Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-07-24
CRIME CONDITIONS
IN GOTHAM STUDIED
so Per Cent of Welfare Island
Inmates Physically or Men,
tally IncapaCitated.
nY IEMUEL F. PARTON.

Special Dispatch TO The Star.
NEW YORK. July 24-In making
ia first tentative move toward the
establishment of q crime laboratory,
somewhat similar to that maintained
by Chicago, the City Of New York, has
revealed shocking conditions under the
largest and most expensive prison
system IN the world.
As State officials yesterday begun an
investigation to learn the causes OF the
uprising of 1900 criminals at Clinton
Prison at Dannemora, the city was
awakened to the need of a thorough
study of conditions in its own penal
institutions.
Sixty per cent of the 10000 prisoners,
sent to the penitentiary on Welfare
Island last year, were either physically
or mentally incapacitated. There were
3,443 prisoners serving their second
term and 1,587 serving their third term,
with the figures ranging downward to
four prisoners serving their .flfty-tourth
to their Sixty-f1fth terms.
The prison next highest in the pro-
portion of diseased and insane is the
Delaware State Prison, with per-
centage of IS. Other prisons in the
United States range around and 5
per cent. The disparity between this
percentage and the so per cent in New
York tells the story of using jailS for
dumping grounds for the obviously in
sane and incompetent. with no scientific
or humane segregation and with no
facilities for curative treatment.
Affections Classified.
Institutions records for 1923 show
penitentiary sentences for 1869 con-
genital alcoholics, 1856 drug addicts,
276 cripples, 317 persons of unsound
mind, 146 suffering from pulmonary
tuberculosis, 80 blind. 10 deaf and
dumb, SO epileptics, 500 suffering from
abrasions and Commissions, 337 cases OF
senility, and sufferers from half dozen
other Affections, some of them con-
genital and obviously resistant to any
such correctives as Jail sentences. So
far as available records show, Welfare
Island is the only prison where the
deaf, dumb and blind, dipsomaniacs,
drug addictS and crippleS are sent.
According to statistics compiled by
Joseph Pulling Fishman of the depart
ment of correction, more than $4,000
men and women go to jail in New York
City each year for 10 days or less and
approximately 10000 for three days and
less. In 1928 per cent of the 1886
men sentenced for definite and in
definite terms in New York City had
served five terms or more. These rec
ords covered only the terms served IN
New York City, leaving open the pos
sibility, and In many cases the GER
tatnty, that they had served additional
terms IN outside prisons.
Lacks Hospital Facilities.
While the lack of segregation appears
as a basic cause, the State lacks ade-
uuate hospital facilities, with its few
institutions overcrowded and insult
-. 81 ,,I Iayr it,rr
no place to send these unfortunates, it
has become routine court procedure to
sentence them to the penitentiarv
where, az shown by the above figures,
some of the recidivists go back as many
as IS times.
Richard G. Patterson, tr., commits
sioner Of corrections, has appealed to
the city for an appropriation of s153,-
900 to form a committee OF expert
psychiatr1Sts and psychologists to begin
a study upon which a systematic segre-
cation can be based, with the objective
of providing curative and preventive as
well as punitive facilities. This has
been done for Is years in Chicago, with
highly satisfactory results, in the
psyctopathic laboratory of the Munic-
ipal Court under DR.. William j. Hick-
SON This laboratory has examined ap-
proximately 10000 criminals and de-
veloped q system of diagnosis of con-
genital crin1inality, which, in many
cases, has enabled the psychopathol-
ogiStS to detect ir1curable criminal
accurately the kinds of crimes which
would be committed in later years.
Mr.. Patterson's report to Mayor
Walker was signed by Dr. John M.
O'Connor, medical director of the de-
partment of correction; DR.. Perry