the resort of the regular "rounders," and for this class society should make some other provision. There ought, however, to be in every large community some place where the prisoner who needs temporary help or counsel may find it. There ought to be some place where the generous sentiment of the community can be extended to the prisoner. There should be no necessity for him to beg from door to door. A properly organized and supported prison association can furnish him shelter not in a prisoners' home and may give him the needed clothing or the needed meal. Its agent may find him employment. Sometime it is little that the discharged prisoner needs to tide him over, and there ought to be some place where that little can be found and given in a friendly, helpful way, and thus a prisoners' aid society may be an effective agency through which the humane sentiment of the community may be exerted. DISCUSSION ON SUPERVISION OF PAROLED AND DISCHARGED CONVICTS." The discussion was opened by Miss Katharine Bement Davis, Superintendent of the New York State Reformatory for Women at Bedford. Miss DAVIS. The institution which I represent is so new that I have had great hesitancy in taking part in this discussion because, of course, we have nothing to show which is drawn from the experience of our present work. It is only because my theoretical work and my work along other lines has brought me into. touch with the question that I venture to say anything at all upon it. Mr. Barrows has spoken so ably of the parole work for men that, although I know it is the duty of the person who opens the discussion to tear to pieces the paper that has just been read in order to make things lively, I hardly feel that I can do that, because I really see nothing to tear to pieces; but I would like to say a word or two in regard to parole work for women. The conditions are somewhat different, I think, in regard to the women. - As the law now stands, the women who are sent to State reformatories are sent for a maximum term of three years, and may be paroled at any time by the action of the Board of Managers when ever it is deemed that they can go out into the world and be selfsupporting and self-respecting members of society, but we must have the supervision of them for three years, no matter if they are paroled the month or the week after they are sent to us. The law provides a parole officer for each institution. Right here I would like to say a word along the lines that were dwelt upon yesterday, and that is the personality of the parole officers. It is here, it seems to me, that the whole secret of success in the supervision of paroled prisoners rests, with the personality of the man or the woman who is to look out for them. In the first place he should thoroughly understand the conditions of the locality in which he is to work. For instance, a parole officer from our institution, to which the girls are drawn almost entirely from Greater New York, should thoroughly understand the conditions of life and labor in New York city. Most of the girls who are with us, for example, will return, sooner or later, to New York city. Their homes are here; their families are here and their friends are here; and although we may feel that it would be ideal to place them in country homes, we probably will not be able to do that to any great extent. The parole officer, then, should understand the home life of the districts from which these girls come to us-chiefly the tenement districts. The parole officer should know just what life means in these districts. She should also know something about the conditions of labor in New York city and not be taken in by the outward appearance of things. We have already met with the difficulty, in our own experience, of having incorrect reports rendered in regard to homes, simply because the person giving the report, although well-intentioned and acting up to the best of her knowledge and ability, did not understand the conditions. And so it is of the first importance that the parole officer should understand the conditions under which she is to work. Of equal importance is tact and sympathy with the people among whom she is to labor. At the end of the three years, the time of the discharge, the parole officer can no longer have any jurisdiction over the girl. It seems to me that that is an extremely critical time. She has become accustomed to render her reports; she knows that up to the end of the three years she can be brought back to the institution if she does not live up to the requirements, but at the end of that time she also knows that she is free, and the institution cannot legally keep her in hand longer. Of course, the officers of the institution may keep a friendly interest in her and probably will do so, but as numbers increase it will be impossible to keep the close personal touch. Therefore, it seems to me that one of the chief duties of the parole officer should be to try to find unofficial friends for each girl who is paroled. We cannot altogether trust employers; cannot altogether trust the relatives in their statements. They will naturally be prejudiced; and we want to have somebody who is unprejudiced to report to us how the girl is getting along and be in a position to befriend her after she is removed from our supervision. So it seems to me that it should be one of the particular points to be looked into, to find an unofficial friend, the clergyman of the parish, the worker in the guild, or in the church home, or the college settlement, or the young woman's club, or something of that sort somebody who will take a personal interest in the girl after her discharge. In the case of girls, there are much more serious difficulties to be met with in the way of parole than in the case of men. The home life of the girl counts for so very much, and the opportunities that are open to her for employment are so much fewer than they are in the case of men. The sentiment against .her, the public sentiment, seems to be, in my experience, so much greater than it is against the man who has served in a reformatory or a penal institution. It has often been said to me, "Your work is hopeless for the reason that society will not accept a woman after she has once fallen as it can be made to accept a man," and I think there is some truth in it, although it is manifestly unjust. There are so few people that want to receive a woman into their house, for instance, who has had a record in a reformatory or a penal institution, so few who are willing to take her into their own families. They approve of it, but they believe in somebody else being the one to do it; and it is so difficult to put a girl in a factory or a shop and have her safe after working hours. It is all right while she is at work, but the danger comes in her free hours; so that the home is of the very greatest importance; and it is very natural that if a girl has parents they will want her to live with them; and I wouldn't dare undertake to say in what per cent, but I believe in a large per cent of cases, the parents are, perhaps, very improper guardians for the girl and that she never would have gone wrong in the first place if she had been in a home where the parents exercised the proper authority over her. So that it is always a serious question whichever way you put it, whether the girl should be sent to her own home or not. You don't want to weaken the home ties; you don't want to do anything that will look like trying to take her away from her proper guardians. At the same time you don't want to put her right where you know the same story will probably or possibly be repeated. So that it seems to me that in considering the parole of girls, we have a much more difficult question to consider than in considering the parole of men, though that is certainly very important. Therefore, the scheme which Mr. Barrows outlined in his excellent paper of trying to keep in touch with each paroled prisoner through some unofficial friend who would keep watch and would report to the authorities when necessary, is of the utmost importance and should be put into practice just as fast as practicable. On motion of Professor Herbert E. Mills, it was Resolved, That, in view of the lateness of the hour, the Conference proceed with the next paper, and that the discussion of the two papers be joined. Hon. THOMAS STURGIS, President of the Board of Managers of the New York State Reformatory at Elmira, read a paper on "Classification and Treatment of the Inmates of Reformatories." CLASSIFICATION AND TREATMENT OF THE INMATES OF REFORMATORIES. In taking up the vitally important subject of the classification of criminals, it may perhaps be asked why did the management of the Conference specialize it in its relation to one class only of our penal institutions. Why ask that it be considered as it affects reformatories? Why not as it affects all prisons? To those familiar with the subject in this State, the answer is obvious; but to those in the audience who may not be equally in touch with it, the explanation affords an opportunity of stating briefly what the reformatories stand for and how they differ from other institutions for the detention of criminals, it being understood that throughout what follows the use of the word "reformatories" includes those for both sexes, and that what is said of the needs of criminal men applies equally to those of criminal women. The reformatories of to-day, based upon the twin principles of the indeterminate sentence and release upon parole for demonstrated reform, express the highest, noblest, most truly Christian theory of the treatment of the criminal, which has thus far, in the course of our civic growth, been conceived and put in practice. It is the theory that though sinning he is not lost; that at the bottom all crime is the result of ignorance, that ignorance through all its phases, no matter what its character, whether of the clever brain with a distorted moral sense, or of the dull mind that does not distinguish between right and wrong, can be removed, and that true humanity and true economy consist in bringing a man back to be honest and self-supporting, rather than to seclude and maintain him, merely, for a term of years crudely supposed to measure the degree of his offense, and then to send him out unimproved in temperament, character or morals, feeling that he has paid the prescribed penalty, is square with the law, as he would say, only to return shortly with another crime on his shoulders and to continue, with short intervals, a burden upon the State for life. |