(T. ScHAFER.)
Prison conditions regarding the care of prisoners involve (1): The care of prisoners during the time of their confinement. The purposes of the deprivation of liberty are (a) punishment, (b) deterrent effects, (c) reformative effects, (d) the protection of society. These factors are emphasized differently in different countries. In Europe, emphasis has been laid chiefly upon punishment and the protection of society. In the United States, probably more than in any other country, the protection of society and the reclamation of the offender are emphasized. Upon the distribution of emphasis depends the nature of the care of prisoners during their confinement. European conditions are in general more rigorous and less reformative in method than American prison conditions. Important factors during
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Priscillian Prison Reform
imprisonment in prisons generally are the warden and his associates, the prison physician, the prison chaplain, and the prison teacher. Every large prison has one or more chaplains; in smaller communities, correctional institutions are frequently visited by one or more of the clergymen of the community. In most prisons, if not in all, Sunday church services are held with obligatory attendance. Of great importance are prison teachers, giving instruction in the elementary branches of education. Offenders are in large measure lacking even in the simplest elements of knowledge. Libraries are found in most prisons. In some American prisons, the library is as large and as well selected as libraries in small American cities. The lesser prison officials, such as guards and keepers, are gradually becoming of a higher grade. Civil-service requirements are in effect in many American states. Physical exercise, military drill, and industrial training within the prison tend to reconstruct the abnormal man into a normal and useful member of society upon his release. Much attention is paid in the United States to sanitary conditions in prisons and penitentiaries. Lesser correctional institutions are frequently unsanitary and even filthy. The treatment of tuberculosis in prisons has received great impetus during the last decade, largely through the efforts of New York state in establishing in one of the state prisons a separate ward for prisoners afflicted with the " White Plague." The death rate from tuberculosis has been very materially reduced through such segregation.
(2) The care of prisoners after their release is also a part of the system of the treatment of prisoners. In many American states, a more or less effective parole system is carried out. Released prisoners are placed under the supervision of a parole agent for periods of from six months to the period of the maximum sentence. No conclusive statistics are available as to the percentage of permanent reformation of released prisoners. About twenty-five per cent of released prisoners become delinquent before the termination of their parole. The parole system is increasingly considered fully as necessary as the imprisonment of the offenders. The tendency is to place the parole work under the supervision of the State. In some states, private associations, such as prisoners' aid societies, conduct the parole work. In many states, no parole work is done. An important part of the duties of prisoners' aid societies is the care of the family of the prisoner during his imprisonment. For the released prisoner employment is secured, if possible, and other aid and assistance given him. There are a few homes for discharged prisoners in the United States, the Volunteers of America (q.v.) maintaining several " Hope Halls."
The released or discharged prisoner does not now find it so difficult as formerly to obtain work. The attitude of society toward the released prisoner is materially changing, the principle of the " square deal " making gratifying progress. O. F. Lewis.
III. Penology: The Greek word poine, denoting the satisfaction, pecuniary or otherwise, paid for an injury, passing through the Latin poena, " penalty," has become enlarged in later years to signify in
" penology " the whole science of penal law, penal administration, the prevention of crime, and the correction of the offender. In each of these departments there is a new recognition of fundamental principles, some of them early discerned but tardily applied, and an infusion of new knowledge and of the humane sentiment. Jesus set aside the retaliatory features of the Jewish law. Modern penal law can hardly be said to have eradicated vindictive features entirely from its codes; but the modern tendency is to make such codes measures of social defense with deterrent rather than vindictive penalties. Fundamental principles of the new penology are the protection of society and the reformation of the offender. In Plato's social system there was a recognition of the duty of kindness and pity toward the prisoner; in the New Testament it has a distinct prominence in the teaching of Jesus. In modern times the most important point of departure from the old penal system dates from the publication of the work entitled Dei delitti e delle pene (" Crimes and Penalties ") in 1769 by Cesare Beccaria Bonesana, an Italian nobleman, and from the personal work of John Howard (q.v.), who began his visitations of prisons in England in 1773 and extended his work and inspections over the continent. Beccaria's influence was felt mainly in the abolition of torture and of capital punishment, and the reformation of criminal codes. Howard initiated reforms in the physical, moral, and industrial conditions of prison life. The duty of society to the offender was considered in all its aspects. Elizabeth Fry exerted great influence in the last century in Great Britain and Europe, also Mary Carpenter (q.v.), Matthew Davenport Hill, and others. Alexander Maconochie at Norfolk Island, and Sir Walter Crofton in Ireland, enlightened and progressive prison directors, demonstrated the possibility of making new moral and educational appeals to the prisoners with grades and privileges based on the merit system. IV. The Modern System: The same principle with independent and original application has borne fruit in the reformatory system in the United States. Juvenile reformatories for boys and girls were established in the first half of the last century ; but a new epoch marks the extension of the idea to institutions for those from sixteen to thirty years of age first established in Elmira, New York, in 1876 under Z. R. Brockway and since adopted in ten American states. A fundamental feature of the reformatory system is the indeterminate sentence. The prisoner is not committed for a definite time to the institution, but is obliged to secure his conditional release by his attainments in school, industry, and deportment. When he has earned his parole he is released tentatively, and after proving by some months of good conduct his ability to five an honest, law-abiding fife receives his absolute discharge. If not corrigible, he can be detained for the maximum period fixed by the code as the penalty of the offense for which he was committed. The probation system of treating offenders without imprisonment was first adopted in Massachusetts in 1878 and afterward adopted in France, Belgium, and various American states. Another important I American contribution is juvenile courts first es-
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