Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/486

 472 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

in both, it is beyond our ken and the fact need not divert or hinder from rational efforts. For surely the best expression of such a force must be had when the mind and body are best condi- tioned. Doubtless changes of personality are easier accomplished in the period of childhood and youth, but throughout the entire conscious life of a man there is no period when the citadel of the personality may not be taken by suitable siege.

A skilful, successful siege, while it encompasses the mass, must also reach to the groups and individual prisoners minister- ing with much particularity. This is practicable, even with the largest prison population. It is observed that the police prefec- ture of a municipality may know and influence the conduct of every inhabitant; that the "organization" of a political party knows the distinctive character of each elector and the agency effective to influence his political action; that at our National Military Academy the marking system reveals the idiosyncrasy of each cadet and is reliable data for forecasting his career. In like manner the governing authority of a reformatory may and should have knowledge of each prisoner and, definitely, the use and effect of agencies directed for his advancement.

Such particularity is facilitated by group formations, great and small, composed of prisoners whose similar characteristics permit their treatment in group connection. In order to meet the several similarities the groups will form and reform and change kaleidoscopically, but always with prescribed order and precision of selections, so that in the round of groupings the special needs of each are duly treated. Fully a hundred such groups existed at the Elmira Reformatory within a general prison population of fifteen hundred, and the individualism helped to solidify and at the same time steady the mass to stand the necessary strain of the effective disciplinary regime then in vogue.

The words "necessary strain" are used advisedly. Stringency and strenuosity are indispensable principles of administration. Lax, superficial, or perfunctory administration easily transmutes the intended reformatory into a damaging instrument producing deformities instead. Strictness and strenuousness serve also to counteract any possible injurious attractiveness of the unusual