The New York Tombs Inside and Out!: Scenes and Reminiscences Coming Down to the Present. A Story Stranger Than Fiction, with an Historic Account of America's Most Famous Prison.Munro, John Josiah
History
The New York Tombs Inside and Out!: Scenes and Reminiscences Coming Down to the Present. A Story Stranger Than Fiction, with an Historic Account of America's Most Famous Prison.
Munro, John Josiah
Crime -- New York (State) -- New York; Halls of Justice (New York, N.Y.)
Second: If the Board finds that the wrongdoer belongs to the second
class; that he is illiterate and has no trade, or that he is a lazy and
good for nothing idler, preying upon his fellow men for a living, or
that he is tainted with some physical malady, or is suffering from
tubercular trouble, epilepsy, dipsomania, or indeed, any progressive
disorder, then the Board can recommend to the Court that such a one is a
fit subject for Elmira Reformatory, or some other institution of a
similar character, where he will receive mental, moral and industrial
training, besides medical treatment, and be discharged only when cured
of his delusions, and fit afterward to live as an honest and law-abiding
citizen. There are hundreds of industrial and mental illiterates that
pass through our courts every year—young men who never learned a trade,
and can hardly write their own names. The only way to save them from
criminal lives is to educate them, and turn them out of prison when
cured. It is a waste of time and money to send such persons to State
prison or penitentiary, as more than 50 per cent. return again, after a
brief season of liberty, confirmed criminals. Many of our prisons
receive yearly as high as 82 per cent. of first offenders who have no
trade.
Third: It is a well known fact that more than half our criminal
population are recidivists or backsliders in crime. A great wrong is
committed on the community when we send a criminal away for a definite
period, and afterward turn him loose upon the community. If the offender
is known as a rounder, or habitual criminal, by all means send him to a
prison colony and keep him there for the remainder of his life, or till
cured. Our criminal population grows yearly, and we are compelled to
build new prisons and reformatories, simply because our penalogical
ideas are impracticable, if not archaic. Not only are we making no
progress, but some kinds of crime are alarmingly on the increase.
I do not regard the habitual criminal as beyond the hope of reformation.
I believe there is a tender chord in his heart that can be touched, if
we go about it in the right way.
But it is an outrage to turn such a man out of prison or penitentiary,
after a limited term of confinement, without a home to go to, or a place
to work. If they know him, they will not receive him, nor give him
employment. And the police will arrest him on sight as a suspicious
character, and railroad him back to prison. The State should provide
employment, and a home for such a person until he gets on his feet
again, or keep him in jail.
The fourth and last mentioned in this classification is the criminal of
circumstances. This man may have snatched a pocketbook from the hand of
a lady, or stolen a loaf of bread when his wife was sick at home, and
his children crying for food. Such a person should not be branded as a
criminal. He should be paroled on his good behavior. To send such a
person to prison is simply to make a criminal of him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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