SING SING REFORMS

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 28, 2 August 1921, Page 2

SING SING REFORMS

TURNING PRJSONEBS INTO GOOD

CITIZENS.;

Several London Magistrates and officials from the Home Oflica'wero present at a meeting in London in tjune, where Mr. Spenser Miller told the story of reforms achieved. in Sing Sing and many other American'prisons by the new method of allowing the prisoners a measure of solfgovornnieiit. Mr. Miller, who has had years oj: experienco as a prison official in America, took it for granted that hia audience was familial' with the experiments, jind his speech dealt with principles and results. America, he said, did not want to teach other countries, but sho did feel responsible for many prison sysfbms, because so many countries had built their prisons on American models, and she wanted to make it clear that her hundred-year-old idea of what a prison should be was rapidly being swept away.

Scientific study had destroyed the old theory that mental degeneracy was the main cause of criminal taint, and the Lombroso theory that the criminal was a distinct typo. Several American prisons bad subjected their inmates to the'jntelligence tests to which all the army recruits had submitted. • The results in the Illinois prison were typical. Comparing tho. prisoners with men of the draft army, it was found that definitely more of tho prisoners were of superior the number of average men was the saxno in prison and in nrmy, and among the prisoners there were fewer men of deficient intelligence. When it was claimed that prison was necessary "as a deterrent, one must ask who the prisoners really were. Mr. Miller put them in three classes: 1. Accidental prisoners, men of normal social type, who had committed crimes under an emotional stress which left no room for thought of consequences. Prison was no deterrent to them;

2. People distinctly deficient mentally on whom the fear of prison does not operate; and 3. The professional criminal group living outside the law, who are no moro deterred by fear of prison than the gambler is by fear of loss. In.time, Mr. Miller suid, the mentally defectives would'be sent to hospitals, and the prisons would be reserved for men who could be benefited by them. Those prisoners must be regarded as potential citizens, and the capacity in them for good must be ■ developed. The prison system in America is being increasingly regarded las an educational department. "The underworld," said Mr. Miller, "does not rest upon a basis of sin but upon a basis of loyalty—tho loyalty of a man to his pal. This loyalty becomes in Qiir new prison system a great asset. It is called into play as a sense of loyalty to the. community, and it makes the prison a school of citizenship." Critics of the method of co-operation and participation among prisoners in the administration of the prison said that tho tondoncy would bo for the strongest criminal lo become the leader, but tho fact was. that tho leadership fell to the man who had tho strongest instinct for fellow-service. Tho success of tho experiment, both in penal and short-service prisons, bad far exeeodod expectation. It was found that tho great majority of men discharged from Die prisons did not return" but many of them became centres of a wholesome inflneuro among peoplo who regarded men who had been in prison ns heroes. Thia influence was especially noticeable among tho young.