Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/352

 338 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

III. ARGUMENTS AND OPINIONS OF EXPERTS, AND OF PERSONS WITH UNUSUAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR KNOWING THE SITUATION.

Your committee has sought to keep close to the facts and to place all the evidence before you. Part of the facts are the opinions of experts in various departments. The laws and regu- lations already cited are themselves such expressions of judg- ment. To these we now add the opinions and arguments secured by a wide correspondence in this country, and these we shall pre- sent whether they agree with our own views or contradict them.

The number of replies is not large enough for use in statistics. We do not lay much stress on the majority or minority votes. It is not so much a question of counting heads as of weighing facts and arguments. Yet the answers represent a very wide field of observation.

The answers to the questions came from the following states and territories :

Pennsylvania, Illinois, Arizona, Wisconsin, New York, Minnesota, Ken- tucky, New Hampshire, Colorado, Indiana, Maine, Calitornia, Kansas, Canada, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Michigan, Alabama, Ohio, Nebraska twenty.

New England, the central states, the middle West, the North- west, and the far West were all ably represented.

By professional experience those who answered were divided as follows :

Lawyers, 5; professor in law schools, i; secretary of board of control, i; members of board of control, 3 ; members of board of charities and correc- tion, 3; secretary of board of charities and correction, 6; directors of prison boards, 3; wardens and superintendents, 9; chaplain, i; general reform, 4; professors of sociology, 2.

Summary of answers :

1 . In respect to state control of all penal institutions : in favor, 28 ; opposed, 10.

2. Should jails and workhouses be under state control: yes, 28 ; no, 10; doubtful, i.

4. State control of structure and management of local prisons : in favor, 34; opposed, 3; doubtful, i.

5. Jails to be used for detention only : in favor, 28 ; opposed, 8.

II. Control of paroled men: (a) favor local prison board, 17; favor state board of control, 3 ; (f) favor state board of prison commissioners, 5 ;