they had gone into the Navy and added if I had another boy or two who would be likely to remain permanently, he would take them. A day or two later, both boys arrived at the office at different hours and separately and announced that they had given up their job. One said the reason was that he had heard from his family in Rochester and wanted to go home and so he thought he would leave and the other said that he found a better job nearer his home. The two of them consulted each other and decided to tell the superintendent they were going into the Navy. "What did you tell them that for?" "Because we realized if we didn't make a legitimate excuse for leaving there, he probably would not take any more of your boys into his employ."

Without commending the deception practiced by these two boys, the incident does indicate that by making them realize the value of the service rendered in procuring positions for them, they were induced to consider giving up their places as a serious matter. These two thoughts it seems to me are worth considering.

THE CHAIRMAN: This topic is now open for general discussion. We will be glad to hear from those who are interested.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

DR. STEPHEN SMITH, New York City: Mr. Chairman : Some fifty or sixty years ago I was a member of the Prison Association of New York and Dr. Elisha Harris was the Secretary. Dr. Harris devised a plan of placing recently discharged prisoners from the prison on Blackwell's Island in suitable industries, which proved a great success. He determined in the first place the character and fitness of the individual prisoner for a particular kind of work from the institution from which he came. The Doctor had also a list of a large number of industries in New York that he had visited, and where he had learned the proprietor would take prisoners and conceal the fact that they had been in prison, then he fitted the man to the place. I do not recall that he had any very serious trouble. I think there were some failures, but on the whole it was a very great success.

An incident occurred to me while listening to the paper, which illustrates the importance of this kind of after-care for prisoners. I was on a committee that investigated charges against the management of the Elmira Reformatory, in 1894. This institution had a system, organized by Mr. Brockway, its able superintendent, of paroling prisoners by placing them in industries suited to their capacity for successful work, but having their names and previous history known only to the proprietors. The success of this method was remarkable. Of fifty former inmates examined in New York we found representatives of many varieties of business, now discharged and settled in successful industries. Their true names were concealed lest the fact that they were formerly inmates of the Reformatory becoming public would injure their business relations. One genteel young man stated that even his wife did not know his early career. Pertinent to this subject will be an allusion to the remarkable reform in the care of prisoners in other states along the same line. In Vermont the sheriff of the County including Montpelier has made the labor of prisoners so efficient by allowing them wages that they are in general demand and go to their work unattended. The income from their labor not only pays the prisoner satisfactory wages but the county expense for the support of its prison. In Oklahoma the system of allowing prisoners to work for wages in the communities has produced such improvements in the character of the prisoners themselves that the prisons have been called "Schools for Making Good Citizens."

THE CHAIRMAN: Is there further discussion?

HON. FRANK E. WADE, President, State Probation Commission, Buffalo: Employment is the first step in the rehabilitation of the offender and the probation system places great emphasis on securing employment for probationers. In connection with every probation office there should be, and in most of the offices there are, employment agencies. The probation officers have a long list of names of employers who will give employment to persons on probation. At first, there was difficulty in getting business men and manufacturers to take probationers. Of

late years that difficulty has been passing and at the present time we hear from all over the State that there is no trouble finding employment in almost any kind of work for probationers. Public sentiment is becoming more reasonable and more inclined to give the delinquent a chance. I assume that there is more difficulty in finding employment for those who have come out of correctional institutions. The fact that a man has been in prison seems to leave a stigma upon him; it should not, but, unfortunately, it does in the minds of many people. Then the persons coming out of many of our institutions are not in as good physical condition as the probationers, and, further, as Mr. Blatchly has said, in many of our institutions the methods of employment do not qualify men for available employment; as for instance, men in some of the industries in Sing Sing, such as knitting - one of the largest industries there—and in other industries which do not train the prisoners for any special work that they can use in free life. Released and paroled prisoners generally get employment as common laborers, but an effort is being made in Sing Sing Prison to train many of the prisoners in skilled occupations and it is working out splendidly. The Mutual Welfare League in Sing Sing Prison has undertaken the introduction of vocational training and has organized classes in a great many different trades and occupations. The prisoners themselves, men experienced in different trades, volunteer their services to teach other prisoners. A valuable equipment has been accumulated, the money for which has been contributed by the prisoners and people on the outside who are interested. I think there are over 250 prisoners in these vocational classes, are there not, Dr. Glueck?

DR. GLUECK: I think so.

MR. WADE: About 250 prisoners are now receiving vocational instruction from other prisoners and no time is taken away from the industries of the prison. Prisoners must do their work in the prison and after hours and at odd times they instruct their fellow prisoners along vocational lines. The same conditions do not exist in the reformatory because at Elmira

Reformatory there are splendid trade schools and a large proportion of the prisoners who come out of Elmira Reformatory are equipped to go into the skilled trades. There ought not to be difficulty in finding employment in skilled work for men released from the reformatory as is the case with many of the men released from the State Prisons.

DR. CHARLES BERNSTEIN, Superintendent, Rome State Custodial Asylum: We hear a great deal about training these men while in prison. Were our public schools training the boys and girls to go out in life properly equipped, we would not need to talk so much about training the adult.

THE CHAIRMAN: Our next paper is the "Mental Status of Prisoners Admitted to Sing Sing During a Period of Nine Months." I take pleasure in introducing Dr. Bernard Glueck, Director of the Psychiatric Clinic, Sing Sing Prison.

DR. BERNARD GLUECK: Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I really wanted an opportunity to say a few words about Mr. Blatchly's paper before speaking on my own subject. I think it is a very important paper and it is to be regretted that we didn't have more discussion of it. The paper strikes, in a large measure, at the root of the evil, it points the way to a greater attention in the matter of preparing the prisoner for future life in the community, and shows us how neglectful we have been in this respect in the past.

One or two things suggest themselves with reference to the activities of employment agencies. One of them is that a good deal of improvement could be had if an opportunity were given the placement agency or employment secretary to become acquainted with the prisoner before he leaves the institution; to get in touch with him and to make the proper kind of contact. I think better results could be had than by simply waiting until the prisoner walks into the office to seek employment.

Then I should like to warn against an overemphasis of the work question as all satisfactory and as a cure-all of all evils. There are many institutions in which prisoners receive excellent

industrial training; there are many institutions where the men are looked after in an excellent manner after they leave prison as far as work is concerned; and still we have altogether too many failures even there. The reasons for those failures, of course, are many, but I simply want to speak of one particular phase. You don't come anywhere near solving the problem of the discharged prisoner by simply getting him a job; by simply giving him an opportunity to earn money and ignoring entirely the question of how he spends it. Not that I wish to advocate a strict paternalism over the discharged prisoner, but it is really pitiful to see how little equipped so many of them are as far as healthful play and recreational outlets are concerned. The agency which supplies the discharged prisoner with the means for economic rehabilitation, has a splendid opportunity to condition and modify the man's desires; so that he may find his fun in ways other than those which invariably expose him to conflicts with the law. In talking with prisoners, one frequently hears in explanation of their delinquency that they wanted the money for a good time, and when inquiry is made as to what they consider a good time, drink, cards, and women are given with a monotonous frequency.

Another error that we commit constantly, I believe, is the sending back of the discharged prisoner to the community and neighborhood from which he came. In many cases this distinctly interferes with the reconstructive efforts of the prisoner himself as well as those interested in his welfare. I am thoroughly conscious of the constitutional factors in crime; I am in fact astonished at the conditions that we have found at Sing Sing during the past year as far as constitutional factors are concerned, that is, as far as the make-up of the prisoners is concerned, but I am not at all ready to see in that a full explanation for the criminal behavior of those men. There are many more defectives, for instance, outside of prison, I am sure, than there are within the prison. It takes something else beside mental deficiency, besides abnormality of make-up, to determine whether an individual is going to lead an honest life or the life of a criminal, and one of those things is the manner in which he spends his leisure time. Therefore, to send the