Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/200

 1 82 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

Usually all institutions for the dependent, defective, and delin- quent classes, wholly or partially supported by the state, are super- vised by the state boards. These include the prisons, reforma- tories, and industrial schools, hospitals for the insane, institutions for the blind, deaf and dumb, feeble-minded and epileptic, and state schools for dependent children. The prisons are excepted in New York, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. So, too, are the institutions for the education of the blind and the deaf-mutes in a few of the eastern states. In New York the Commission on Lunacy has supervision over the hospitals for the insane. The state board of New Hampshire was created to secure the enforcement of the law relating to the care of dependent chil- dren, and so has supervision over none of the state institutions. The Lunacy Commission (the State Board of Health), however, performs the functions of a supervisory body for the hospitals and retreats for the insane.

The institutions are usually visited regularly by a committee delegated by the board. The committee has power to enter and inspect all parts of the institutions, to examine the records and all contracts, to hear complaints, and in such cases to take the testimony of the inmates. The boards are usually left free to make their own rules in regard to all these matters.

This same power is usually extended over local institutions. In Ohio, however, this is not the case. In Massachusetts and Michigan all almshouses are to be visited annually ; in New York and Pennsylvania, biennially. But usually the power of visiting local institutions is permissive, and the frequency of inspections is left to the discretion of the board. Reports of the work of the local institutions may be required, and are usually made annually. The state boards of New York and Pennsylva- nia are to prescribe a uniform system of records to be kept by the administrators of the poor law throughout their respective states. The boards of some other states may require such records to be kept as they deem desirable. In Michigan the duty of providing blanks for keeping uniform records devolves upon a committee consisting of the secretary of state, the attorney-gen- eral, and the secretary of the State Board of Charities.