Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/347

 SUPER VISION AND CONTROL OF PENAL INSTITUTIONS 333

and deal more closely with them in a later part of this report. They are all simply aspects of one and the same problem: What is the best mode of central state organization for the two ends of "supervision" and "control" of state institutions of punish- ment and correction?

II. THE ACTUAL FACTS AND TENDENCIES IN RELATION TO CENTRAL SUPERVISION AND CONTROL IN CIVILIZED COUNTRIES.

I. Your committee has considered under this head the general principles of "administrative law" in Europe and America, as they are formulated by the able writers who have distinguished themselves in this field. This is necessary because the central supervision and control of penal institutions is only one part of the executive and administrative function of every state. There are other branches of governmental activity which require such supervision and control, as: the system of free public schools, academies, and universities; the institutions of educational charity for the blind, the deaf; of medical relief and custody, as in the case of the insane, the epileptic, and the feeble-minded; the municipal functions of sanitation, police, and dealing with quasi-public corporations; the local agents of assessment and taxation; and many others.

We can best understand this problem as a part of a more general problem of state government; and in this field American scholars have already done great work. Wilson, in The State (published 1894), p. 542, thus speaks of our county organi- zations:

Central control of local authorities exists only in the enforcement, in the regular law courts, of charters and general laws; there is nowhere any central local government board with discretionary powers of restriction or permission Relatively to the central organs of the state, local govern- ment is the most vital part of our system; as compared either with the federal government or with local authorities, the central governments of the states lack vitality not only, but do not seem to be holding their own in point of importance. They count for much in legislation, but, so far, for very little in administration.

And on p. 5 19:

The only sense in which the local units of our state organizations are governed at all is this, that they act under general laws which are made, not