Evening star., 1934-03-25

be there. Thus envy and resentment
against what they think is discrimina-
tory treatment provide ready soil for
the sowing of the dragons teeth OF
rebellion.
Finally, there is the all-important
factor of the personality of the prison
officer His job is not a pleasant one.
In too many institutions it is filled by
discouraged and unqualified men, many
of them so badly underpaid that they
occasionally fall prey to the temptations
which beset them. We can provide tool
proof prisons with unscalable walls; we
can offer adequate educational, recrea-
tional and occupational opportunities.
But the presence of one crooked guard
in an institution will do much to impede
the reform or proper discipline of an
inmate population.
The important thing for us to de-
termine is whether these causes can be
eliminated and, if they can be elimi-
mated, whether we may hope for an
improved prison administration.
A GAIN emphasize that most of the
sensational riots in our American
prisons have been actively participated
in by few prisoners. In many riots it
was the leadership of adventurous
desperate and long sentenced men
which instigated the outbreak. Many
of these have been killed in the attempt
or received further punishment as
result. One would think that the fu-
tility of these demonstrations would be
borne in upon the prisoners; the fact
that this is not the case is evidence OF
the intensity of the motives behind
them.
Some one has said that these out
breaks are traceable to the American
mode of living AS matter of fact,
our English brethren attempted to
apologize for the recent disorders at the
Dartmoor Convict Prison by saying that
too many American motion pictures of
prison riots had been shown in Great
Britain 1t is significant that the imme-
date and remote causes are strikingly
similar to those attributed in our own
country. paragraph from the report
of the distinguished barrister who inves-
tigated this English prison riot is illumi-
mating:
II believe that the prisoners had no
substantial grievance and that such
grievances as they had would not have
led to any disorder unless few of the
dangerous prisoners, partly by their
power of leadership, partly by intimida-
tion, had played on the feelings and the
fears of others. In my view the belief
that Y. had been cruelty assaulted on
Sunday morning made a great many
men resentful who would otherwise have
been loyal
The responsibility for disturbance at
the Kingston Penitentiary in Ontario,
Canada, not long ago was at one time
laid at the door of several alleged Amer
lean convicts, but this has never been
satisfactorily proved.
We cannot overlook the Importance of
the method of housing prisoners. When
prisons were first used as a means of
punishment 130 years ago two types of
institutions were established. These
were exemplified by the Eastern Peni-
tentiary at Philadelphia, the prototype
of the so-called separate system, and
the Auburn or interior cell-block type.
American prisons have developed en-
tirely on the Auburn or congregate idea,
as opposed to the separate system. In
practically all of our prisons men work
together, eat in large dining room,
mill around the exercise yard by the
hundreds, go to church and the movies"