Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/121

 CRIME IN STATE AND MUNICIPALITY 105

of the crime of which he is accused. The municipalities have shown in so striking a way their incapacity to conduct a prison that one may well hesitate to commit the custody of anyone to their charge ; such a course is here advocated only when coupled with the condition that the state enact laws prescribing with definite precision the character and appointments of the build- ings in which arrested persons shall be confined and the manner in which they shall be treated. Nor is the mere enactment of laws sufficient; the duty should be laid upon a state board, or officers of the state, to keep these buildings under constant and rigid inspection, and to enforce all statutory enactments regard- ing their structure and management.

To summarize briefly the propositions here advocated : The salutary principle of home rule demands that municipalities should be invested with power to enact such ordinances as they may deem fitted to protect the interests of their inhabitants, with imprisonment as the penalty for infraction, subject to the limita- tions contained in their charters and subject to the general laws of the state. The municipal courts should have jurisdiction to try and to sentence persons accused of violating such ordinances, and persons so sentenced should be imprisoned in prisons main- tained and operated by the municipality.

Municipalities should also be thrown upon their own respon- sibility to protect themselves against crime; and the duty of maintaining instrumentalities for the detection of crime and for the arrest of persons charged with any violation of law, whether municipal or state law, should rest upon the municipalities. Per- sons so arrested should be confined while awaiting trial in houses of detention under the control of the municipality.

The power of the municipality, however, to maintain prisons (for the incarceration of persons sentenced for violation of municipal ordinances) and houses of detention (for the custody of persons arrested and awaiting trial) should be made subject to strict limitations. Municipal prisons and houses of detention should be required to bear different names and to be distinct and separated in location from each other. The state should enact