On the ground that imprisonment in the city jail for petty crimes brings punishment on the family of the culprit no less than on the culprit himself, Mayor Pratt, of Spokane, Wash., is urging the establishment of a work farm where petty criminals can be given employment that will contribute to the support of their families. Mayor Pratt is also said to favor an institution where the destitute can find employment. ---------- A bill for the establishment of a reformatory for first offenders, now before the legislature of California, is said to have the backing of many organizations interested in prison reform. The bill provides for an institution to which prisoners convicted of felony for the first time may be sent for confinement, instruction and discipline, with the object of fitting them for self-support on release. The sentence of such prisoners is to be indeterminate. ---------- A plan for sharing profits with the prisoners of the Rhode Island state prison at Howard, R. I., has been proposed by Warden James F. McCusker, and is now in the hands of a committee charged with reporting upon it. It provides that in each department of the prison those who have worked steadily for the preceding six months shall share in a monthly distribution of the earnings of that department over and above a stated minimum amount. ---------- It is expected that legislature of Tennessee will make an appropriation at this session for a reformatory where boys convicted of crime may be kept separate from hardened criminals. The state has already purchased a farm five miles from Nashville on which to erect such an institution. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A DIGEST OF EVENTS IN THE PRISON FIELD ------------------------------------------------------------------------ =To all who are Interested Prisoners’ Aid Work and the Prison Field:= Last October, at the meeting of the American Prison Association, representatives of a number of the leading prisoners’ aid societies of the United States voted to organize a National Prisoners’ Aid Association, to promote closer co-operation between the prisoners’ aid societies of this country. These societies have decided to publish a monthly “Review” of events in the prison field. The first number of the REVIEW appeared about the middle of January. It contained an article by Warren F. Spaulding (Massachusetts) on the International Prison Congress, brief histories of three prisoners’ aid societies, a list of prisoners’ aid societies, several pages of “Events in Brief” containing up-to-date facts in the prison field from all parts of the country, and an advertisement.