CHAPTER XXXIII
AFTER SENTENCE, WHAT?
After a person has been convicted of a felony in New York County, either in the Criminal Branch of the Supreme Court, or in the Court of General Sessions, if the sentence is a year in prison, or less, he is sent to the New York Penitentiary on Blackwell’s Island. But if he is sent away for more than a year, he is taken to Sing Sing, or Bear Mountain, the new prison on the west bank of the Hudson, where if he is a first offender, he is detained till he has finished his time.
As soon as he leaves Court, he is taken in charge by the Sheriff, or one of his deputies, who hurries him off soon after to the prison destined for the fulfillment of the sentence.
In the case of those who have been sentenced to the electric chair, they are taken the same day to the place where the sentence is to be carried out. The reason for this is obvious. While in the Tombs or Raymond Street jail, Brooklyn, he is visited by his friends, who might aid in his escape or death by suicide. As the Sheriff knows from experience that it is best to take no chances, he hurries him to prison at once. After he reaches the death house, he is never again allowed to shake hands with any of his friends, lest they might communicate to him poison or a knife.
After reaching prison, the prisoner is practically dead to the world, except that his friends may visit him monthly. Some will return to citizenship again as honest men; others will never pass through the gate till they are carried out to a bed of lime in the little cemetery on the hill-side.
During the transition from court to prison, kaleidoscopic scenes pass through the brain of the prisoner, and are continued indefinitely in his little 3×7 cell, where he spends his first sleepless night.
In England all persons sentenced to penal servitude for a period of two years and over, are sent to what is called the Central Prison for six months for the purpose of observation. This is done that the authorities may be able to put the prisoner to some work best suited to his nature. The Central Prison is the Experimental Station of the English system. The inmate’s physical, mental and moral nature are carefully inquired into, and observations made. This reform was begun about a third of a century ago, and has met with success.
After the newly arrived prisoner enters the Sing Sing or Bear Mountain Prison reception room, he is interviewed by an official, who forthwith takes his pedigree. If the prisoner happens to have any money or valuables, he is relieved of the same, and a receipt given him. They are returned when he leaves the prison.
As soon as the reception is over, he is taken by a keeper to the State Shop. This is the storehouse for clothing. Here he receives a suit of clothes, including underwear, shoes, stockings and cap. The next place is the bath house, where the prisoner has the privilege of staying fifteen or twenty minutes, after which he dons his prison garments, and is sent to his cell for the night. “Some men have a natural aversion to water, and refuse to take a bath when they come here,” said the principal keeper of a large State institution, as he showed me around his establishment. Being anxious to know what they did in such a case, I asked: “What then?” “Oh,” said the P. K., with a twinkle in his eye, “we fix ‘em all right.” I said, “How do you do it?” “Well,” he said, pointing to a corner of the large stone bath-house, “We set ‘em up there, and turn the hose on them. The fact is,” said the P. K., “we give the kickers a good soaking, and then tear the clothes off their back, and they never rebel against a bath afterwards. It cures ‘em, sure.”
This is the first step in the transformation of the prisoner. Next day he is taken before the P. K., who carefully interviews him, to know just what particular work he is best fitted for. The P. K. may interview him daily for three weeks or even a month before sending him to one of the shops. If his health is not good, the prison doctor may be called in, and if suffering from some contagious disease, he is sent to the hospital, or if it is found that he has incipient or chronic tuberculosis, he is sent to Napanoch, in the Ulster Mountains, or Clinton Prison, in the Adirondacks.
These steps in the reformation of the criminal are little known to the outside world. But they are all necessary and important, and carefully observed by our State prison authorities.
Prison Classification
The proper classification of the inmates of our prisons is a most important part of their treatment, looking to their reformation. This is something that has been sadly neglected in the past by nearly all of our prisons and reformatories. Elmira Reformatory is the exception, as it comes the nearest to the proper classification of prisoners of any institution in the country. It is nothing less than a crime to allow novices to associate with hardened offenders, either in shops or yards, where they can freely converse together. Such an association soon changes the first offender into a real criminal who goes forth when his time is finished with his brain all aflame to commit crime.
A Real Prison Reformer
One of the best of our modern prison reformers is Mr. Cornelius V. Collins, of Troy, N. Y. Since 1898 he has been Superintendent of State Prisons, and has given excellent satisfaction, not only to many of our leading reformers, but to the men in prison. He is a man of energy and ability and knows how a prison should be conducted, and is intensely practical in everything he does. Since he has had charge of our State prisons, he has inaugurated many valuable reforms which have been a blessing to the inmates, which easily leaves him in the front rank of prison reformers. It was through Mr. Collins’ enterprising efforts and practical foresight that the Star of Hope was first started soon after he became Superintendent of Prisons. He saw the great need of such an educational helper, as well as the importance of utilizing the intellectual strength of the men and women behind the bars, and having a splendid printing plant then lying idle at Sing Sing, he felt the success of his new enterprise was assured.
Since then many of the other prisons outside of the State have monthly publications, but none of them can be compared to the Star of Hope for enterprise, dash and intellectual vigor.
Mr. Collins has made so many successful reforms in the penal institutions of this State since he became Superintendent of Prisons, as to commend him favorably everywhere. Many of our prison wardens and reformatory superintendents are good practical men, but they have not been able to carry out the reforms which were necessary even in their own institutions. Mr. Collins having had the courage of his convictions and the support of the State Prison Commission behind him, saw to it that his own reforms were strictly carried out.
In regard to the Parole Law, if Mr. Collins is not the author of it in its entirety he certainly suggested most of it, and worked harder for its passage than any man living, and it would have been vastly more comprehensive, if it had not been for some men who objected to it being applied to first offenders charged with more serious offences. If Mr. Collins had done nothing but champion this one law he would have deserved the lasting gratitude of good men everywhere.
Before we can rightly understand the advances in prison reform that have taken place the past hundred years, we ought to be familiar with the treatment accorded prisoners in the early centuries of the Christian era and for hundreds of years afterwards. The prisons we read of in the ancient world were places of pestilential horror. They were dark, damp, and unsanitary dungeons, from which the sunlight was entirely excluded, where the chains rusted on the arms and feet of the prisoners, and where they were frequently left to die of starvation.
The ancient method of dealing with criminals was threefold, namely, death, exile and physical punishment or torture. Some of these methods prevail in some parts of Europe to the present time. But the Christian ideal of prison management is several steps higher. It has not yet reached it, but it has been forcing itself upon the world for many years. We believe a prison ought to be a place where the offender against human law is to be reformed or Christianized, and afterwards restored to society an industrious and useful man.
The prevailing idea in some of our criminal courts is that the average prisoner is not only a dangerous character, but also a hopeless moral and social defective and must be restrained and punished permanently. After the criminal has been sent to a penal institution, the authorities there, as a rule, seem not to care whether he is reformed or not. Indeed, the prisons of to-day, with few exceptions, cannot reform the unfortunates therein, as they are not conducted on Christian principles nor by Christian men. Our legislators have not yet learned that the only positive reclaiming force in the world for criminals is the religion of the Lord Jesus. Not only is this true, but many of the persons who manage our prisons do not believe in religion themselves and certainly have little faith in it for others.
There is so much indefiniteness of idea as to what prison reform is, that it would be well at the outset to say what we mean by it. We would define prison reform not only as the reformation of the prisoner, but the more efficient management of our prisons by men of fitness and experience in the interest of humanity and economy.
Among the other reforms inaugurated by Mr. Collins since he took charge of our prisons of this State was the abolition of the lock-step. All men that are now sent to our prisons are drilled by a regular military instructor and march no longer to the mess hall or the shops in the lock-step, but as soldiers. This gives them a manly bearing and helps their general health.
Some of Mr. Collins’ other reforms consist of the abolition of the convict striped suit for first offenders, and no longer cutting the convict’s hair short, except for sanitary reasons. Abolition of tin plates and tin cups used at meals and crockery substituted. The numbering of each one’s laundry and permission given to first offenders to wear “honor bars” on their sleeves for good conduct, which gives them special privileges. Mr. Collins has raised the moral tone of our prisons in other ways, all of which shows him to be a man of energy and of a practical turn of mind.
There is one other place where reform can be carried out to good effect. In nearly all of our State prisons and penitentiaries there are suppressed murmurings over the prison food. Coarse food that is not eaten is dearer in the end than palatable food that is consumed with a relish. For the purpose of having good discipline in our large prisons I would suggest the following: Put every inmate on his good behavior and give the men a chance to earn three good meals a day.
If they are well behaved, let them eat at the Warden’s table. This plan is no longer an experiment, for it has been tried, it is said, in some of our Pacific prisons, and works like a charm. The old saying that the best way to reach a man’s heart is by his stomach has been found true.
Let there be three tables in each prison.
1. The first table is for men against whom there is no mark for rudeness or breaking the rules for one whole month and who do their work well. The board is first class at this table and each convict is entitled to a napkin. They are allowed to converse with each other and have waiters. Call it the Warden’s table.
2. The second table contains the regular prison fare. It is for those who rebel against doing their work or wilfully disregard some of the rules of the institution. The table is made of plain pine boards. Here they eat their food in silence, without table cloth or napkin.
3. The third table is called “Bread and Water.” For their meals three times a day they receive plenty of dry bread and an unlimited quantity of water. When they are confined to their cells for bad conduct the bread and water is brought to them.
When this course was first tried on the Pacific Coast, it was found that at the end of three months, one-half of the men were able by their good conduct marks to secure a seat at the best table. At the end of six months two-thirds of the men sat at the first table. After a year’s experience nine men out of every ten were able to keep the law and behave like gentlemen, so as to sit at the best table. This change has wrought wonders in some of the prisons of California.
I do not believe the criminal is the victim of an unavoidable destiny, or that there is any inexorable necessity for his continuing the life which makes him a social anarchist, or that he is beyond the reach of reform. I believe if you treat him kindly his better nature will respond to it and he will show himself a man. That crime is a moral disease that is transmitted, the same as depravity, I believe to be true. I believe further that early training, environments and cross-grained individuality will account for nearly all of our present day criminality.
Some one has said: “The soul of all reformation is the reformation of the soul.” If such were the aim of the prison authorities, the prisoner’s transformation would only be a question of time. But this is not the case, and such an object is far from their mind. Yet the religion of Jesus Christ is the only thing that gives permanency to character. At the present moment the reformation of the criminal and his return to freedom again as a man among men, never enters the mind of the majority of our prison officials. All they care for is simply to hold their charges in safety until their term expires, then turn them loose again no better than they were before. The one great reason for this is that the heads of departments are politicians and are given office simply because they are a controlling power in their ward or county. They well know when they take office that their tenure is exceedingly brief, and they must make hay while the sun shines, by disappointing their enemies and rewarding their friends.