“Not long before I was released two men were caught fighting in the corridor of the wing near my cell. These two men were not equally guilty. To go into the details of the case would require more space than I have, but the point I wish to bring out is that they both were at once taken to the executive officer of the prison and in ten minutes were back, sentenced alike, to ten days in the ‘hole’ on bread and water. The great object of such prison punishment is to break a man, make him humble, meek and obedient. When this is done the process of making a man of the prisoner seems to be considered completed. A guard once told me while I was in solitary that when he chained a man up backwards as punishment for talking in solitary, as used to be done, he was generally kind-hearted enough to let the man down if he repented and asked for it in the ‘right spirit,’ but if the man was too ‘damned proud to show how much it hurt him he would let him take his medicine.’ I mention this because to my mind it is typical of the punishment and discipline idea of the prison. Actually what happens in this process of breaking is that the prisoner in the great majority of cases is shoved still further down the scale of degradation and lack of self-respect. He becomes either flabby or vicious. This is especially true of such criminal types as need the helpful, sympathetic and human advice and correction of trained men above everything else. “It is my belief that at the bottom of all that I have been trying to tell, lies not the dishonesty or cruelty of individual officials but a state of mind shared largely by us all, even prisoners themselves oftentimes, viz., the idea that the convict is something apart, something taboo, a person who has forfeited all the rights of normal human beings, and with this idea goes that of punishment, the ingrained belief that the only way to deal with viciousness or wrong-doing is to keep the big stick constantly at hand. This certainly is the theory of our prisons if one is to judge from the products of our reform schools and jails whom I met at Fort Leavenworth. These men very largely had grown up with no other idea of life than that of the big stick. Put one of these prisoners in authority over others and in the majority of cases he can be more dictatorial and cruel than any guard. The supposition is that to make this outcast--the prisoner--bow to authority will make a man of him.