young, with practically no trade training and with little work experience of any kind either before or since serving their sentence. Seventy-seven were placed at salaries ranging from $15 to $20 per week. Two hundred and four were placed at from $12 to $15 per week; two hundred and twenty-five were placed at from $9 to $12 per week and one hundred and forty-two at from $6 to $9 per week. A number of these men were enabled to learn a good trade in the positions which were found for them. Others secured rapid promotion to much better positions. One hundred and thirty-three others were placed at wages running from $15 to $40 per month, with room and board. The employment secretary estimates that if the men placed directly by him had paid the regulation employment fee, charged by private bureaus, the fees for the jobs which he obtained for them would have cost the men over thirty-three hundred dollars.

PLACEMENTS INCREASE MONTHLY

From January 1, 1916, to January 1, 1917, there was a monthly increase in the number of applicants from forty-six to ninetyfive and an increase in the number of placements from twenty-one to seventy-one. During the year the percentage of all applicants placed in positions increased from forty-six to seventy-five per cent., but since January, 1917, and since the entry of the United States into war in April the number of applicants for positions decreased from ninety-five to thirty-five in July, and the number of placements from seventy-one in January to twenty-four in July. The percentage of applicants placed decreased in this time from seventy-five to sixty-nine only.

No doubt the war and its consequent demand for workers has had much to do with the comparatively large percentage of prisoners who have found satisfactory jobs for themselves. When it is considered that these men are handicapped in every way, mentally, morally, and physically, it is a source of great pleasure to those interested in them to know that by friendly interest and persistent efforts so many can be made self-supporting. It is not yet two years since it seemed that very few were willing to give an ex-prisoner a chance and no one to give him a job. Through the systematic canvass of employers a large

number have been found who are now called on regularly to give an ex-prisoner a chance.

A writer on prison reform said a short time ago, “Up to recently persons leaving prison with the felon brand found practically every hand turned against them, and confronted handicaps which only those of iron will could overcome. The fact that a man had been a convict apparently placed him forever beyond the pale of respectability. The causes which led up to this lapse from grace rarely were inquired into, and if he were not actually considered a creature to be driven from pillar to post, lest he contaminate those about him, at least he was to be studiously avoided."

A serious handicap in getting a job is the poor personal appearance which a prisoner frequently makes on his release. Many applicants are ashamed to appear for work in the clothes furnished by the State, which clearly show the State prison tailoring, almost as plainly as the so-called, “ zebra clothes.”

In the City institutions the shoes furnished are a prohibitive barrier against securing work except in the very menial occupations. The State and City spend large sums of money in the prevention of crime, in its courts, in its parole and probation systems, and it is poor economy not to give the men every possible chance to make good on their release.

PRISON RECORD NOT A BARRIER

The experience in the employment bureau during the past two years has been that a convict's record is not so much a bar to employment as his general lack of training and fitness to do any specific thing well. Many employers have signified their willingness to take an ex-convict if he could do their work, but many ex-prisoners had not the required trade training or other experience, and more had not the physical and mental ability.

A large employer of labor, who had given work to several prison men, telephoned to the employment bureau, saying that

the men were doing so well that he wondered if they had not given false statements as to having had a prison record for the purpose of securing positions.

FEW FIT FOR ARMY

A pointed illustration of the physical inferiority of prison men is shown in a recent study of the inmates of the New York City Reformatory, the Penitentiary, and the Workhouse. Miss Katharine B. Davis, Chairman of the Parole Commission, made arrangements for the same physical examination for these men as is required for admission to the Army. In the New York City Reformatory, where the boys are young and most of them first offenders, eight per cent. only were able to pass the examination. In the New York County Penitentiary, where the average age is greater and the number of "repeaters" larger, only five per cent. were able to pass the required test. In the Workhouse, where there are many repeatedly sentenced for intoxication, only about one per cent. were able to pass the required physical examination.

The experience in the House of Refuge on Randall's Island is that the boys there are able to pass this physical test better. Mr. Helbing, the Chief Parole Officer, informed me that twelve hundred and fifty boys were now on parole from that institution. The maximum age at which they can be kept on parole is twentyone years. Twenty-five per cent. are under the military age. This leaves nine hundred and thirty-eight boys of military age on parole. It is not known how many of these boys applied for admission to the Army or Navy, but it is known that two hundred and twenty-five or twenty-four per cent. of all the boys of military age on parole, are now serving their country in the Army or Navy. This shows a much higher degree of physical fitness than in the Department of Correction.

The studies of Sing Sing men by Dr. Bernard H. Glueck of which you have just heard, as well as those made in other penal institutions show that many prison men are mentally defective or "constitutionally inferior" to such an extent as to make it difficult for them to compete successfully in the labor market with normal men. A recent study of the inmates of one of the largest

reformatories in the country showed that nearly forty per cent. were mentally defective.

Burdette G. Lewis, Commissioner of Correction of New York City, in his book, "The Offender," says: "Very few inmates had an education extending beyond the fifth year in school. In 1914, three thousand four hundred and five persons were committed to the Department of Correction, who could neither read or write." From one point of view, it matters little whether they have or have not had opportunities; the fact is that they are industrially and educationally inferior. The aim of the institution, therefore, should be to train the inmate sufficiently to permit him to take his place in the community as a self-supporting member, with reasonable hope of advancing himself by continued effort."

One half of all the applicants for work at the Employment Bureau in the latter part of 1915 were suffering from handicaps or diseases so serious as to prevent their earning a living, except under the most favorable conditions. These handicaps and diseases included chronic drunkards, the mentally defective, the senile, the drug fiends, those suffering from tuberculosis, heart disease and many other ailments.

Dr. Frank Moore, Superintendent of the New Jersey Reformatory, said in a recent address: "Statistics show that ninety per cent. of those admitted came from illiterate families where there is little appreciation of education. About fifty per cent. came from broken homes where the father or mother is dead, sometimes both are dead; or where divorce has come and broken up the home. Sixty per cent. come from indigent families where poverty is so pinching that often the first lessons in crime are taught by the mother, who, because of necessity, is compelled to send her son or daughter out to steal."

These illustrations show that getting work for ex-convicts is a matter of getting work for men handicapped not only by a prison record and a lack of industrial training but by large physical and mental drawbacks as well.

Hon. Arthur Woods, Commissioner of Police of New York City, was asked recently how many ex-convicts were physically

or psychically predisposed to crime and so hopeless of rehabilitation. He replied: "None, except the insane and defective. I don't believe in the Lombrosian Theory any more. At first I was much impressed with it and made it a point to read all he had written on the criminal, but I found I myself had plenty of the stigmata of criminal types, so I threw his theories out of the window."

EQUIPMENT MUST BE IMPROVED

To train a man so efficiently that he can care for himself on discharge from prison, our prison industries must be reorganized entirely. That our State prisons are equipped so poorly with out-of-date machinery, the work of the men so inefficiently organized and managed that they are able to earn only three or four cents a day profit does not present a very favorable argument for extending State control and management. James M. Carter, Superintendent of State Prisons, of the State of New York, spoke before the American Prison Association in Buffalo last fall and said: "I believe the industries of our State prisons are an abomination unto the Lord. We are limited in our purchases and limited in our market. There has been no new equipment added in twenty years."

As far as practicable prisoners should be assigned to the work to which they have been accustomed on the outside. Mr. Osborne while warden at Sing Sing always tried to do this, but was a little perplexed when he said to a newly arrived prisoner, "If you are skilled in some particular pursuit, we shall be glad to permit you to follow it." "Thank you very much," replied the convict politely, "I am an aviator."

For years the Prison Association has continued agitation for the abolition of demoralizing idleness in the penal institutions of the State. This idleness, in the words of the State Prison Commission," has made these institutions schools of vice and crime."

Instead of better fitting their inmates for an honest life and self-support on release they have really rendered them less able to care for themselves than when admitted. It is a frequent experience to have a man who has done a long term say: "I had a