_A Court On Prison Architecture._—In the course of a decision denying an injunction brought to hold up the contract for a new state prison, Justice Betts of the New York Supreme Court, recently uttered the following dictum dealing with the psychological aspects of prison architecture: “It appears that a substantial change in plans was made, increasing the cost of the new prison from $2,000,000 to $2,200,000. This was solely in an attempt to beautify and adorn the exterior of the building. The commission, with the sanction of the legislature, is to spend $200,000 in seeking the unattainable. A prison known to be such is hideous and ugly. It can be viewed by two classes of people only, those who are inmates and those who are out. The inmates are not proud of their environments, however ornate, and no amount of embellishment can make it attractive to outsiders.” ---------- A state training school for boys under 18 has just been opened at Monroe, Alabama. It has been in preparation for several years. ---------- _Federal Prisoners Paroled Without Publicity._—In accordance with the decision of the attorney general of the United States and the chairman of the federal board, prisoners who have won their paroles from federal prisons will hereafter be released without publicity. Thus they can go back into society unburdened with the disadvantage of readvertised notoriety. Commenting editorially on this change, the Cincinnati (Ohio) _Enquirer_ says: “This is in keeping with modern progress in the treatment of criminals. When a man is tried and sentenced for a crime, full publicity is given to that fact, and when he arrives at the penitentiary that fact also is announced to the public. After that man has served the term to which he was sentenced, or when he has served a part of it and is released on parole, he has paid his obligation to society for his violation of law. He has a right to demand that he be permitted to re-enter the world unhandicapped by the renewed publication of the disgrace of his imprisonment. * * * * The attention of the Ohio prison managers is called to this progressive action on the part of the federal government. Its helpfulness would be just as important in state as in national criminal affairs.” ---------- _Organized Labor Opposes_ “THIRD DEGREE.”—A dispatch from New Haven, Conn., states that organized labor in the various states is called upon to exert its influence for legislation forbidding the police “third degree” to get confessions from prisoners in a letter sent out from the National Headquarters of the American Federation of Labor at Washington. The letter, which is signed by Samuel Gompers, describes the practice as having no warrant for its existence “except the brute power of barbarism and the tradition derived therefrom,” and declares that “its practice on the part of the police is usurpation that must be stopped.”