Crime -- United States; Criminals -- United States
Beyond all of that, the right man in place must be a consummate organizer
who is able to trace to motive, draw derailed men unto him, minimize
friction whatsoever, and plan and promote sound training and government;
yet stand, as did the Christ, as adamant to him who would exploit evil
intent out of an evil heart.
He who can fill that bulking order must be bigger, broader and deeper than
the physical and mental technicist--be he never so clever.
The paragraphs immediately preceding are stressed because the present pull
and pressure is for psychiatrists as heads of correctional plants. On its
face, that is short-sighted single-seeing, since such men cannot bring
breadth of understanding of a great-big, complex, interlocking machine,
the parts of which must be kept nicely balanced. Moreover, your
master-criminologist is first of all master-man in the sense that he can
and does get down into, and abide in, the hearts of unfortunates who make
for hell's toboggan.
In any case, the work should not wait upon experimentation to necessary
experience, the which is born only of extended contact with imprisoned
felons.
What prison reform cries out for is correctional heads who can build and
maintain a régime that will inspire their charges to _do_ things, and to
_want_ to do them. Building, specializing should be left to staff
specialists; general management to general efficiency that compasses the
full, practical reformative field. Such heads had, of course, made it a
part of their business to be able to box, at the least, the specific
theoretical compass.
Heads of departments of the schools in question should have had not less
than two years of experience somewhere on the firing line of reform; if
more than that, all the better.
The course for students should be an intensive one--say six
months--calculated to file off the rough edges of the tyro, and to
classify him. As it is now, beginners who set in the game of penology must
pass through the shuttle-cock period of apprenticeship, during which the
criminal crew ply the battledoor, and disciplinary officers are besieged
with banal offenses that are catching.
Having passed relatively simple final examinations, graduated students
should bear with them written attests of that fact. The personal equation
should count appreciably at such examinations. Either palpable or
demonstrated unfitness should bar an applicant from reform work.
The State could well afford to balance tuition and maintenance against the
time spent by its pupils at elementary preparation for fundamental
endeavor in its service.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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