CONTENTS
VOLUME I, No. 10. OCTOBER, 1911
A MONTHLY PERIODICAL, PUBLISHED BY THE
NATIONAL PRISONERS’ AID ASSOCIATION
AT 135 EAST 15th STREET, NEW YORK CITY.
TEN CENTS A COPY. ONE DOLLAR A YEAR
T. F. Carver, President.
Wm. F. French, Vice President.
O. F. Lewis, Secretary, Treasurer and Editor Review.
Edward Fielding, Chairman Ex. Committee.
F. Emory Lyon, Member Ex. Committee.
W. G. McClaren, Member Ex. Committee.
A. H. Votaw, Member Ex. Committee.
E. A. Fredenhagen, Member Ex. Committee.
Joseph P. Byers, Member Ex. Committee.
R. B. McCord, Member Ex. Committee.
[At the recent meeting of the American Prison Association, Frank L. Randall, Superintendent of the MinnesotaState reformatory at St. Cloud, read as chairman the report of the committee on reformatory work and parole, fromwhich we print the following extracts.]
To the chief executive officers of penaland correctional institutions in theUnited States and Canada was submittedthe following question: “To what extentdo you recognize mental inadequacyand constitutional inferiority among thepersons in your charge?”
The estimates are various. Amongprisons for adults they range from 3persons out of 240 in Wyoming, to 10per cent. in Nebraska and Philadelphia,20 per cent. in Rhode Island, 25 percent. in Vermont, 30 per cent. in Indiana,30 per cent. to 40 per cent. in Wisconsin,fully 50 per cent. in Kansas, 60 percent. in West Virginia, 50 per cent. to75 per cent. in Minnesota, and a stillhigher percentage of prisoners lackingin energy, mentally or physically, in oneMichigan prison. Major McClaughry,and Warden Wood of Virginia, wrotethat they could not answer the question.
From state reformatories came estimatescovering a range from 25 percent. to 40 per cent. only in Iowa, Washington,Kansas, and New York (Elmira).The writer, regretting his inabilityto report more exactly, because thework in his institution has not beencompleted, feels safe in concurring in thegeneral approximations cited by reformatorysuperintendents.
From the New York reformatory forwomen at Bedford Hills we have thefollowing: “Realizing that a large percentageare subnormal, July 1, 1911, weemployed a trained psychologist who willmake it a year’s study.” From juvenileinstitutions the returns are neither morehopeful, nor more satisfying, and manyinstitutions of that class seem to have nospecial facilities for caring for