crimes Of
| which a rational society would not be guilty.
Jn!s fail and become d,sgraceful because
! Of the Intellectual inadequacy OF the admin
| !strative system. Life in isolation behind
! prison walls Is trying experience even
for the jailers. It often seems as if the men
| in charge of prisons looked upon their
| charges with active and rengeful hatred.
| Such men, taken unaware, often reveal
| symptoms OF the spiritual pervers!on and the
| taste for deliberate cruelty that come sooner
! or later TO every petty tyrant OF unQues-
toned authority.
Thus the mood that rules !n many unin.
resigated American jails and reformatories
Ia often reminiscent Of that which prevails
among white tyran.s on the Congo. Give
| ohsolute power to an ignoran. man and put
others at his mercy, and let him alone and
~. him off from the SOLDERING effects Of day.
| light. and queer things are likely to happen
70 him. Now and then man Of peculiar
sensitiyeness will happen along to take
charge of a jail, and then instead of an
iniouitous and destructive place Of torment,
we have an institution capable OF exertins
disciplinary influence even while II does the
immeasurably valuable work Of resslvaging
much of the wrecked or damaged humanity
,hat flows through IL. Such men Gre hard
to find.
| Naturally, a jail IS place Of punishment.
But II should not be a place Of torture.
Nor should it be an institution so ordered as
to carry TO completion the moral breakdown
of inmates who later are turned out penni-
less against the community.
What will be done about IIolmesourg It
IA hard to say. Responsibility for the
shocking abuses of the PRISONS system may
| he traced in a straight line from the admin
istration TO the prison inspectors, and from
the prison inspectors 10 the Judges who
name them, and from the Judges to the
community itself. The place Is now gen
Grating plant for criminal instinct, and as
such It must be viewed.