The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1929-03-30
BLAME FOR PRISON
FAILURE is PLACED
ATSOCIETY'S DOOR
ConviCts' PitifuI Pleas for
Liberty Before Parole
Board Bare Tragedy.
BY BOYD GURLEY
Editor The Times

MICHIGAN CITY, Ind, March
30.-PrsonerS do not reform. They
come back again and again. They
stutter through life. They start in
the reformatorieS and they end in
penitentiaries. And they stay in the
prison cells.
That was the impression that
came inevitably after listening to
the pitiful pleas of the pitiable
convicts whose minimum terms of
sentence had expired, appearing
Friday night before the parole
board. All wanted liberty.
Governor Leslie sat with the
prison board as the parade of con-
victs came to repeat again the story
of their misfortunes and ask for
just another chance.
The one striking fact that pre-
sented itself was that of the ninety
seven prisoners whose minimum
terms had expired and who were
theoretically possible applicants for
release on parole, there were eighty
who had started in either other
prisons or in reformatorieS.
It was a monotonouS story, first
the reformatory, then the farm,
then the penitentiary. There were
those whose list of offenses con-
tained almost a directory of peni-
tentiaries. There we're some for
whom other warrants we're awaiting
at the doors of the big house if they
should be released.
The prison system educates IN
crime, but there is an exception to
criminals. They were the pro!libi-
ton offenders and they fall easily
into two classes. There were foreign
ers who could hardly speak the
language and could not understand
that the selling of alcohol might be
a crime.
The rest we're farmers. They were
poor, they we're hungry. They had
planted stills where once they
planted corn. They were na1d
pressed. They we're, of course, ignor-
ant. But they we're the victims Of
necessity, men who had families and
who made whisky when they could
not sell pork.
Set aside, too, the sex cases There
was sickening parade of sucn Oh
tenders, and in every case the lin
inal was most patiently weak mind
ed, victim of arrested development,
with the mind of a boy. They we're
cases for doctors, not for prison
boards. They needed treatment and
supervision.
To release them was most ap-
parently to menace society. They
were the products of society.
So apparent was this true that
in one case where the offender
offered as the basis of his release
that he intended to marry the
feeble-minded girl who had been
the partner of his offense, M. E.
Foley turned his sorrowfti1 eyes
away from the scene and most hope
lessly shouted, send him back, we
want no breed of feeble-minded to
prey upon society. The result will
be more than horrible"
1t may be said, without either
apology or indictment, that it is
Foley who is the ard-boiled mem
Der Of the board. It may be his
training as a lawyer. He frequently
was overruled by vote of John
Norman and Roy Denniston, who
protested that men must have a
chance.
The humanitarians would ap-
plaud the courage of Denniston and
Norman in opposing the invectives
of Edley. They asked, again and
again, that some poor devil who,
seemed hopeless be given again that
last chance against hope.
Not pleasant picture. It was
confession. The prison system had
failed. He had a retort and de-
fense that may be worth thinking
about
"You say that prisons have
failed. 1t may be true. Some one
else failed first. You say that our
convicts graduated from reforma-
tories. I tell you that they first
came from homes. The home failed.
They went to church The church
failed. They went to a school. The
school failed. We got them. Why
say that We failed?" queries Den
niSton.
Perhaps we would better agree
with Denniston that-society failed.