[Pg 1]
| VOLUME I, No. 7. | JULY, 1911 |
A MONTHLY PERIODICAL, PUBLISHED BY THE
NATIONAL PRISONERS’ AID ASSOCIATION
AT 135 EAST 15th STREET, NEW YORK CITY.
| TEN CENTS A COPY. | SEVENTY-FIVE CENTS A YEAR |
| page | |
| The Farm Treatment of Misdemeanants | 1 |
| What Kansas City is Doing | 4 |
| Organization of Systems of Probation and Parole | 6 |
| Events in Brief | 8 |
JAMES F. JACKSON
Superintendent of Charities and Correction, Cleveland, Ohio
The old type institution for misdemeanantsfailed to accomplish satisfactoryresults, mental, moral and physical.It seemed incapable of developing industry;it was unhygienic, without classificationand with no adequate facilitiesfor developing a man’s will or increasinghis capacity to do right. There wasno individualism. The old workhousewas typical of the most intensified institutionalism,and institutionalism for anadult is an assured failure. Neither thearrangements of the building nor themanner of life nor the administrationwere conducive to the rehabilitation ofthe man. The old type of workhousewas constructed to avenge the wrongand not to correct the wrong doer.
When the failure of that plan wasfully recognized, people cast about for aremedy. They saw the success and satisfactionattending the location of charitableinstitutions in the country, and theidea of similar locations for varioustypes of prisons occurred to them. Andthe cry against prison-made goods gaveimpetus to the movement.
The prison did seem to be the lastplace to make real the fact that “a man’sa man for a’ that.” But when the plowshareand the pruning hook began to supplantthe stripes and the dungeon, peoplewere certain that at last the dignityof manhood would be realized and thatlife and immortality were come to light.
St. Paul and Minneapolis were amongthe first to adopt the farm policy. Variousother corrective institutions were establishedupon farms in foreign countriesand in this country, especially withinthe past twenty years. One of thebest institutions for misdemeanants thusestablished was located at Witzwyl,Switzerland, in 1891. But I wish todayto speak with particular referenceto Cleveland’s s