Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/354

 34 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

2. Central control of local prisons. It is interesting to note the reasons given for questioning the wisdom of bringing local prisons under central administrative control.

Mr. L. C. Storrs sees the necessity for this measure, but says: "as long as 'county rights 'are so carefully guarded I doubt if they can be" placed under state regulation.

The advantages of this method are strongly stated by the state commissioner of prisons in New York :

The proper management of a county jail is not only a matter of concern to the inhabitants of that county, but it is a matter of concern to the entire state. Criminals do not confine their depredations within county limits. Misdemeanants who this year have been arrested, convicted, and supported at the expense of the taxpayers of a county, next year, or the year after, are quite likely to become more serious offenders, and, as inmates of state insti- tutions, become a burden upon the taxpayers of the state at large. Hence it is both the duty and the interest of the state to insist that county jails shall be properly conducted ; that they shall be so managed as to cure and diminish crime ; and that they shall cease to be schools for the perfecting of a criminal education. Eighth Annual Report of the New York State Commis- sion of Prisons, 1903, pp. 79, 80; compare Report of the Executive Committee of the Prison Association of New York, 1902.

Mr. Brockway calls attention to the difficulty of enforcing state central control over local officials while the costs are paid out of local funds. " It is believed that the notorious evils of these prisons cannot be corrected or prevented, completely, until the state owns, controls, and supports them."

3. Central administrative control of paroled convicts. First let us hear objections, one of which, if heeded, would arrest the devel- opment of the method of preparing for liberty by a regulated use of freedom :

I have no faith in so-called "indeterminate" sentences, any more than I have in "indeterminate" convictions or "indeterminate" obligations of any kind, and I believe they have hitherto caused nothing but error and mischief. The real deterrents from crime are not severity of punishment, but its celerity and certainty ; and to secure these, everything else in our criminal jurispru- dence should yield, even the right of criminal appeal, which exists in no country but ours and France, and was never heard of in Pennsylvania till 1860, since which it has done more than any other thing to debauch our entire criminal system and encourage crime. Isaac J. Wistar.