Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/116

 1 00 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

The common designation of these jails as "nurseries of vice" and "schools of crime" is but a feeble characterization of their atrocities. To sentence any human being to imprisonment in a county jail is so sure to effect his moral deterioration that every such sentence is a distinct injury to society; it is nothing less than the promotion and fostering of crime by public authority.

Still, the institution of the county jail is firmly entrenched in the law and the politics of the country and all efforts to reform it have been, and are likely to be, futile. Its abuses are so radical and inveterate that there is no hope that it can ever be purged and rehabilitated. The only practicable remedy is to cease to use the jail at all as a place of confinement for persons convicted of crime. The invincible evils of the county jails and the urgent necessity of providing some substitute for them have brought into prominence the question, which is now being widely dis- cussed, whether the state should not withdraw from the munici- palities all power (heretofore delegated) to deal with offenders against state law, and itself assume the charge and custody of every person sentenced to imprisonment for crime. The reasons which have been already urged to show that this is the logical function and duty of the state gain added force from the position that there is no other practicable way of supplanting and sup- pressing the county jail.

The plan here advocated of bringing all convict prisoners under the central control of the state involves the acquisition of additional prisons by the state. In many cases the country peniten- tiaries and other local prisons could be purchased by the state and be rendered available for reformatory uses. The proposed change would doubtless necessitate in every state the construction and equipment of one or more entirely new prisons, and would unquestionably entail upon the state a largely increased initial expenditure. The municipalities, on the other hand, would be relieved of the expenditures they now incur from this cause. The increased expense might be, in whole or in part, apportioned by the state and assessed upon the municipalities in proportion to the number of convicts coming from each locality; this would put upon each municipality the incentive of self-interest to use vigi-