“In what other ways can we make centrality help a prison system? We can do it by requiring, as many States have done, that all reports of prisons shall go to a central office so that there shall be available to the central board the needed information in regard to the prisons. We can do it by the establishment of a more effective method of registration, so that there shall be available for the guidance of the transfer board all the records of prisoners, whether obtained in one State or another. “Under the same authority with the bureau of registration and identification, all the data possessed by that department would be accessible to the agent who was seeking to discover how far it might be practicable and useful to assist a prisoner at liberty. A central registration office would in the end yield a large return to the State by securing a comprehensive oversight of prisoners on parole. In the central office in Massachusetts we endeavor to keep a record of all prisoners at liberty from the prisons under our supervision. This, to be sure, is not always easy to do, because names are readily changed and it is not difficult to conceal identity. The only reliable method of following up the prisoners at liberty is to maintain a system of identification based upon the plan that does not rely on names, or upon any data that is subject to change. “What the scheme of registration has done for this State and for other States cannot now be measured, but the interest that has been excited in this subject and the information that has been spread from the central office must prove invaluable to the police and prison officials of the entire country. When all the States adopt this plan it will not only be difficult for a paroled prisoner to evade his obligations to keep the terms of his release in his own State, but he will find if he returns to evil practices in another State that his record will be readily brought against him. “All that I have said so far has seemed to apply mainly to persons convicted of felonies, but I intended that there also should be comprehended in the scheme a large number of misdemeanants, who need generally the same sort of correction and training as felons.