THE HUMANIZING OF PRISONERS.

BY MAUD BALLINGTON BOOTH.

TWENTY years ago the lot of the man behind the bars was very different from his chance of today. thought little of his welfare and cared less.

The world at large

The idea of those who had charge of him, and even of those who hunted and prosecuted him, was that his imprisonment was a means of punishment and retribution for his wrong-doing, quite overlooking the fact that it really should be the means of his reformation. The greater the humiliation, the harder his lot, the more absolute his isolation from the outside world, the better could that punishment be inflicted. Society's attitude of indifference gave the prisoner no court of appeal against the hopelessness of his prison condition and its antagonism to him on his discharge made his return to the world of free men a nightmare and dread instead of the dawn of brighter days.

When I first took up the cause of the prisoners of our country and studied their conditions within the walls I was appalled to note the hopelessness, hardness and bitterness that existed in their hearts towards the outside world and towards their own future. They had been made to feel that the stigma of state prison was so damning a stain that they could never take their place in the world of honest men again. When I talked with them as individuals, they would say to me with a shrug of the shoulder, "Once a thief, always a thief; once a convict, always a convict. What's the use of trying to do anything better in life?" They had heard, had read and had instinctively realized the pessimistic views that had been voiced concerning them, and in many instance they used the same arguments as excuses for drifting on in the same hopeless, good-for-nothing life. When I went out to the world to plead their cause, I found exactly the same opinion voiced by those whose honest and upright lives made it impossible for them to understand the temptations and handicap of many of these who had become prisoners. It surprised and shocked me to hear them often doom the whole prison population with the sweeping assertion, "Once a convict, always a convict," while some would carry the argument fur

MAUD BALLINGTON BOOTH

Was born at Limpsfield, Surrey, England. Came to the United States in 1887, and engaged with her husband in Salvation Army work. Afterwards in that of the Volunteers of America. In charge of extensive prison work throughout the United States. Author of "After Prison-What?" "Wanted-Antiseptic Christians," and other books and pamphlets.

ther, quoting the measurement of skulls, the taint of heredity, or other theories, to back up their hopeless attitude.

The walls of prejudice and ignorance built from an exaggerated idea concerning the depravity of convicts were truly higher and sterner than those great walls of stone raised by the state to restrain from liberty those who must learn their lesson in durance vile. The world's attitude of wholesale condemnation and mistrust, together with the offender's lack of confidence in himself, became largely the cause of creating a prison class, a hopeless herd of habitual criminals who, finding the door of honest labor closed to them after their first misstep, become outlaws of society. It could truly be said of these, "Every man's hand was against them," so they stood together against every man. There exists, therefore, very clearly a two-sided question. There is the prisoner's attitude to the world and the world's attitude to the prisoner. So strongly do they affect each other that they can not be separated.

As I have studied the question within the walls during fifteen years of close friendship with the prisoner and have come in contact with the great public of America in pleading his cause, I have come to see very clearly some of those aids that are needed to solve this great problem which has been a problem very largely because of mishandling, misunderstanding, ignorance and prejudice. There is certainly needed a wide-spread education and enlightenment of the public as to its responsibility toward the prisoner. The more I have talked with individuals on this question the more have I found that the moment people see the need and understand the situation, hearts respond in sympathy. So many have gathered their impressions from mere hearsay, have been prejudiced by the over-colored stories of crime, have in their mind some especially atrocious criminal who stands to them for the whole class, so that a few exceptions of innate depravity and brutality smear the whole prison population in their minds with blackest coloring. The prisoner is a law-breaker, he is often a weakling; he is the morally sick man of society, but that is no reason why society should wash its hands of responsibility towards him. We build our hospitals, we train our doctors and nurses, we put forth every effort that skill, money and care can devise to save and restore our physically sick. Were any one to suggest in these days that these unfortunates should be taken out on the mountains to die as did the Spartans, the world would protest in outraged horror. These who are morally weak and sick, these who through temptations

have fallen by the way, should be treated with equal thought and care and common sense. I do not mean by this that they should be excused, that comforts should be given them, that they should be held irresponsible, but I do mean that the great community of the strong, the honest and straightforward, should realize the world's duty towards them in seeking to straighten that which is crooked, to lift that which is fallen, to cleanse that which has been tainted by the many temptations which we allow to exist in the path of our weaker brother. The Christian Church should be aroused to its responsibility, and eyes that have seen only the need of the heathen abroad or of the poor begging at our doors should be focussed by patient enlightening effort on these who, behind prison walls, need all the hope and pity, all the loving teaching and moral uplift that the sweet evangel of the Christ can bring to lighten their darkness.

Then for the other side of the question. The prisoner must be made to feel that he is receiving justice, that the law is seeking to teach him a lesson, not merely using its greater strength to wreak vengeance upon him. He must know that the world has not done with him, that his opportunity is not lost forever, that he is to have a fair, square chance to work out his own salvation if he is ready to give up the old crooked ways. To talk of the abolition of prisons, to condone offenses against the law, to make injured innocents out of wrong-doers is but maudlin and perverted sentimentality. The law is not only society's safeguard, but it is the safeguard of the individual against his own weakness, vice or evil inclinations. Prisons are necessary, and many a man within the walls realizing the devastation that evil things wrought in his past life has exclaimed, "I thank God I ever came to prison." It is a place where men can stop and think, it saves many a one who in a few years, because of the vices to which he had abandoned himself, might have been in the grave. In prison, self-control must be taught those who have not learned to control themselves, but we must see to it that our prisons elevate instead of degrading men, open to them an avenue to a new and better life instead of branding them through hard and unjust treatment or making them unfit to take their place in the world of honest labor in the future.

In the past it could truly have been written over the doors of our prisons, "Abandon hope all ye who enter here." The one idea of prison officials seemed to be that a convict was turned over to them to degrade, punish, drive, humiliate. On his arrival his head was shaved, he was dressed in the hideous