Indeterminate Sentence | Page 5

good influences, the term of
imprisonment under the indeterminate sentence would be shorter than it
would be safe to make it for criminals under the statute. The
incorrigible offender, however, would be cut off at once and forever
from his occupation, which is, as we said, varied by periodic residence
in the comfortable houses belonging to the State.
A necessary corollary of the indeterminate sentence is that every State
prison and penitentiary should be a reformatory, in the modern
meaning of that term. It would be against the interest of society, all its

instincts of justice, and the height of cruelty to an individual criminal to
put him in prison without limit unless all the opportunities were
afforded him for changing his habits radically. It may be said in passing
that the indeterminate sentence would be in itself to any man a great
stimulus to reform, because his reformation would be the only means of
his terminating that sentence. At the same time a man left to himself,
even in the best ordered of our State prisons which is not a reformatory,
would be scarcely likely to make much improvement.
I have not space in this article to consider the character of the
reformatory; that subject is fortunately engaging the attention of
scientific people as one of the most interesting of our modern problems.
To take a decadent human being, a wreck physically and morally, and
try to make a man of him, that is an attempt worthy of a people who
claim to be civilized. An illustration of what can be done in this
direction is furnished by the Elmira Reformatory, where the experiment
is being made with most encouraging results, which, of course, would
be still better if the indeterminate sentence were brought to its aid.
When the indeterminate sentence has been spoken of with a view to
legislation, the question has been raised whether it should be applied to
prisoners on the first, second, or third conviction of a penal offense.
Legislation in regard to the parole system has also considered whether a
man should be considered in the criminal class on his first conviction
for a penal offense. Without entering upon this question at length, I will
suggest that the convict should, for his own sake, have the
indeterminate sentence applied to him upon conviction of his first penal
offense. He is much more likely to reform then than he would be after
he had had a term in the State prison and was again convicted, and the
chance of his reformation would be lessened by each subsequent
experience of this kind. The great object of the indeterminate sentence,
so far as the security of society is concerned, is to diminish the number
of the criminal class, and this will be done when it is seen that the first
felony a man commits is likely to be his last, and that for a young
criminal contemplating this career there is in this direction "no
thoroughfare."

By his very first violation of the statute he walks into confinement, to
stay there until he has given up the purpose of such a career.
In the limits of this paper I have been obliged to confine myself to
remarks upon the indeterminate sentence itself, without going into the
question of the proper organization of reformatory agencies to be
applied to the convict, and without consideration of the means of
testing the reformation of a man in any given case. I will only add that
the methods at Elmira have passed far beyond the experimental stage in
this matter.
The necessary effect of the adoption of the indeterminate sentence for
felonies is that every State prison and penitentiary must be a
reformatory. The convict goes into it for the term of a year at least
(since the criminal law, according to ancient precedent, might require
that, and because the discipline of the reformatory would require it as a
practical rule), and he stays there until, in the judgment of competent
authority, he is fit to be trusted at large.
If he is incapable of reform, he must stay there for his natural life. He is
a free agent. He can decide to lead an honest life and have his liberty,
or he can elect to work for the State all his life in criminal confinement.
When I say that every State prison is to be a reformatory, I except, of
course, from its operation, those sentenced for life for murder, or other
capital offenses, and those who have proved themselves incorrigible by
repeated violations of their parole.
It is necessary now to consider the treatment in the reformatory. Only a
brief outline of it can be given here, with a general statement of the
underlying principles. The practical application of these principles