The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1930-10-22
Why Is Prison Reform So Slow in Coming,

Why are American prisons just about what they
were century ago? The last hundred years have
witnessed the advent of the steamboat railroad auto
mobile arplane. telephone telegraph wireless radio
ETC. Yet our gloomy prisons are what they were in
the age Of the stage coach and saiboat Why this
This question is discussed intellgently by Dr. Karl
Menninger author of the brilliant book "The Human
Mind" in an article in Plain Talk DR.. Menninger
holds that the criminal is the scapegoat who frees
us from Our own subconscious guilt.
It works this way: In childhood we are punished
and thus acquire guilt complex. This is repressed
and driven back into our subconscious mind because
it is not pleasant to think about BY what is known
as the process of projection" we help to free our
mind or conscience of this burden by thinking that
others are guilty ike ourselves.
BY Furnishing these Others we free our own mind
of its sense of guilt Psychiatriss into hundreds
of exaggerated cases of this common tendency in the
course Of their practice.
Convcts make the best of scapegoats. We resist
any proposal to make their punishment lighter or
more rational because to do so would interfere with
comforting process of self publication.
DR.. Menninger thus summarizes the process which
leads to our stubborn refusal to heed the scientific
demand for rational treatment of prisoners:
1.-THE one thing that the punishment of prisoners
does and does satisfactorily although very expensive
ly, is to crafty passion for revenge 1t graties
it comforts it gives pleasure and satisfaction and
even delight to the public 49,.
I'VE take out our feelings for the need of punish
ment on scapegoats of various kinds. The Jews
established the scapegoat several thousand years ago.
and very commendable plan this was For surely
it is much better to kill goat to turn sheep
loose in the desert than to beat child to death
to start a street brawl or lynch Negro.
But taking it out on criminals is by all odds the
most satisfactory method. :. The men in charge
of prisons, and the people entirely familiar with
criminals have denounced the present system for
long time but the public pays attention to them
It pays attention to them because it can not give
up the enormous satisfaction which it now getting
out Of what its more intelligent leaders deplore"
Prison reform, then makes little progress because
it is conscious and rational while the motives of
punishment unconscious and illogical Prison riots
are the protest against this unconscousIy motivated
savagery.
Prison riots express the intoIerableness of solu-
ton of the crime problem which extensively graties
unconscious feelings of guilt the part society
which consciously believes it wants protection.
What is needed is coldy calculated system for
segregatng and OBTAINING the socially impossible in
such way that riots not provoked nor money
wasted nor sadists gratifed the public endan-
gered, nor parole boards expected to do miracles"
We believe that Dr. Menninger has gone to the
bottom Of one of leading social problems of the
present day. In personal hygiene an explanation of
the cause of mental disorder often works wonders
in bringing about cure.
Will the same hold good of this social disease
the punishment-complex which relieves our sense
of guilt?